I’m about 6 hours into my 7 hour layover at the Washington Dulles International airport. This is my third trip to Carnegie Mellon’s campus in Doha, Qatar. Luckily I have internet and plenty of work to pass the time 
.
Apart from helping to run TechBridgeWorld, part of my role as Project Assistant is to assist with technology field studies. I’m helping TechBridgeWorld graduate student representative M. Beatrice Dias (Bea) to set up and conduct a field study at the Mathru School for the Blind in Bangalore, India to evaluate the effectiveness of our Braille Writing Tutor.
TechBridgeWorld has several projects but the Braille Writing Tutor is more than a just project to me. Right after graduating from Carnegie Mellon in 2008, I did an internship with TechBridgeWorld and traveled to Bangalore, India. I spent 10 weeks helping to field test the second version of Braille Writing Tutor at the Mathru School. I’m so excited to see the children and teachers at Mathru and eager to evaluate the impact of the tutor — it’s been 2.5 years!
I’m stopping by Doha for two days for work and then traveling to Bangalore on Saturday night. I’ll be updating this blog often, so check back every now and then to stay updated on our progress. You can also stay updated on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
For now, I’ll leave you with a couple of videos. The first one tells you more about TechBridgeWorld, our guiding principles, and the Braille Writing Tutor project. The second video describes my most memorable experience at TechBridgeWorld (working with Mathru!)
