UMSI GIEP: Spend Summer 2014 in India - Deadline to Apply October 15

 

What: The Global Information Engagement Program (GIEP) is a summer experience where students, in teams of two to four, work on real-world problems that have been proposed by partner organizations in India. Students will be matched to projects and organization partners based on their application, or can propose a project.
Who: Graduate students from the University of Michigan are welcome to apply. Projects require a range of skill sets and knowledge, so students from all programs are encouraged to participate. Students selected for the program will work in multi-disciplinary groups of two to four and will primarily come from the School of Information, which is the sponsoring academic unit.
Projects: Project partners include organizations such as the Alternative Law Forum, the National Institute of Speech and Hearing, Jaaga, The Centre for Internet and Society, and Digital Green. Other organizations come from a wide range of industries, but all projects have high social impact outcomes.
Projects submitted include the following:

• The development of an online forum to facilitate a legal network of human rights lawyers. The forum will work as a means to collectively generate resources that can feed into ways in which creative arguments and procedural strategies could be deployed towards social issues, and will serve as a platform for connecting lawyers, enabling the creation and exchange of resource materials.
• The creation of a platform for community knowledge workers to help develop skills required to deliver content effectively to rural farming communities and improve their self-knowledge of agricultural practices. Knowledge workers will also be able to develop and share educational tools developed via the platform.
• Research and a written review of e-Governance assessment frameworks with the purpose of identifying relevant indicators from the perspective stakeholders in the government service delivery value chain, with a focus on grassroots service delivery unit and provider, as well as the various stages/activities involved in the delivery process.
• The evaluation of market readiness and implementation of a health care performance measure product, to help bring India to the global standards for health care delivery. The product potentially would aggregate publicly reported data on various performance measures focused on health outcomes, patient experience, process of care, cost of care and financial performance across the entire population of acute care hospitals.

A full range of projects can be viewed here.
When: Student applications are due October 15 through MCompass. Students will be required to take part in a series of preparatory meetings in Winter term and will leave for India the first week of May. Students will stay in India for 6 to 12 weeks depending on project.
Costs: The program will be free to those students selected.
Course Enrollment and Credit: Students will receive 6 credits for pre-departure activities and the in-country experience through enrollment in SI 681 in Winter 2014. Upon return to Michigan, students can elect to enroll in independent study to further their project or engage in research for publication or conference presentations.
Interested students should email umsi.giep@umich.edu to indicate interest or with questions.

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Kelly A. Kowatch, Program Manager

University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI)
3360 North Quad |105 South State Street | Ann Arbor, MI 48109

(734) 936-8735 | kkowatch@umich.edu

Schedule an appointment