Solving Large Scale-Problems: HIV Prevention

How can we innovate complex problems like HIV prevention?

HIV patients, healthcare providers, and other healthcare institutions are all major stakeholders involved in the treatment and prevention of HIV. Students of the "Integrated Innovation for Large-Scale Problems" course have been challenged to design innovative solutions to this complex problem, addressing the various social and economic factors that influence the stakeholders affected by HIV. 

Solution

Students worked in diverse teams to devise ways to make HIV testing more affordable and convenient while reducing the social stigma of that often bars people from seeking testing. Students presented two recommendations for HIV prevention, introducing the concepts of self-testing booths and tests packaged with contraceptives. The self-test booths would be stationed at local pharmacies, making testing easily available and encouraging routine testing. Package at-home HIV test kits with other popular contraceptives allows the user to self-test in the privacy of their own home and reinforces preventative care. 

Description of the dual-package recommendation as well as its social repercussions 

"Integrated Innovation for Large-Scale Problems" focuses on team-based, interdisciplinary innovation for the potential for large-scale impact. Students across the fields of design, business, engineering, and software take on a problem, such as HIV prevention, and spend the semester uncovering of new ways to approach the issue. Working in diverse teams, students dive into a complex social problem and identify major stakeholders, opportunity gaps, and existing markets, collaborating across disciplines and across our bi-coastal campuses to build a solution.