What does civic impact look like? 🌳✨🏙️ Meet Yesenia Casillas Rios, a recent Global Poverty & Practice graduate and Blum Center student fellow who is dedicating her passion to enhancing public green spaces in her community. Full story here 👇 blumcenter.berkeley.edu/how-gpp-grad...

How GPP Graduate Yesenia Casillas Rios Molds the Public Spaces She Grew Up With - Blum Center

The Blum Center for Developing Economies leverages the talent, enthusiasm, and energy of the University of California, Berkeley community to address the grand challenge of global poverty. Our interdis...

blumcenter.berkeley.edu

This year's Big Ideas Grand Prize winner is... Yasha Zink & SipDisk! SipDisk's compact mirror has a built-in drink-spiking test can accurately detect 9 common drink-spiking drugs discreetly, affordably, & in just 5 minutes. Congrats to Yasha & all our finalists on Big Ideas' 20-year anniversary!

How Berkeley Development Engineering and Big Ideas Contest alum Paige Balcom turned plastic waste into economic opportunity through her recycling company in Uganda: engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2026/03...

Giving plastic a second life - Berkeley Engineering

UC Berkeley Engineering alum Paige Balcom is turning plastic waste into economic opportunity through her recycling company in Uganda

engineering.berkeley.edu

Ashmita Kumar, the 2024 Big Ideas winner, co-founded Code Blue, a startup that uses AI to detect strokes. She's emblematic of @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social's top ranking for producing student- and alumni-led startups, so many of which are focused on social good: alumni.berkeley.edu/california-m...

From Vision to Venture - Cal Alumni Association

How Berkeley became a leading launchpad for startups

alumni.berkeley.edu

Attention, Berkeley students! Want to design and build solutions to real-world civic challenges in your own backyard? The Big Ideas Contest has launched the Civic Innovation Challenge, a fast-paced, 7-day design sprint that empowers you to do just that. Apps due Dec. 1: bigideascontest.org/CIC/

Congrats to Bioengineering Professor and Blum Center Faculty Director Dan Fletcher for his induction into the @nam.edu! Dan was recognized for his work developing mobile phone-based microscopy to diagnose infectious diseases in developing countries, among other contributions!

Congrats to Will Tarpeh on being named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow! Will, who did a Development Engineering PhD at Berkeley, has developed ways of sustainably recovering and recycling resources like nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus from wastewater. www.macfound.org/fellows/clas...

William Tarpeh

Envisioning sustainable and practical solutions to treat wastewater and recover valuable mineral resources.

macfound.org

Kerosene lamps are vital to many people's lives. But they carry health and economic costs. This is the story of how @berkeleylab.lbl.gov's Dr. Evan Mills, with Blum Center support, helped put off-grid solar on the map: blumcenter.berkeley.edu/how-dr-evan-...

How Dr. Evan Mills, with Blum Center support, put off-grid solar on the map - Blum Center

With support from the Blum Center, the Berkeley Lab scientist and his colleagues provided the first substantive analysis of how electric lighting — specifically, high-efficiency solar-powered electric...

blumcenter.berkeley.edu

Attention, Cal undergrads interested in understanding and tackling poverty! The Global Poverty & Practice minor is hosting info sessions Sept 25 and Oct 1 on Zoom. The deadline to declare the GPP minor is Oct 14!

Happy World Water Week! We spoke with Development Engineering Prof. Kara Nelson about how water-infrastructure innovations — including producing fertilizer from urine — can combat poverty and address a changing climate: blumcenter.berkeley.edu/world-water-...

World Water Week: Prof. Kara Nelson Talks Water, Waste, and Engineering for Climate Action - Blum Center

World Water Week is an annual conference and global observance focused on tackling the world’s most pressing water-related challenges — urging policymakers and innovators to take bold action on sustai...

blumcenter.berkeley.edu

Allensworth, CA's groundwater is contaminated by arsenic, but the town has received little help remedying it. So the community teamed up with Development Engineering Prof. Ashok Gadgil to purify its water, with minimal human intervention and affordable costs: www.latimes.com/00000198-77d...

Allensworth Rising: A Fight for Water

In the town of Allensworth, California, residents join forces with Dr.

latimes.com

“In this work, compassion isn’t a gesture of service, it’s a radical act of kinship grounded in the belief that there is no us and them, only us." Congrats to the Global Poverty & Practice minor's Class of 2025! blumcenter.berkeley.edu/gpps-class-o...

GPP’s Class of 2025 Driven by Compassion, Connection, and Humanity - Blum Center

The Blum Center for Developing Economies leverages the talent, enthusiasm, and energy of the University of California, Berkeley community to address the grand challenge of global poverty. Our interdis...

blumcenter.berkeley.edu

And this year's Big Ideas Contest grand prize winner is... AgriSolar! Their mobile and scalable solar-powered irrigation system designed for Nigerian smallholder farmers’ accessibility and affordability. Read more about Grand Prize Pitch Day here: bigideascontest.org/2025/05/15/a...

“We were interested in understanding the role of the household environment in bacterial transmission to humans,” said Prof. @seqh2o.bsky.social. “And our findings showed that water is actually one of the most important transmission pathways for pathogenic and drug-resistant bacteria.”

