Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB)
The initiative
Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB) is the undergraduate education initiative of Rice 360°: Institute for Global Health Technologies. Its mission to foster the creation of globally appropriate health technologies that address the pressing health needs of the developing world. By engaging students through a novel multi-disciplinary educational program, BTB challenges them to reach beyond their usual geographic and disciplinary experiential borders and to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to advance such innovative technologies. The program establishes new curriculum for the middle and high school levels through an outreach program, and at the university level, the global-health curriculum broadens students' understanding of disease processes and associated advancements within the health technology field. The curriculum incorporates understanding through actual case studies in cancer screening, imaging technologies, implantable devices and vaccines. Students learn how complexities and variation across the globe affect the design of devices and therapies. Furthermore, through the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) the BTB program presents real-world global health design challenges to students, encouraging the development of meaningful solutions with the potential to make a real impact today.
Aims
Collaborations
The BTB initiative includes representation from Rice University, the Texas Medical Center, including Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, University of Texas School of Public Health and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, and partner institutions abroad reaching from Mexico to Nigeria. This fosters an atmosphere of collaboration, bringing together students and faculty from across the disciplines at Rice, leveraging the strengths of the world renowned Texas Medical Center, and tapping into provision of healthcare in resource constrained settings expertise from across the globe.
Funding
The BTB initiative is possible by a grant to Rice University from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through the Undergraduate Science Education Program.