Chance to Change – A Global Health Case Competition

Over the weekend of Feb 13-14th, the McMaster Global Health Office hosted a case competition to choose a team to represent McMaster in the Emory Morningside Global Health Case Competition (ECC). The ECC will host 59 teams from international universities and spend a week developing recommendations for a global health case. Teams from across the world will compete for cash prizes and have the opportunity to network with each other and with professionals who volunteer to serve as judges.

The topic for this year’s internal competition was polyethylene and its harmful effects on a mid-pacific community. In total, six teams competed for the opportunity to represent McMaster at the ECC and taking home first place was Chance to Change, a multidisciplinary team including Stefania Abbantangelo, Shania Bhopa, Dr. Ian Burkovskiy, Maya Kshatriya, Taigan Randomske and Zuhayr Yakub. The team consisted of MSc in Global Health, PhD, Engineering and Medical students working together to develop a proposed solution.

The team worked together for over 19 hours straight, with the release of the case on Saturday February 13th at 7am, and a submission deadline of just 24 hours later. As Shania Bhopa, MSc GH student reflects, “the time constraint was the most difficult part of this competition, however our creativity incorporating a couple videos to visually showcase the plastic pollution worldwide was my favourite aspect.”

“It was amazing to have the opportunity to apply my learning in the MSc Global Health program” says Taigain Ramdomske, MSc GH student, “in a fast-paced environment, we were able to create a multifaceted, sustainable solution that we are so proud of!”

“Chance to change” strategized ways to protect the health of the environment, humans and tourism industry with a clever multi-phased approach. With the incorporation of a digital strategy to promote awareness and increase stakeholder engagement the team showcased a data driven approach.

Combining expertise in engineering, communications, global health, medicine and business, the team will be representing McMaster in just a few weeks internationally. They will have the opportunity to spend a week developing recommendations for a global health case on topics which may include issues such as health care policy, partnerships, medical research, international law and more.

“Our team was very supportive of one another, especially when working towards solutions that we could all endorse. I think doing so allowed us to make a succinct and well researched plan that excited the judges.” Zuhayr Yakub, 1st year medical student.

Shania Bhopa, MSc Global Health Candidate