UC Berkeley Engineering@berkeleyengineer.bsky.social · last yr.

Berkeley researchers have shown that household environment might play a larger role in the transmission of gastrointestinal bacterial infections via drinking water than previously thought.

The goal, Raghuwanshi said, was to “really understand the context & not push your assumptions on people”—not to parachute in & solve problems, “but learn from residents what they want” help with & to be a partner in co-developing community-oriented solutions: blumcenter.berkeley.edu/uc-berkeley-...

UC Berkeley Development Engineering Students Team Up with ABE Club to Strengthen Education in Kasigau, Kenya - Blum Center

Ekta Raghuwanshi and Maria Denna, her MDevEng classmate, worked at A Better Education Club as part of an internship pilot program that DevEng and ABE Club look to expand in the coming years. The organ...

blumcenter.berkeley.edu

Climate change is expected to make sub-Saharan Africa warmer and drier. In @natcomms.nature.com, @seqh2o.bsky.social & co. explore how this affects the burden of collecting water—with impacts for health, hygiene, income, and gender equity: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Temperature and precipitation affect the water fetching time burden in Sub-Saharan Africa - Nature Communications

This study reveals that rising temperatures and decreased precipitation levels increase walking time for fetching drinking water in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rural areas are most affected, but community ele...

nature.com

Congratulations to Development Engineering Prof. @agogino.bsky.social on winning an inaugural Berkeley Climate Action Proof-of-Concept Award for climate-focused multimodal methane (CH4) sensing! bakarclimate.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berk...

For communities, most policy standards for "modern energy" are a connection to an electrical grid. But in a new paper in Nature Cities, Prof. @dankammen.bsky.social and colleagues show a simple connection does not equal affordable, reliable electricity: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Grid connections and inequitable access to electricity in African cities - Nature Cities

To investigate inequalities in energy access, Kersey and co-authors conducted a mixed-method study with 25 informal settlements in Kampala, Uganda. They found that despite the expansion of electrical ...

nature.com

"If the impact part is missing from a business, it’s not very sustainable.” CarbonSustain — a venture by Paul Bryzek, a 2023 Big Ideas Contest winner — helps small and medium businesses with the onerous work of tracking their carbon emissions: alumni.berkeley.edu/paul-bryzek-...

Paul Bryzek: ‘Without Impact, a Business isn’t Sustainable’ - Cal Alumni Association

Paul Bryzek tells how Berkeley Haas and Cal helped launch his newest success.

alumni.berkeley.edu

Ashmita Kumar and Code Blue — her Big Ideas–winning innovation — are piloting her AI-powered in-phone stroke-detection tech with @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social doctors and are competing this week at the Atlantic Coast Conference InVenture Prize: news.berkeley.edu/2025/03/27/w...

With AI and an iPhone, UC Berkeley student's startup aims to detect stroke signs and save lives - Berkeley News

Using smartphones, computers and other smart devices, Ashmita Kumar's startup aims to shake up stroke health care, with ambitious plans to grow.

news.berkeley.edu

In California Management Review, our board of trustees chair @lauradtyson.bsky.social looks at climate finance and breaks down progress, challenges, and opportunities on the path to Net Zero and a sustainable planet: cmr.berkeley.edu/2025/02/67-2...

Climate Finance: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities on the Path to a Sustainable Planet

Net Zero by 2050 requires significant capital deployment through innovative climate finance and supportive policies.

cmr.berkeley.edu

Attention, Berkeley undergrads! Join a community of students seeking to make an impact on poverty and inequality! The Global Poverty and Practice minor is hosting an info session: This Friday, 12pm, Zoom RSVP here: forms.gle/y8fozsdyyHkk... More info here: blumcenter.berkeley.edu/gppminor

Congrats to Dr. Elizabeth Hausler on her election to the National Academy of Engineering! Dr. Hausler was recognized "for transformational impact as an international social entrepreneur, saving lives by building sustainable communities with natural hazard resilience." www.nae.edu/331605/NAENe...

National Academy of Engineering Elects 128 Members and 22 International Members

National Academy of Engineering Elects 128 Members and 22 International Members to the Class of 2025

nae.edu

"We all have limited time on this planet, and what we do is in our hands. Development Engineering exists in an unfair world to make it a little bit more fair." –Prof. Ashok Gadgil Applications for the 2025–26 Master of Development Engineering cohort are due March 4! www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEDX...

This is Berkeley Development Engineering

YouTube video by Blum Center for Developing Economies

youtube.com

We have our finalists! Out of 150+ apps, here are the final 15 student teams of the 2024–25 Big Ideas Contest — from an AI-powered device to help restore Alzheimer’s patients’ autonomy to a sustainable medical product replacing single-use plastics in healthcare: bigideascontest.org/2025/02/03/u...

And the results are in! The 2024 Development Engineering Photography Contest invited students to submit photos and videos that show what DevEng means to them and to capture the impact of their work over the summer through creative media: blumcenter.berkeley.edu/visualizing-...

Visualizing Impact: DevEng Photography Contest Winners Showcase Work and Community - Blum Center

The Blum Center for Developing Economies leverages the talent, enthusiasm, and energy of the University of California, Berkeley community to address the grand challenge of global poverty. Our interdis...

blumcenter.berkeley.edu