Articles by Khanjan Mehta
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Wednesday
June 20
2018Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation: How Design Thinking Can Build Robust and Sustainable mHealth Ventures
Design thinking can help mHealth ventures develop their value propositions and potential impacts, meet customer needs, and shape business models that stand the test of time. In the final post in his series on making mHealth businesses sustainable, Khanjan Mehta provides a structured framework that helps these enterprises determine their viability, particularly in the early conceptualization phase.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Monday
June 11
2018Nine Ways to Make Money in mHealth: The Top Value Propositions from a Study of 234 Projects in Emerging Markets
Telemedicine and mHealth initiatives often struggle in emerging markets - yet researchers seldom focus on how these ventures can better develop sustainable business models. An ambitious study of 234 mHealth projects in developing countries attempts to rectify this problem. Khanjan Mehta at Lehigh University runs down the research, highlighting the nine most common value propositions it found.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Wednesday
May 23
2018Failing to Scale: Fixing Common Missteps in mHealth Ventures
Telemedicine or mHealth systems have great potential to bolster fragile health care systems in the developing world. However, these programs often fail to survive beyond the pilot phase. A team at the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship Program at Penn State studied 35 telemedicine and mHealth projects and discovered six recurring reasons for failure to scale. Program director Khanjan Mehta offers solutions to some common missteps.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Monday
July 25
2016Seven Questions for Career Seekers – Finding Your Niche in Sustainable Development
In the fifth and final post in a series exploring careers in social innovation and global sustainable development for STEM professionals, Khanjan Mehta gives advice on how to get your foot in the door and network in order to "test-drive" different organizations. At the end of the day, he says, it's all about finding the right fit.
- Categories
- Education
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Tuesday
July 19
2016100 Social Innovators and 10 Lessons for Career, Life
In interviewing the social innovators profiled in Solving Problems that Matter, I noticed a number of recurring themes of championing rigorous, ethical, evidence-based approaches; learning how to fail and bounce back; and being willing to question the dominant paradigm. Innovators stressed the need to deeply understand the challenges and the larger system by spending considerable time in the field talking with all the stakeholders. They emphasized the need to seek and analyze the lessons learned from previous efforts, quantify results and build relationships across sectors.
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Guest Articles
Wednesday
June 1
20165 Trends Accelerating the Acceptance of STEM Professionals in Sustainable Development
STEM innovation has led to many of the biggest social impacts in recent human history: chlorinated drinking water, oral re-hydration therapy, solar energy, and many more that we often overlook or underestimate. Fortunately, as STEM professionals forge their way in the social innovation space, there are five major trends accelerating their acceptance as sustainable development practitioners.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Tuesday
May 3
2016What STEM Skillsets, Mindsets Bring to Sustainable Development
Many people still believe that all scientists and engineers work in science and engineering. Do all scientists pipette solutions in a clean white lab while all engineers take measurements on a construction site and programmers write apps in a cubicle? While many STEM professionals do fit these traditional roles, many more use their analytical skills to solve problems in other fields. According to the National Science Board, fewer than half the undergraduate STEM majors in the U.S. end up in STEM occupations. Part two in a series on STEM careers and directions for sustainable development.
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- Agriculture, Environment, Technology
- Tags
- research
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Monday
April 25
2016NexThought Monday: The Role of STEM Professionals in Global Sustainable Development
The science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) community is changing. Many passionate, hardworking students are not as excited about taking up well-paying, but arguably monotonous, jobs in large corporations. Their big question is: what do we do next? To answer this question, Khanjan Mehta of Penn State spent over three years interacting with hundreds of innovators to find new pathways toward careers in social innovation and global sustainable development.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Tags
- employment, innovation
