Honors Fellows Project Showcase
Our Honors Fellows worked with community partners to develop innovative solutions to challenges in areas blending healthcare, innovation, and social impact. In this showcase, teams presented their projects focused on improving the lives of their customer groups.
The graduate student instructor (GSI) for this cohort was Caroline Gezon, a an MBA/MPH candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. The lead instructor for this cohort was Jaspal Sandhu, from Public Health, the faculty lead for the program.
Team Members: Shirley Jiang, Yoyo Ko, Romina Mazooji, and Josie Lee
Project Partner: Elder Care Alliance (ECA)
Team Members: Miko Fogarty, Gopika Jalan, Jessica Santhakumar, Stella Seo
Project Partner: UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital
Team Members: Anna Nguyen, Lena Bertozzi, Lorraine Pereira, Megan Handley, and Jerome Wang
Project Partner: Bitmark
Team Members: Miko Fogarty, Gopika Jalan, Jessica Santhakumar, Stella Seo
Project Partner: UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital
First Year Fellow Project Showcase: Aging 360
Our Fellows worked with project partners – CareMerge, OLLI@Berkeley, SF Tech Council, and Tin Can Associates – to create technologies for improving the lives of older adults; focusing on intergenerational connections, employment, aging in place, and the role of caregivers.
These fellows were selected for the fellowship as part of a competitive, campus-wide application program. A major focus of their work was technology and innovation to combat social isolation and loneliness.
The graduate student instructor (GSI) for this cohort was Mariela Herrick, a Masters student in City Planning, who was awarded the campus Outstanding GSI Award. The lead instructor for this cohort is Jaspal Sandhu, from Public Health, the faculty lead for the program.
Tin Can Associates
Team: Meera Ramesh, Vanessa Reyes, Jenina Yutuc, Nikita Ashok
Partner: Tin Can Associates
UDesign is a website/platform where older adults can access resources and products tailored to their specific needs. We are giving older adults control of their own space and home design so that they may be independent, comfortable, and happy.
Team: Neha, Ana, David, Iris, Taylor
Partner: Tin Can Associates
We are aiming to create a platform that will enable users to play games while video calling their friends and family.
Team: Nikole, Caroline, Dorsa, Fahad
Partner: Tin Can Associates
FoodConnection is an ordering platform that helps engage the community while serving elder’s nutritional essentials through ethnic meals.
San Francisco Tech Council
Team: Lindsey Guan, Julia Ide, Paul Ruback, Kristina Smelser, Wajiha Zahid
Partner: SF Tech Council
We are developing a mentorship program for clients of Self-Help for the Elderly, a senior services center, who are facing technology-related barriers in their current job or while seeking employment. Our program will facilitate a relationship-based mentorship between these clients and mentors from the community who will help seniors build tech-related skills, find resources, and develop agency to overcome digital barriers and excel professionally.
Team: Erin Kraemer, Sana Khader, Anh-Tu Lu, Shaya Barry, Emma Pond
Partner: SF Tech Council
Our project is a comprehensive digital literacy assessment for older adults. The assessment will provide information about a digital literacy student’s current skills as well as a suggested course of study, learning style, and information on their problem-solving ability. The assessment can serve as both a pre- and post-test to show a student’s improvement.
OLLI @ Berkeley
Team: Nseke, Joey, Sonal, Sneh, Ken
Partner: OLLI@Berkeley
Our project is focused on creating a decal that will allow for students to pair up with OLLI members based on personality tests and professional interests. The decal setup will allow students to engage with a weekly commitment to professional development while also earning units. We also will have a website platform that will allow students to access online resources that include a chat platform, matchmaking test, and tips for mentors and mentees.
Team: Audrey, Megan, Kamu, Stanley, Joshua
Partner: OLLI@Berkeley
Our project is focused on designing a professional journey mentorship program between OLLI members and UC Berkeley students to foster intergenerational relationships that lead to a sense of fulfillment and perspective gaining.
CareMerge
Team: Nathan Wong, Nicole Anyanwu, Carlos Martinez
Partner: CareMerge
Our key objective was to identify opportunities smart technology could be leveraged to address social isolation in older adults in senior living communities. We researched how machine learning, smart speakers, fitness trackers, and gamification could best be utilized to improve the independence of older adults. We also conduced user interviews with assisted living care activity directors and older adults in order to gain a better understanding of the current landscape. Through our partnership with CareMerge, we examined key trends in technology usage and senior needs. From our analysis, we developed a set of recommendations and a prototype for one of our solutions.
Team: Akhil Padmanabha, Anderson Lee, Madhav Nekkar, Resham Khanna, Madeleine Liu
Partner: CareMerge
Fahad, our mentor within CareMerge, assigned us to investigate the usage of modified Amazon Alexa’s in senior living homes. By engaging with residents directly and ideating possible solutions, we discovered that senior living homes are struggling immensely with preventing the spread and mortality of COVID-19. To address this, we prototyped a cough detection software that could be installed on an Alexa to track how many times a resident coughs at night. This low-fidelity prototype is simply meant to be used as another possible diagnostic to detect whether someone is coughing more often than normal.
