IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008 - 10

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

A Broader Societal Impact
The success of the screener has encouraged Dr. Srinivasan, me, and others in
the Brahmam team to develop additional
technological aids for people with developmental disorders. We are especially
proud of the commendations that Lewis
Terman, IEEE president in 2007, and
Richard Gowen, president of the IEEE
Foundation, have given us for our work
with special children.
The Brahmam team has also taken up
projects aimed at yielding a broader societal impact. We have developed a centralized knowledge management system for
treating those affected by HIV. The end
system has significantly increased the
effectiveness and efficiency of medical
staff in dealing with the virus.
-Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan is
chairman of the IEEE Madras Section
GOLD Affinity Group.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS:
IEEE STUDENT ROBOT COMPETITION
USING iROBOT CREATE MOBILE ROBOT
PROGRAMMING
This competition provides a unique opportunity for robotics enthusiasts to participate in
a robotics competition during the 2008 IEEE
International Conference on Technologies for
Practical Robot Applications.
At the beginning of the competition each
team will be given an iRobot Create, a programmable robot preassembled to facilitate
the development of new robots. After a workshop during which participants will learn how
to program their robot, a mobile robotics
challenge will be presented.
Participants will have the day to prepare
their robot entry and compete for prizes
before conference attendees.
For more information please visit the conference Web site:
http://www.ieeerobot-tepra.org/.

IEEE WIE
"BEST COMPANIES" AWARD
IEEE WIE is accepting nominations for its "Best Companies for Women to Work" award. We want to hear what
makes your company the best work environment for
women. Include examples of programs, support groups,
or initiatives that the company has instituted to make
the work environment more inclusive for its employees.
The nominations should include employee and/or student intern testimonials. Companies that employ engineers and/or scientists are eligible.
The nomination essay should consist of 1,500
words or less and include the name and address of the
company being nominated and the nominator's mailing
address, e-mail, phone, and fax number. Send nominations to: keyana.tennant@ieee.org.
Applications will be judged by a panel of national
experts in workforce diversity and by engineering and
science leaders from various science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. The top ten companies will be announced in the December 2008 issue of the IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine. The
award will be presented at a special IEEE WIE event to honor the winners and the winning company will
be profiled in the magazine. The deadline for nominations is 31 July 2008.

SUMMER 2008

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children. Parents who have used the
screener feel that it is suitable for largescale screening. It requires little time for
evaluation (less than 30 minutes), and it
is easily accessible. The multilingual version of the screener is being developed to
meet regional needs.
The screener's value lies in its simplicity and its accessibility for people in
rural areas. Its prompts can guide even
the uninitiated through a preliminary
disability screening. "Importantly, even a
lay parent using the software can now be
reassured that the child is attaining the
development milestones," said Jaya
Krishnaswamy, director of the Madhuram Narayanan Centre (MNC) for Exceptional Children, which played a key role
in field testing the tool. As part of the
pilot demonstration, the screener is
being distributed to all the schools
across the state of Tamil Nadu, India.
When trained, teachers will be able to
shortlist children suspected of a development delay and refer them for evaluation
by an expert clinician.
The software is being made available
by Dr. Srinivasan and me free of cost to
schools across India. We expect that the
software will benefit 10 million children
in India alone.
The Indian scenario for treatment of
autism is still in its nascent stage.
Resources and infrastructure available
for autistic children are quite limited.
The awareness level among parents with
regard to autism is highly variable, ranging from acute levels of awareness in
certain urban areas to almost nil in most
rural areas. This, combined with the
great variance in socioeconomic levels,
beliefs, and customs, leaves many a child
with autism undiagnosed and untreated.
Even in the urban areas, there is little concerted effort among the various
care providers to tackle this issue in a
comprehensive manner. The screener
for developmental disorders in children
should help to alleviate this deficiency.
An important advantage of the screener,
aside from its simplicity and accessibility, is that it brings parents into the loop;
parent participation is an essential part
of therapy.

http://www.ieeerobot-tepra.org/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008