Highlights

Penn Engineering Undergrads Create Robotic Sitar

See video of RAVI-Bot performing Raga Kedar

The William K. Gemmill Award, given annually for the most creative mechanical engineering senior design project, has been awarded to RAVI-Bot, a robotic sitar. The robot is not a music box, but rather an artificial musician that follows guidelines in order to successfully produce classical sitar sound and technique. Computer circuitry allows it to progress randomly, producing melodic phrases akin to human sitar musicians. Penn Engineering seniors Peter Bruekner, Michael Dugan, Kristin Condello, and Will Jelliffe, were inspired to create RAVI-Bot by classes they took in South Asia Studies, as well as computer and mechanical engineering. As part of Artbots 2007, an international robot talent show held in Philadelphia this year, RAVI-Bot is on display at the Esther M. Klein Gallery through June 30.

Wharton Program Promotes Innovation in Philanthropy

Baking at the Khayelitsha Cookie Company near Cape Town, South Africa

Societal wealth creation is a concept originated by Penn's Wharton School of Business and is unique in its approach to social entrepreneurship. James Thompson and Professor Ian MacMillan, co-founders of the Wharton Societal Wealth Program (WSWP) are helping launch businesses that not only make profit, but do good. Through WSWP, Thompson and MacMillan encourage philanthropy in Africa to move from a model of "tin can" contributions to one that supports sustainable efforts by for-profit businesses to alleviate societal ills. Learn more about WSWP's work in the Financial Times.

Penn Offers New Interdisciplinary Degree in Modern Middle East Studies

The School of Arts and Sciences is offering a new interdisciplinary degree in Modern Middle East Studies, designed to allow undergraduate students to specialize in the Middle East as a region of the world and human experience by combining course work in both the social sciences and the humanities, underpinned with relevant language training. Students who major or minor in Modern Middle East Studies will work with faculty committed to supporting interdisciplinary, applied and research-oriented advanced study. For more information, visit the Middle East Center web site.

Penn Team Helps Bridge 'Digital Divide' in Cameroon

Members of CommuniTech, a unique community service initiative based in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, spent their winter break setting up computer labs at twenty different locations in Cameroon. The team of students, faculty, and alumni from the non-profit student organization, which strives to bridge the digital divide both locally and globally, shipped more than 150 donated machines to Cameroon in October 2006. The team then spent two and a half weeks in late December and early January 2007 installing these computers and providing basic training for users in local schools and non-profit agencies.  For more information about CommuniTech’s recent work in Cameroon, which was funded by Google, Pro-Literacy, and the Cameroon-based Meta Quality of Life Improvement Foundation (MQLIF), visit Penn Engineering’s newsroom.

New Penn Program Meets Demand for Lawyers with International Experience

The Wharton School's Lauder Institute and Penn Law have launched a new joint JD/MA in International Studies degree program. The program expands the Lauder Institute's current offerings beyond the well-respected joint MBA/MA degree program, which combines a Wharton MBA with a Masters in International Studies. The new program combines a prestigious Penn Law degree with the intensive language and cultural training of the Lauder Institute's Master's in International Studies -- all in three years. The program is designed for Penn Law students with solid foreign language skills who wish to improve and integrate these skills into their professional careers, and combines their legal skills with real international experience. The eight language tracks offered by the Lauder Institute are Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The program also includes a two-month, in-country immersion program. For more information on the new program, visit the Lauder Institute web site.

Penn Leading Effort to Develop Ethical Pandemic Vaccine Policy

In response to the G-8's recent call for the international community to devise an effective strategy that would accelerate the development, production, and delivery of life-saving pandemic vaccines, Penn Law has joined forces with Penn's Center for Bioethics, the University of Tokyo's School of Medicine, and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, to launch an unprecedented international dialogue to explore the complex ethical and legal issues surrounding national and international vaccination programs. The group's goal is to produce publications and collaborative efforts that lay the groundwork for cooperation among the national and international agencies responsible for pandemic vaccine policy. For more information about the Penn Law initiative, visit the Penn Law Journal.

Penn Ranks First in Ivy League for Study Abroad

Penn students are studying abroad in greater numbers, while students and scholars from around the world are pouring into the University. So says the Institute for International Education, which recently released its annual data on international mobility of students and scholars. According to the report, called Open Doors, Penn had a banner year in the amount of undergraduate and graduate students studying abroad, moving up in the national rankings from number 12 to number 7, and becoming the number one Ivy League institution for study abroad. In addition, Penn now ranks second in the nation, just behind Harvard, in the number of international scholars it hosts, and third in the Ivy League in terms of international student enrollment. To find out more about Penn's recognition in the IIE report, visit the Penn Current (PDF) and the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Penn Addresses the Needs of HIV/AIDS Patients in Botswana

Dr. Harvey Friedman, Penn's chief of infectious diseases, runs a comprehensive HIV program in Botswana that offers clinical care and trains local providers. Penn currently has seven fulltime faculty providing services in public hospitals in Gaborone and Francistown. The program, which began with support from a partnership of the Merck and Gates Foundations, was awarded almost a million dollars in funding last April from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Now Penn is stepping up the research side of the program and looking to involve other schools in the University.

To learn more about the evolution of the Penn HIV program in Botswana, visit "Penn in Botswana" from the October 19 issue of the Current, the Penn Medicine/ID Program in Botswana and the Penn Center for AIDS Research.