Over the next three years, the Development Studies student found herself yearning to return to the informal settlement, where 250,000 residents live in less than one square mile and lack basic services and infrastructure such as education, healthcare, and clean water.

Sanitation and the removal of human waste are among the biggest environmental health issues of our time. According to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, 70 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa lacks access to adequate sanitation.

In May 2015, Cristobal Madero, a Chilean native and PhD student in UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, invited 14 of Chile's most elite high schools to participate in a novel educational experiment.

When the Big Ideas student innovation contest launched 10 years ago, it was a novel concept: give teams of students with potential breakthrough ideas small sums of money and a variety of supports and see what happens. Over the past decade, a lot has happened.

Prompted by funding and recognition from the Big Ideas@Berkeley contest, a group of Cal students headed by Mechanical Engineering graduate student Julia Kramer is seeking to establish a sustainable training program called “Visualize” for midwives in Ghana.