February 6, 2024

Stepping Stones to Solving Grand Challenges

We arrived from our weekend trip to Hampi a little before midnight and woke up the next morning to over half of the GCILers in the various stages of illness, recovering but still ill, and about to be ill. With Casera and Matt falling into the ill category, I had my first “day off” since we started working with Rise Bionics.

I’ve gotten used to the long days at Rise. Our mornings start with a cup of tea and a quick brainstorming session before we move to research in the fitting room, until Waseem, Rise Bionics’ prosthetist and orthotist, has tasks for us. Then we break for lunch at the restaurant around the corner and order our classic veg fried rice, mushroom kadai, and whatever the Rise teams recommend us that day. Afterward, we head to the cellar and help (annoy) Matt with the corner chair prototype. We get back to UTC just in time for dinner, mentor meetings, and a quick shower before I knock out and wake up to do it all again the next day.

However, with three weeks left to complete our project and four or so weeks left of the program, like most students, I’ve been feeling a little panicked and stressed about how much left there is to do. I expressed this concern during my mentor meeting with Heta, a UNICEF humanitarian innovator, and she helped me remember that I am here first and foremost to learn about these grand challenges.

With the word “grand” in the name, I have to remind myself these problems won’t be solved in a year, much less three weeks, but I still can do my best to contribute knowledge to better understand these challenges and hopefully design a solution to solve part of the problem.

A bit of a pessimistic view I know, but I think it’s kind of comforting and beautiful to know that I could be laying down part of the foundation that could potentially become the “solution”. That in the future, someone also passionate about the same issues I am could use this knowledge as a stepping stone to something even greater.

By Arielle