You guys have a great idea, and I wish you the best of luck.
Do you guys have a plan of attack once you send some to Addis Ababa? For example: do you have the names of the key individuals you need to contact, how long does your team member that you send over needs to be there, and so on?
Also how scalable is your project? After you are successful in Addis Ababa how quickly could you deploy this project to other cities? Do you believe that the "Driver of the Month" competition would work in other cities as well?
From experience with people with disabilities in Africa I know that you are tackling a big problem. It seems to me that you are having a great idea to improve the current situation.
I was wondering if you consider to implement some awareness raising in your project. Via information meetings or maybe via the television screens in the minibusses (I am not sure whether they are available in the Etheopian busses, but i know they are available in other African countries) you could try and spread disability-related information among the many passengers traveling with the minibusses. This in turn could maybe increase the possibility a driver will stop for a passenger with a wheelchair.
It can also be interesting to develop a pre-post test evaluation with your target group so that you can evaluate whether your project really improves their mobility.
Otherwise, I wish you all the best with your project and hope to see the ChairLift on the minibusses soon!
We absolutely are considering awareness raising - but a lucky thing about Ethiopia and Addis Ababa in particular is that the government is pretty keen on raising awareness about disibilities already. The initial designs of the product harness the fact that the minibus is essentially a moving advertisement, for both the company paying for the physical advertisements on the product as well as for the ChairLift itself. On top of this, our business plan includes 'awareness building' in the form of announcing "Minibus Driver of the Month" winners to build community recognition for drivers who stop for wheelchair users.
However, you bring up a great opportunity to go even further in dispelling the stereotypes of mobility disability. Unfortunately the minibuses in Ethiopia I had a chance to ride did not have TV screens, but that does not discount the fact that we can use advertisement space on the ChairLift to promote disability awareness or create other public campaigns in tandem with the Minibus Driver of the Month publications.
The pre-post test evaluation is also a very good point, though difficult to create until we can more accurately measure where the ChairLift's are being used. Once we have accurate data on the routes of minibuses with installed ChairLifts and gather information on users calling in to nominate drivers' of the month, we can easily get in touch with users and see if the ChairLift is, in fact, improving mobility.
Thanks for the comments - they are much appreciated and will be acted on!
----------
Thank you!
Cara Silver
Stanford University
Biomechanical Engineering, BS '08
Mechanical Engineering, MS '10
Your project is so cool! I've spent a lot of time working with wheelchair workshops in East Africa to refine their designs so that they are more suited for the environment there, so I certainly can relate to the issue of getting the wheelchair on the bus. I know you're working with partners in Ethiopia now, but your design is incredibly practical for Tanzania (and I'm sure many other developing countries). I'm an undergrad at MIT and we've just started up an academic group called the Mobility Lab. The mission of M-Lab is "to fill a niche in the mobility aid community; NGOs and manufacturers in developing countries often do not have the time, resources, and skills to develop high-risk/high-payoff projects that would make drastic improvements to mobility products and the lives of disabled people. By collaborating with local manufacturers and experts from the developed world, M-Lab students use their ingenuity and science/engineering skills to produce technology that can mobilize millions of disabled persons worldwide."
I'm sorry to take up so much space on your project page talking about my own stuff, but it seems like there is an incredible opportunity to partner here. Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further and good luck with the ChairLift. I can't wait to see how it goes!
I was actually JUST discussing with my project partner how we should look into Tanzania... We developed the product to be adaptable to any country that uses minibuses (a good portion of Africa, India, etc.) with only a few minor tweaks. We are having a bit of trouble finding a lasting host organization in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and hence have been contemplating other regions to expand into. I just graduated from Stanford University -- and like you, many of my friends have spent time in Tanzania and I hope to move towards that area!
I think a partnership is a fantastic idea to discuss further! Let me know what medium is best - as I am working in Japan at the moment, email is my best bet. My email is csilver@stanford.edu. I hope to be in contact with you soon!
----------
Thank you!
Cara Silver
Stanford University
Biomechanical Engineering, BS '08
Mechanical Engineering, MS '10
Comentarios
You guys have a great idea, and I wish you the best of luck.
