Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity

May 3, 2022May 3, 2022

April 14, 2022 ImpactNights™ – Food Systems in Urgent Need of Transformation

Even before 2020, before anyone heard of something called “COVID-19,” the world was already facing serious food challenges. But today, with long-term economic uncertainty due to the pandemic, rising inflation, the war in Ukraine, and climate change, the global food system may be nearing a breaking point.

To discuss the crisis facing our globe, Hunt Institute convened three panels of experts on April 14 for its latest ImpactNights™ event, “Food Systems in Urgent Need of Transformation.” The event featured Hunt Institute representatives and Fellows, business executives, medical experts, non-profit leaders, and a City of Dallas coordinator.

The common theme that linked the three panels was the critical importance of building trust with and among all stakeholders – whether it be the farmers that grow crops, the financial institutions that serve the farmers, or those who distribute the products to the market. Panelists also discussed the vital role of health care providers who develop bonds with communities and patients, especially in underserved areas.

“With 3.3 to 3.6 billion people in the world highly vulnerable to climate change, most of them smallholder farmers and vulnerable groups, the urgency cannot be overstated,” said Dr. Eva Csaky, Executive Director of Hunt Institute. “This is a crisis of food production, food security, and livelihoods, and the sharing of global experiences and best practices must inform urgent evidence-based climate action in vulnerable communities around the world.”

Participating in the first panel were Clara Ford, a Hunt Institute Fellow who is working on a community-driven, climate-smart rural development model; Miguel J. Martins, a Hunt Institute Fellow who is working with climate-smart value chains with a focus on mycelium; and Mohan Seneviratne, a Hunt Institute Fellow who is helping build resilience and improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka.

“If we’re talking about global value chains, we need to talk with the farmers,” said Seneviratne. “If there are no farmers, there are no cover crops. Sri Lanka, like all emerging countries, is primarily agricultural. If you want to alleviate poverty, we need to address 80% of the people, and that’s agriculture.”

Clara Ford, the founder of Kijiji Innovative Solutions in Tanzania, teaches local farmers how to grow more crops to sell, and thus sustain themselves and provide a better quality of life. “In a small village of about 1000 to 5000 people, the economy is agricultural productivity, but somebody coming from America to Tanzania and telling them this is what you need to do – that is something I figured wouldn’t work.”

To address the issue, Ford created a local center for the village to bring people together, to invest in locals first, and to allow them to start the conversation as peers and stakeholders. She hopes her idea – a center to gather, learn, and take action – can be scaled to other villages as a community development approach.

The second session, led by Corrie Harris, Assistant Director of Hunt Institute, featured Felisa Conner and Dorothy Hopkins, VP of Operations and President & CEO, respectively, of Frazier Revitalization, Inc.; Rabekha Siebert, Urban Agriculture Coordinator of the City of Dallas; Matt Smith, Sr. Director of PepsiCo’s Food for Good; and Meghna Tare, a Hunt Institute Fellow, Chief Sustainability Officer of UT Arlington, and Founder of the North Texas Food Alliance.

“When you’re working in underserved communities, you should never do what they should do,” said Felisa Conner, speaking on the session’s topic of bringing affordable healthy food to South Dallas. “When you’re having events, the idea is that you draw people so you can develop relationships. That’s what your program is built from. That’s what helps people stick together, to see them work through a problem and to help with solutions.”

The final session on food system needs was led by Alex Radunsky, a Hunt Institute Fellow and Postdoc Research Fellow at UT Southwestern. Participants included Sandi Pruitt, Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Data Sciences at UT Southwestern, and Milette Siler, Community Dietitian and Culinary Lead Instructor at the Moncrief Cancer Institute at UT Southwestern.

Attendees Nadia Zrelli Ben Hamida and Haddijatou Njie also shared valuable information about the food security crisis in Tunisia and the challenges of scaling climate-smart solutions in The Gambia.

Panelists agreed that technology has a central role to play in fixing and improving the world’s food systems, but that governance, infrastructure, education, training, and access to financing and markets must be prioritized for the good of all stakeholders and the people most at risk of food insecurity.

