Jun 28, 2010 - Claremont, CA -

Could the spread of cell phone technology stop the spread of disease? This intriguing question is what drew Harvey Mudd College rising sophomore Alice Conant ’12 to work at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia this summer on a project called Energy for Health with University of Pennsylvania Professor of Medicine and Computer Science Harvey Rubin. The Energy for Health project connects access to vaccines and clean water in developing countries with access to the fastest spreading technology in the world: cell phones.

More than one billion people have inadequate access to clean water and 2.6 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. Additionally, at least two million people die each year from vaccine preventable diseases because there is an inadequate cold chain — reliable refrigeration and storage units from the point of delivery of the vaccine or medicine in the country to the point of delivery to the patient. The Energy for Health project is about harnessing a portion of the electrical energy from the abundant cell phone towers in developing countries to power refrigeration units and water filtration systems—a synergy that benefits the cell phone service provider as well as the local population.

Under Rubin’s guidance, Conant is accumulating background information about the cell phone industry expansion, the mechanics of cell phone towers, refrigeration units and water filtrations. After two weeks of involvement in the project, Conant already has strong leads in India and Haiti where she hopes to connect with important figures in the telecommunications industry. She is also helping to coordinate a pilot of the program to run in her hometown of Philadelphia.

Rubin says, "There is no roadmap on how to achieve this transformative technology, and Alice is carving out the path toward implementation. With her on the team, we have made tremendous progress in a very short time—she is amazing."

Conant says that the most exciting aspect of working on this project is "the huge potential it has. Everyone we have presented the idea to has been incredibly enthusiastic, and it has been amazing to be at the center, coordinating one of those why-hasn’t-anyone-thought-of-this-before projects."

What intrigued her most about the program was Rubin’s research, which combines global health spectrum of infectious diseases with computer science and biosecurity. Conant, a fan of HMC’s interdisciplinary approach to learning, says "this project has also been a merging of global health and basic engineering, two interests of mine that previously I had studied mutually exclusive to one another. It’s been incredible to incorporate both areas into action."

As a result of Energy for Health’s innovative and transformative potential, Rubin and Conant have been asked to become regular bloggers for the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Insights blog, where their first entry debuted on June 22. Because of the blog, Conant says, "The project has been spreading like rapid fire. The blog is really the first publication on the topic."

Read Rubin and Conant’s blog entry.