First post

Hello and welcome to my blog!
My name is Fatime and I'm an Electrical Engineering student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The purpose of this blog is to keep you informed about my " Ghana 2013" research opportunity and the project I will be involved in as part of the NSF funded program " Triple Helix".

A little background about the project : The NSF “Triple Helix” project, is a program which brings together graduate fellows in science and engineering from RPI with local community activists and K-12 educators to seek new approaches to putting science and innovation in the service of under-served populations. In this particular project, I will be working to design a condom vending machine to be installed in Ghana, that has the following objectives:

1-Provides a safe space for individuals (especially women) to purchase condoms;
2-Provides new entrepreneurial opportunities for Ghanaians;
3-Gains insight into mobile phone usage in "non-western" societies;
4-Increases the use of condoms thereby reducing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases;

(For additional information about the project visit this page )

I'm still in the process of putting all the pieces together concerning my specific role in the project. As of now I've been in two meetings with other team members and gone through notes/records of what has been done to advance the project.
I'll be making regular updates to the blog about progress on my work, make sure to check back soon!