Written By: Chris Kelley

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the Institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu

March 30, 2022

Susan Alvarez, Hunt Institute Fellow

Susan Alvarez joins the Hunt Institute as a Fellow, bringing her expertise in civil engineering and environmental planning to solve sustainability issues within the Dallas area.

Ms. Alvarez is serving as the Assistant Director of the City of Dallas Office of Environmental Quality & Sustainability. She has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, with a minor in geology from Rice University, and postgraduate work in water resources. She is a Registered Professional Engineer in Texas and 5 other western states, and is a Certified Floodplain Manager, and Master Naturalist in Texas. Ms. Alvarez brings over 40 years’ experience in broad practical experience in civil and environmental planning, engineering, and management for municipal, tribal, state and federal governments. She is currently focused on implementing the Comprehensive Environmental & Climate Action Plan, the Food & Urban Agriculture Plan, the City’s participation in the City Business Climate Alliance and other related efforts.

When asked what her motivation is for doing impact work she replied, “I would say that I absolutely want to make a positive impact on my community. Additionally, as I look at the science of climate change, I have come to understand two things: one, is that those communities that are the least able to deal with climate impacts will be the folks that are most impacted, and two, that the clock is ticking on our ability to forestall those predicted impacts; we collectively need to be doing as much as we can, as soon as we can”

March 25, 2022March 25, 2022

March 10, 2022 ImpactNights™ – Women of Impact: Leading Change in our Global Society

March 10, 2022 ImpactMaps™ Women of Impact: Leading Change in our Global Society

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Hunt Institute hosted its first in-person event of the academic year on March 10, titled “Women of Impact: Leading Change in Our Global Society.” The event was attended by about 40 guests and is the latest installment in HI’s ImpactNights series, designed to build awareness, collaboration, and empowerment to lead change in a global society.

Led by Dr. Eva Csaky, Executive Director of Hunt Institute, and Corrie Harris, Assistant Director at Hunt Institute, the event celebrated the impact of women in all areas of society through academic achievement, philanthropic contributions, environmental work, community outreach efforts, and more.

Women of Impact featured a range of leaders in STEM, climate-smart, and DEI spheres, including Kathy Hubbard, a Hunt Institute Fellow and Assistant Dean for DEI at SMU Lyle School of Engineering; Dr. Aurelie Thiele, a Hunt Institute Fellow and Associate Professor of Operations Research and Engineering Management at Lyle; and Dr. Candice Bledsoe, a Hunt Institute Fellow, the Executive Director of the Action Research Center, and the founder of the Collective.

The event was broken into three sessions covering important topics like climate-smart economic development, diversity and inclusion, and decision-making through robust optimization.

“We talked a lot about the different risks people face in their business or area of expertise, and about robust optimization and scenario planning that can help them mitigate the risks they face,” said Dr. Theile, who led a session on making decisions under highly uncertain circumstances. “It’s so impressive to see the projects people have come here to do in the DFW area. You get people from different backgrounds who love talking to different people. There were some very interesting conversations.”

Jared Helmsberger, a Master’s student in sustainability at SMU, participated in Dr. Thiele’s breakout session. “It kind of touches on game theory, which is super interesting to me. It really does come back to the smallest social aspects of all these different things and how the small interactions can empower people to completely change their approach to life. Even in small conversations like this, you can pick up so many small things about how everyone’s operating within the same framework. It can change your whole perspective.”

Leroy Ahwinahwi, a Master’s student at SMU in engineering, said his favorite thing about ImpactNights is being able to hear multiple people from different backgrounds and experiences speak about their passions. “They are able to connect and inspire, which could lead to potential future collaborations.”

During these uncertain times, the ImpactNights series is committed to discovering and embracing stories of women who inspire, empower, and demonstrate resilience even in the most challenging situations.

