AB044. Empowering university students on tackling global health issues

Background: Student Innovation for Global Health Technology (SIGHT) is an interdisciplinary undergraduate education platform at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that transforms the passion and creativity of students to develop sustainable solutions for global health problems. On its 10^th anniversary, highlights SIGHT’s strong user engagement by completing over 30 projects across eight countries, involving over 500 students. The objective of this article is to detail SIGHT’s integrative pedagogical model and demonstrate, through a case study, how it guides students to develop and implement sustainable, community-embedded health technologies. SIGHT provides an integrative learning experience (experiential learning courses, team projects, study trips, peer-mentoring, leadership training, intern program) that transcends the borders of disciplines, geography, and culture. A wide range of global health projects aim to deliver social impact to resource-limited communities. Pedagogically, SIGHT integrates the essences of experiential learning, design thinking, and integrative learning, operating on the principle that impact-driven projects bring the best out of students.

Methods: Constraints breed creativity and health problems provide an ideal context for students to innovate. Nevertheless, the SIGHT teaching team spends substantial effort to identify appropriate project sites and liaise with partners to ensure that the scope of projects makes it feasible for students to make a tangible contribution.

Results: The SIGHT team guides students to appreciate the importance of social, cultural, and economic factors that contribute to the acceptance of technology. SIGHT approach emphasizes prototyping real-life technology solutions through direct implementation experiences, as demonstrated by a recent development of telemedicine and digital data collection platforms in a rural tea estate in Sri Lanka. These initiatives ensured sustainability by engaging stakeholders like medical teams, vocational centers, and youth volunteers; students trained staff and youth to maintain the system and build long-term capacity while digitizing health screenings and connecting patients to remote doctors. SIGHT has developed a holistic, sustainable stakeholder engagement model that actively connects local communities, vocational partners, and medical teams to enable successful on-the-ground technology implementation, while providing students with immersive learning experiences, recognizing first-hand experience, and the value of an interdisciplinary team in tackling global health problems.

Conclusions: Over a decade, SIGHT has successfully transformed student passion into tangible global health impact through interdisciplinary, experiential learning. Its sustainable model proves that constraint-driven innovation, coupled with deep stakeholder engagement, effectively develops both real-world solutions and future changemakers.

Keywords: Experiential learning; design thinking; technology implementation & social impact; health innovation