The Beginning of the Next Chapter of My Life
First and foremost, my name is innocent Samuel, and I am a fourth-year Electrical and Electronics Engineering student at MUBAS. I am also one of the 13 interns selected for the Lemelson-Rice360-MUBAS Biomedical internship program in 2022.
The first day of my Lemelson-Rice360-MUBAS Global Health Biomedical internship program at MUBAS Design studio had finally arrived. At 9:20 a.m., I nervously entered the MUBAS design studio, where I found my fellow 12 interns in the middle of an introduction session led by Design Studio Manager (Malawi), Ms. Will Moyo, who gave a welcoming speech and also presented on Rules to Follow During the Internship Program, emphasizing punctuality and commitment to each intern. She also introduced us to the MUBAS design studio Manager, Mr. Hillary Lodzanyama and our teaching assistants for the whole internship period, Mr. Brenard Dzonzi and Mr. Chikumbutso Walani. We were also given the opportunity as interns to introduce ourselves to the Design studio Manager, Teaching Assistants, and My Fellow Interns, and were then given a tour of the Design studio's equipment. Later in the day, the Teaching Assistants divided us into four groups, and I was assigned to Group 1 as one of the four members. During the 12-week internship program, we were assigned to work on three projects: The Training Kit, Vein Finder, and Neonatal Monitor. Madalitso Fadson, Dalitso Kathyola, and Emmanuel Ngwala are the other members of group 1 and we named our group to be TRAVEINEA and the name was adopted after the three projects that we were given to do. Then, we were given time as a group to draft a group contract that included the organization's name, leadership positions, and rules and regulations to be observed by the group, which we then submitted to the Design studio Manager, Teaching Assistants, and our other interns. The contract was fine-tuned by the Manager of the Design Studio (Malawi), Ms. Will Moyo.
The day began on Wednesday with the responsibility of submitting our group's contract to our Teaching Assistants. We held our first meeting as a group where we had to discuss how we will handle our tasks as a group. Then we had our first group meeting, where we had to decide how we would approach our tasks as a group. At 10 a.m., The design studio Manager (Malawi), Ms. Will Moyo, gave a presentation on the Engineering Design Process (EDP), and she focused on the first phase of the EDP, which is known as Clarifying Team Assignment, and she explained what the step is all about and how crucial it is in the development of each of our three projects. We were also requested to work together as a group to come up with a question to ask our stakeholders to assist us clarify our assignment. Later in the day, our Teaching Assistants asked us to work on producing project documentation and a PowerPoint presentation of the documentation for our projects. We were given two hours to complete the task, but the time was later extended to submit the documentation and the PowerPoint presentation while also presenting the following day.
As the week progressed, on Thursday, we presented as a group all of the research and findings from the projects that we will be working on, and then Mr. Brenard Dzonzi, one of the Teaching Assistants, pointed out all of the important points in order to create the best PowerPoint presentation possible, as well as what we should do when presenting. Later in the day, we were given some tutorials to help us enhance our knowledge of Clarifying Team Assignment, and we also had talks with our Teaching Assistants about the same topic.
Finally, to bring the week to a close, our Teaching Assistants asked us to review the questions we prepared to ask our stakeholders on Friday because we had fully grasped the previous day on which contents are supposed to be in the questions for the questions to be relevant to ask to our stakeholders, and then we asked those questions to our Teaching Assistants, who managed to answer all questions appropriately, and I started to be enlightened to what we are supposed to do in the projects given to us. Later that day, we gave a group presentation on all our projects in summary, and that was the end of my internship programs first week.
Although working every weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. has been a new experience for me, it has taught me to set an alarm, take public transportation, listen to others, model exemplary work ethic, think quickly, and still have time for lunch with new friends.
With all of that aside, the goal of this internship is to mobilize teams to work toward global health impact through collaborative, team-based global health technologies projects. Thank you for giving me this chance, Lemelson Foundation, Rice360 Institute for Global Health, and MUBAS. As a result, I'm hoping to immerse myself in the engineering design process..