Written by Chris Kelley with contributions from Bri Flores

Photos by Bri Flores

March 23, 2022

Olga Martinez Hickman, Hunt Institute Fellow

Dr. Olga Martinez Hickman, Ph.D. joins the Hunt Institute as a Fellow, bringing with her a passion for providing equal access to early childhood education in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Dr. Martinez Hickman is the Executive Director at Bachman Lake Together, where she supports cross-sector partnerships aimed at redesigning systems and strategies to enhance access to high-quality early childhood education for all children, regardless of zip code. Previously, Olga served as the Director of Programs and Partnerships for Read Fort Worth. Her work there promoted a collective impact, with the goal of increasing 3rd grade literacy for all students in the Fort Worth Independent School District. She has over a decade of relevant education experience that includes supporting statewide leadership, literacy, and system-change initiatives across Texas. Her areas of expertise include equity and excellence, parent leadership, and cultivating community connections to drive engaging instruction. Dr. Martinez Hickman is a product of public education, and earned her Ph.D. in K-16 Research, Policy, and Leadership from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Dr. Martinez Hickman is a 2019 Tarrant County Alumni of Leadership ISD’s Civic Voices and an alumni of inaugural Stagen Leadership Academy’s Social Change Leadership Program, designed to elevate the voices of powerful women leaders.

When asked what her motivation is for doing impact work she replied, “I want to help create systems that address barriers that have historically existed. It’s about experiencing the incremental progress toward our goal, small wins that may take a while, but will ultimately lead to change.”

March 23, 2022

Haddijatou Lamin Njie, Hunt Institute Fellow

Haddijatou Lamin Njie joins the Hunt Institute as a Fellow, bringing with her years of experience in sustainable international development.

Ms. Lamin Njie is an International Development Expert with over 25 years of working with Government, Multilateral Organizations and International Non-Governmental Organizations. She has a proven track record of formulating and implementing development projects and programs, evaluating projects, and leading program teams in a challenging environment.

Ms. Lamin Njie currently works as a Development Consultant. She is a member and Vice-Chairperson of the Internal Audit Committee of The Government of The Gambia. She served as Head of Program of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in The Gambia from March 2018 to March 2020, and Country Director of the Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in The Gambia from 2007 to 2015. She has held various managerial positions at the United Nations Development Program in The Gambia from 1997 to 2007. She has been the Team leader of the Governance, Human Rights and Gender Unit. In her earlier years, Ms. Lamin Njie served as an Economist and Financial Analyst at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in The Gambia.

Ms. Lamin Njie holds a Master’s degree in Finance, a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, and a certificate in Development. She has undergone short-term training in monitoring and evaluation, micro-finance, information communication & technology, and gender.

When asked what her motivation is for doing impact work she replied, “Over the years, delivering valuable solutions that change the lives of vulnerable populations gave me the opportunity to contribute selflessly to human development. Doing impact work serves this purpose.”

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022

Clara Ford, Hunt Institute Fellow

Clara Ford joins the Hunt Institute as a Fellow, bringing with her a passion of finding sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty.

Clara Ford was born and raised in Tanzania to a politician father and a mother who was a public school teacher, hence public service and the importance of giving back was instilled in her from a very young age. She migrated to the United States in the year 2000, and now lives in Dallas, TX with her husband and 3 children.

Clara graduated with a BBA in Accounting from the University of Houston-Downtown in 2010 and she currently holds 2 MA degrees for Applied Economics as well as Sustainability & Development from Southern Methodist University.

Her professional experience is within the financial service industry, where she worked as a Commercial lending officer, first for JP Morgan Chase Bank, and later in 2017 for Bank of America. She currently works for the Federal Reserve System as a Senior Associate Bank Examiner.

In 2019, Clara who is a Native Swahili speaker, together with her former Economics Professor from SMU, founded Kijiji Innovative Sustainable Solutions (KISS): a Non-Profit Organization as a tool for finding practical, but sustainable solutions for alleviating extreme poverty in rural Tanzania, starting with her late father’s birth Village of Kasisa. Her project was part of the 2020 cohort with the Clinton Global Initiatives University (CGI-U) through SMU MASD program.

As a way to give back to the country of her birth, she hopes to provide a venue for those willing in any capacity, to make a difference in the lives of Kasisa Villagers. She believes in the notion that, “It takes a Village” and only through cooperation and interdependence in helping folks help themselves, by giving them the tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty, can we end, in the long term, the perpetual cycle of poverty in rural parts of Tanzania.
KISS is also part of SMU’s Hunt Institute Global Development Lab Social enterprise program.

When asked what her motivation is for doing impact work she replied, “I believe when we customize solutions to address unique situations at a local level, it will allow us to be most effective in making a lasting impact towards poverty reduction in rural areas, one Village at a time, starting with Kasisa Village, Mwanza, Tanzania. That is the main aim of our Kijiji Project.”