Do you guys have a plan of attack once you send some to Addis Ababa? For example: do you have the names of the key individuals you need to contact, how long does your team member that you send over needs to be there, and so on?
Also how scalable is your project? After you are successful in Addis Ababa how quickly could you deploy this project to other cities? Do you believe that the "Driver of the Month" competition would work in other cities as well?
Dear Cara,
From experience with people with disabilities in Africa I know that you are tackling a big problem. It seems to me that you are having a great idea to improve the current situation.
I was wondering if you consider to implement some awareness raising in your project. Via information meetings or maybe via the television screens in the minibusses (I am not sure whether they are available in the Etheopian busses, but i know they are available in other African countries) you could try and spread disability-related information among the many passengers traveling with the minibusses. This in turn could maybe increase the possibility a driver will stop for a passenger with a wheelchair.
It can also be interesting to develop a pre-post test evaluation with your target group so that you can evaluate whether your project really improves their mobility.
Otherwise, I wish you all the best with your project and hope to see the ChairLift on the minibusses soon!
Steffi de Jong
APAID
www.apaid.org
(see my entry http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/9489)
Dear Steffi,
We absolutely are considering awareness raising - but a lucky thing about Ethiopia and Addis Ababa in particular is that the government is pretty keen on raising awareness about disibilities already. The initial designs of the product harness the fact that the minibus is essentially a moving advertisement, for both the company paying for the physical advertisements on the product as well as for the ChairLift itself. On top of this, our business plan includes 'awareness building' in the form of announcing "Minibus Driver of the Month" winners to build community recognition for drivers who stop for wheelchair users.
However, you bring up a great opportunity to go even further in dispelling the stereotypes of mobility disability. Unfortunately the minibuses in Ethiopia I had a chance to ride did not have TV screens, but that does not discount the fact that we can use advertisement space on the ChairLift to promote disability awareness or create other public campaigns in tandem with the Minibus Driver of the Month publications.
The pre-post test evaluation is also a very good point, though difficult to create until we can more accurately measure where the ChairLift's are being used. Once we have accurate data on the routes of minibuses with installed ChairLifts and gather information on users calling in to nominate drivers' of the month, we can easily get in touch with users and see if the ChairLift is, in fact, improving mobility.
Thanks for the comments - they are much appreciated and will be acted on!
----------
Thank you!
Cara Silver
Stanford University
Biomechanical Engineering, BS '08
Mechanical Engineering, MS '10
How did you decide that this was the project to tackle and how did it get started?
Hey Cara,
Your project is so cool! I've spent a lot of time working with wheelchair workshops in East Africa to refine their designs so that they are more suited for the environment there, so I certainly can relate to the issue of getting the wheelchair on the bus. I know you're working with partners in Ethiopia now, but your design is incredibly practical for Tanzania (and I'm sure many other developing countries). I'm an undergrad at MIT and we've just started up an academic group called the Mobility Lab. The mission of M-Lab is "to fill a niche in the mobility aid community; NGOs and manufacturers in developing countries often do not have the time, resources, and skills to develop high-risk/high-payoff projects that would make drastic improvements to mobility products and the lives of disabled people. By collaborating with local manufacturers and experts from the developed world, M-Lab students use their ingenuity and science/engineering skills to produce technology that can mobilize millions of disabled persons worldwide."
I'm sorry to take up so much space on your project page talking about my own stuff, but it seems like there is an incredible opportunity to partner here. Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further and good luck with the ChairLift. I can't wait to see how it goes!
Tish
Hey Tish!
I was actually JUST discussing with my project partner how we should look into Tanzania... We developed the product to be adaptable to any country that uses minibuses (a good portion of Africa, India, etc.) with only a few minor tweaks. We are having a bit of trouble finding a lasting host organization in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and hence have been contemplating other regions to expand into. I just graduated from Stanford University -- and like you, many of my friends have spent time in Tanzania and I hope to move towards that area!
I think a partnership is a fantastic idea to discuss further! Let me know what medium is best - as I am working in Japan at the moment, email is my best bet. My email is csilver@stanford.edu. I hope to be in contact with you soon!
----------
Thank you!
Cara Silver
Stanford University
Biomechanical Engineering, BS '08
Mechanical Engineering, MS '10
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