Global International Engagement Program 2014

This summer, I worked alongside two other UMSI students on a website to connect human rights lawyers in India as part of the Global Information Engagement Program. GIEP connects graduate student teams with different partner organizations in India to develop a solution to an existing information related problem. The GIEP program counts as your PEP credit/summer internship. Other student projects included: creating an accessible website for the disabled and their community, creating data-drive performance metrics and tools to improve the quality of care in the "Be Well" hospitals, among several others.

The student teams learned about our project partners in November and started communicating with them via Skype and Google Hangout to better understand the nature of the problem. Since I am interested in UX Design and research, I was able to apply many of the skills and techniques I have been learning in class to this project: including interviewing, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing to gain user feedback and inform the design of the project.

Throughout the winter semester, we scoped the project, researched, and created wireframes and prototypes to prepare for our arrival in India. Once in India, we worked alongside our project partners to see first-hand how they work on a day to day basis.

Because our clients are human rights lawyers, we continuously saw them rush to the aid of others. We watched as they assisted slum dwellers as the city attempted to evict the residents as well as protected sex workers, victims of rape, and other marginalized citizens. Although these human rights lawyers do so much for others, they don't always have access to the resources they need. By creating this website to network human rights lawyers, they can now share resources, knowledge, and connect with human rights lawyers across the country. And by working side by side with our client, we were able to better understand the problem, get feedback, and conduct user testing with several human rights lawyers and the future administrators of the site to make the site more intuitive and user friendly.

When I first moved to Ann Arbor more than a year ago, I never imagined that I would live in India for two months, let alone work with an amazing project partner. If you are interested participating in the program, applications for the GIEP program are open until November 1st.