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the Institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu

March 4, 2022March 8, 2022

Kathy Hubbard, Hunt Institute Fellow

Kathy Hubbard is the Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Lyle School of Engineering. Kathy leads the school’s effort to develop the 21st Century Engineer, this engineer is representative of global diversity. She leads the school’s effort to increase the number of students representing traditionally minoritized groups pursuing engineering and computer science degrees. These efforts include recruiting and retention strategies of under-represented students and improving diversity within the school’s faculty ranks. She is also responsible for internal equitable and inclusive policies and practices.

Kathy sits on several university-wide committees, and she is the Advisor for the Lyle school’s National Society of Black of Engineers, Society of Hispanic Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers student organizations. She is a certified executive coach and has worked with executives and managers from DART, Texas Instruments, and other organizations. Kathy has also worked with the Center for Creative Leadership to develop youth and early career leadership development programs.

When asked about her motivation for doing impact work she answered, “I believe we are all here to leave the spaces and places that we are privileged to occupy better than we found them. If I do that, then I have made an impact.”

Kathy is passionate about closing the education achievement gap. In addition to her duties at SMU, she is an Alumni Fellow with LeadershipISD, an education equity advocacy group. She also serves on the Building Solutions Advisory Board supporting initiatives in DFW school districts and the Maclin Family Foundation Boards that provided access for Black and Hispanic students to institutions like the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Kathy is the Immediate Past Chairman of the Board of Trustees for St. Philip’s School & Community Center in South Dallas. In this role, she leads strategic initiatives and helps build the organization’s endowment and annual fund.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Masters in Education Leadership & Policy from the Simmons School of Education at SMU. Kathy is married to Michael Hubbard and is mother of two wonderful sons, Michael and Elijah.

March 4, 2022March 23, 2022

Dr. Michael Adler, Hunt Institute Fellow

Mike Adler, PhD, joins the Hunt Institute as a Fellow, bringing with him his expertise in community engagement with the Puebloan Nations in New Mexico.

Dr. Adler is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University and holds the William Clements Jr. Endowed Executive Director position in the SMU-in-Taos program. His academic training is in archaeology, and his primary research focus is the complex ancestries of Native Americans, particularly Puebloan, communities in the American Southwest. He has also worked overseas in Jordan on early village archaeological contexts. He has a strong interest in the current roles (and sometimes, failures) of archaeology in the creation of knowledge about the past.

He collaborates with Native American communities to investigate concepts of ancestry, cultural identity, and how communities create and recreate that complicated concept called “the past.” He also works with traditional acequia irrigation cooperatives in Northern New Mexico to document their ancestral land and water use systems. He works with his students and colleagues to bring archaeology and knowledge of the past to the public and considers experiential education as one of the most important legacies we can provide to future generations.

When asked what his motivation is for doing impact work he replied, “I would say that I’m privileged to be able to help communities better understand their unique and collective pasts. Every community deserves a past that best reflects their accomplishments and challenges, and to do that one has to listen first to the community needs and interests, and continue listening as the past becomes better understood.”

February 23, 2022March 30, 2022

T3 Series: Blockchain Use Case in Healthcare

At a very basic level, blockchains are shared databases that store and
verify information in a cryptographically secure way. It is monitored
and organized by a peer-to-peer blockchain network, which also serves
as a secure ledger of transactions, e.g., buying, selling, and transferring.
One can think of a blockchain as a Google spreadsheet, except that
instead of being hosted on Google’s servers, blockchains are
maintained by a network of computers all over the world. These
computers (sometimes called miners or validators) are responsible for
storing their own copies of the database, adding and verifying new
entries, and securing the database against hackers.
A cryptocurrency is an encrypted data string that denotes a unit of
currency.

Crypto, as we know it today, has a significant environmental impact,
but it’s hard to measure exactly how significant. Many frequently cited
statistics come from industry groups, and it’s hard to find trustworthy,
independent data and analysis.

In these essays, Varsha Appaji, a 2021 SMU graduate, and a Research
Associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco -and a former
student Research Analyst in the Hunt Institute- looks at the impact of
blockchain technology and its impact on major issues facing society
for better and for worse.

