Daily CSR
Daily CSR

Daily CSR
Daily news about corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability

Running With ‘An Idea – To Better Help The World’



08/30/2016

Interns at summer games organised by Booz Allen Hamilton seeks transportation solution for patients stricken by spina bifida.


Dailycsr.com – 29 August 2016 – Janet Onwukamuche, an undergraduate “mechanical engineering” student at the “Prairie View A&M University”, writes about her experience as the intern in “Booz Allen Hamilton’s Summer Games”. Janet and her teammates have taken up the challenge to create a method which will help the spina bifida patients in their transportation.
 
In the United States, as many as thousand five hundred babies fall prey to spina bifida, which is “neural tube defect” that can be found in children, resulting in different paralysis levels or muscular weakness which affects the hips, back, and legs. In fact, spina bifida also does not allow many children to ever walk in their life.
 
In Janet’s words:
“As members of the Skeleton of Hope team, part of Booz Allen Hamilton’s Summer Games Internship Program, my teammates and I have been challenged to design a method of transportation for people with spina bifida, paraplegics, and people with lower-body paralysis. We are developing a product that will enable patients to move more freely, with hands-free movement and less dependency on others”.
 
Engineers, researchers, health specialists and coders have come to help Janet’s team, whereby the young creators are striving to translates and infuse various technologies like “a Segway, hover board, and crutch system” to shape a transportation system that will prove to be helpful for people who have lower body paralysis. The creation of Janet’s team offers “balance and pressure sensors”, while ensuring safety and stability at the same time. Moreover, the innovation of Janet’s team has rendered the “inexpensive”.
 
Talking about the source of inspiration, Janet writes:
“This assignment has been very personal for me.
“I’m Nigerian, and know that walking many miles is a sometimes a necessity for children to receive an education. In many developing countries, children with lower-body paralysis never have get a chance to go to school due to lack of mobility. This has been a major driver for my day-to-day work. My hope is this project will eventually help children who can’t make the trip to school by foot, get their education”.
 
Furthermore, Janet acknowledges and thanks “Booz Allen Hamilton” for providing the team with “resources and opportunity” under experts’ guidance for the same. It has been a chance for Janet’s team to “to run with an idea – to better help the world”.
 
 
 
 
References:
ethicalperformance.com