The MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design today announced the projects to be supported through its annual seed fund. The 12 projects were selected from a highly competitive field of proposals on the basis of their potential to make a significant impact in the developing world.
With this latest round, the Tata Center has now supported more than 100 projects since its inception in 2012. This year’s portfolio includes innovations to make health services more accessible; tools facilitating disaster preparedness, water management, and a low-carbon future; recycling and reuse technologies, and more.
“The Tata Center provides researchers not just with funding, but with mentorship, educational support, and connections to emerging communities,” said Tata Center director Robert Stoner. “The projects we’ve chosen this year represent opportunities to apply MIT’s world-class research in real-world scenarios where there is a pressing need.”
The newly-funded projects will join roughly 30 continuing projects across six domains: agriculture, energy, environment, health, housing, and water. Tata Center researchers spend extended time in the field, primarily in India, working with local collaborators, gathering data, and testing their solutions.
The new Tata Center projects for 2016-2017 are:
- Modeling Low-Carbon Development Pathways for India: Valerie Karplus of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Niven Winchester of the MIT Energy Initiative
- Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Zika, Dengue, and Chikungunya Viruses in India: Lee Gehrke of the Institute for Medical Engineering
- Gastrointestinal Drug Delivery Device for Tuberculosis Treatment: Robert Langer of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Giovanni Traverso of Harvard Medical School
- Advanced Motors for Appliances: James Kirtley of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Continuously Learning Geospatial Services for Community Health Workers: Deb Roy of the MIT Media Lab and Prabhjot Singh of the Arnhold Institute for Global Health
- Scale-up and Implementation of Shock Electrodialysis for Water Purification: Martin Bazant of the Department of Chemical Engineering
- Implants for Cost-Effective and Accessible Intraperitoneal Delivery of Chemotherapy: Michael Cima of the Lemelson-MIT Program
- Scale-up and Deployment of Pulmonary Disease Diagnostic Tools: Richard Fletcher of the D-Lab
- Devulcanization of Waste Rubber for Reuse in New Tires: Bradley Olsen of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Greg Stephanopoulos of the Department of Chemical Engineering
- Asha and Anganwadi Kit for Public Health Screening and Surveillance: Richard Fletcher of the D-Lab
- Real-time Flood Mapping for Disaster Management Decision Support in Chennai: Miho Mazereeuw of the Department of Architecture
- Evaluating Off-Grid Hydro Energy Systems in Irregular Channel Flow for Intensive Agriculture in Developing Countries: James Wescoat of the Department of Architecture and Afreen Siddiqi of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
- Low-Cost Oral Cancer Screening Device: Ramesh Raskar of the MIT Media Lab
Founded at MIT in 2012 with support from the Tata Trusts, one of India’s oldest philanthropic organizations, the Tata Center gives holistic support to MIT faculty and graduate student researchers working on projects aimed at improving quality of life in the developing world. A part of the MIT Energy Initiative, the Tata Center is on the web at tatacenter.mit.edu.