2018 Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment Grant Awarded to SJMC’s Ornella Hills, Robyn Baragwanath, Dhavan Shah

Two graduate students in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Ornella Hills and Robyn Baragwanath, and professor Dhavan Shah have been awarded a seed project grant through the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment for their project “Assessing the Need and Opportunity for Short Messaging Service (SMS) Based Systems for Economic Empowerment in Haiti.”

The seed grant is awarded to projects supporting innovative, community-based research that fosters public engagement and solutions. Recipients are provided up to $4,000 to foster early experimentation.

The team’s study focuses on providing information and communication technologies (ICTs) in globally poor countries. They aim to use SMS systems to improve entrepreneurial efforts in Haiti, a country with a large informal market and high basic phone usage.

Read more about the project and other Baldwin Seed Project Grant recipients here: https://provost.wisc.edu/baldwin-wisconsin-idea-endowment/previously-funded-baldwin-projects/2018-baldwin-funded-seed-project-grants/