. . .

The healthcare record-keeping infrastructure is battling an issue known as interoperability, which refers to the way health information systems communicate across organizations to provide holistic healthcare. Since people have varying needs, it’s important for specialized health care providers to access previous health records in order to build a comprehensive patient profile.

Blockchain’s ability to provide decentralized record-keeping as well as ensure privacy and control over identity data could revolutionize the ways that our communities stay healthy.

Blockchain’s unique characteristics could:

Open a path for a universal patient identifier,  so that health data can be matched to the proper individuals, even when data is transferred between healthcare systems
Allow for greater control over personal information by providing security over health data and autonomy over access to medical records
Make medical record keeping on the blockchain a much cheaper alternative than current healthcare data systems by providing security and cutting time costs in cross-organization communication
Cut  down on counterfeit pharmaceuticals and drugs  around the world by tracking clinical trial and drug data to make it verifiable. This would hold all editors of the blockchain, or all drug transaction points, accountable
Make doctor-patient in-office care more efficient by organizing layers of information verification and record-keeping in one digital place
Assure better patient delivery of pharmaceuticals and drugs
And provide many more potential use cases in healthcare.

The MediLedger Project is an organization using blockchain applications to verify the pharmaceutical supply chain in real-time.

Cons

The disruptive potentials of blockchain technology are still emerging, and there are still many potential risks. Notably, the security of the blockchain remains a large issue. For personal healthcare data, access to your own individual data is important as well. With the way that the digital key works now, losing this digital identifier would also cause you to lose access to the blockchain. Additionally, the investment cost in creating a blockchain-healthcare ecosystem would be huge since all organizations integrated in the system would need to install technology that could communicate with other blockchain users in the system.

Valuable additional reading: Global Blockchain in Healthcare 2018-2025 Report , or The Global “Blockchain in Healthcare” Report: The 2022 Ultimate Guide for Every Executive

For a video overview of blockchain, watch “Blockchain Applications for Social Impact” here.

Written by Varsha Appaji ’21

Edited by Chris Kelley

February 23, 2022March 30, 2022

T3 Series: Blockchain Use Case in Land & Water Rights

. . .

LAND RIGHTS

Land registry and management are critical tools for proving land ownership and protecting private property and land assets, which are arguably intrinsic to a functioning (and prospering) market economy. Below are a few ways that blockchain applications could be used to make the system more frictionless:

Blockchain land registry programs would provide traceable and immutable land right protections
Blockchain could make property ownership and record-keeping much easier and cheaper to maintain or update, so that the process of changing ownership would be much more efficient
Digitized records would be transparent, accessible, indestructible, cost-effective, and eliminate bureaucratic management for a more easily traceable and searchable system
Anti-corruption, especially for developing countries
A way for all affected parties to monitor, update, and validate property ownership records
Smart contracts could enable both buyers and sellers to automatically sign off on ownership once the transaction reaches its final approval stage. This may help to resolve land disputes that arise from undocumented or unregistered land

WATER RIGHTS

Water management is an urgent issue due to a number of factors, including the predicted global water crisis and present water scarcity on every continent, from Flint, Michigan, to Mali. Blockchain could revolutionize water management through:

Decentralized water reuse systems
Management and trade of water resources
Making water resource planning traceable, like local electricity management
Accessible, reliable real-time analytics from the massive data management capabilities of blockchain
Transparency and cost-effectiveness in cross-organization communication

Real World Applications:

Bitfury’s Exonum-based land registry demo shows how blockchain technology can be used for land titling services by improving their security and usability. It also shows how to acquire sample properties, transfer properties, and explore the transaction history of any property or user. Learn more about Exonum.
MediciLand supports land governance, titling, and administration by leveraging blockchain
Colorado is already testing blockchain for water management
WaterChain is a decentralized water funding platform aimed at improving water quality around the world

POTENTIAL CONS

Security of the blockchain remains an issue, as well as the scalability of a project when tied to governments for land and water management
Additionally, the energy consumption of blockchain applications and their carbon footprint may not be a sustainable way to address these concerns

For a video overview of blockchain, watch “Blockchain Applications for Social Impact” here.

Written by Varsha Appaji ’21

Edited by Chris Kelley