“Student interest in global health — and the reception that met speakers Paul Farmer, Jim Kim, Rebecca Weintraub and Bill Rodriguez, each of whom spoke at a different MIT venue in the Fall of 2007 — inspired our collaboration with GHD. Together, we designed an ambitious new course to teach students, speak to practice, deliver useful innovations, and even spur new research. G-Lab GHD addresses operational challenges that relate to the development, scaling, or improvement of enterprises on the front lines of delivering health care in sub-Saharan Africa. I believe that this course is truly transformative for the students who work in the classroom for a semester and on site for a month to deliver practical improvements. We’ve all learned from it, and most gratifyingly, we’ve seen it generate real benefits for the partner organizations whose needs are our focus.”

Anjali Sastry, MIT Sloan School of Management Senior Lecturer and creator of G-Lab GHD

G-Lab GHD offers graduate students, guided by MIT Sloan faculty and GHD experts, the opportunity to apply professional management skills, tools, and approaches to pressing real-world problems as defined by hosts organizations define. Students draw on their classroom learning to create significant on-the-ground improvements to provide patients with the healthcare they need. At the center of G-Lab GHD is an intensive on-site team internship in January, which, combined with the work carried out on campus, essentially offers a four-month consulting project to host organizations.

G-Lab GHD is part of the Global Entrepreneurship Lab, the flagship international project-based class at MIT Sloan School of Management that pairs students with organizations wrestling with management challenges across the globe.

Offered for the first time in 2008, the G-Lab GHD class was over-subscribed with 53 students collaborating on the ground with 13 organizations in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Teams composed of the best students from across MIT carried out on-the-ground projects as determined by host organizations.

Video: 2008 teams’ experiences highlights

For more testimonials, visit the G-Lab GHD Class blog and the MIT goes to Zambia blog

For the 2009-2010 edition, G-Lab GHD teams are working with organizations based in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.

“Our big problems on this planet will not be solved with one person’s brainwave,” says Prof Sastry. “What is required is collaboration. We need to be earnest, not cynical. We need to roll up our sleeves and figure out what works and what we can try next. That is what the class is about.” Financial Times, Business section, August 2, 2009

For more information on this program, both for prospective students and host organizations, please visit the G-Lab GHD website.