Hello everyone! I am Ulan Mirlanov, a sophomore Computer Science student at Lehigh. I am part of the Community Engagement and Environmental Initiatives team (Almaty, Kazakhstan) of Global Social Impact Fellowship. Every week, I will be posting here my reflection blog bout topics we will be covering during the seminars. Welcome and enjoy!
Why did you enroll in this course?
Being here at Lehigh, very distant from my home country, I have thought about the purpose of getting education a lot. Specifically, the education that you obtain outside of your country. In the beginning what had driven me was an enthusiasm to experience something new and different. Over some time, the purpose developed into the idea of bringing back the knowledge and experience received abroad. As my home country, Kyrgyzstan, is located right in the middle of Central Asia, I am personally familiar with the economic, political, and social issues of that region. Environment and sustainability problems are not an exception. In fact, those problems became more explicit lately, by starting to affect the population’s general health. The problems with environment, or air pollution to be more precise, emerged as a result of the government not taking actions, and not devoting enough resources to address environmental problems. As well as people being ignorant and skeptical of the issues. I was very eager to address the issue, but I had no idea what to start from. Especially, majoring in Computer Science, I was little uneducated about the environmental aspects. That is why I started joining projects at Lehigh that were focused on different environmental issues, getting familiar with the topic with the closer look. Exploring different opportunities I finally found out about GSIF, which was literally what I was looking for. This fellowship program is a perfect opportunity to start giving back to my community, contributing to addressing the issue and impacting.
How do you envision this course making you a better Computer Science student?
Personally, when making a decision of enrolling in the course, I have several aspects I pay most attention to. One of the important ones is the practicality of the knowledge I will receive. Whether the expertise or skill gained from the course can be applied in real life. If the answer to this question is yes, I will crave to learn something new in the class. And this course looks like it is one of them. The course contains essential topics such as teamwork, strategic communication, creative and entrepreneurial thinking and other relevant topics. And most importantly, the topic of ethics and philosophy behind making an impact is very critical for most people. The understanding of the purpose makes the students more dedicated and leads in the right pathway throughout the journey of impact. All of the topics combined, the course will become a powerful tool for me to utilize during the project and even outside of it. Another point is, I believe, this course will become the initial step on becoming a well-rounded person. It will help me to look at real-life problems from a social perspective. That is extremely important in learning how to solve those problems outside the class. And I am in my turn will attempt to grasp everything this course offers.
The World Health Organization estimates that over one billion people who need eyeglasses do not have access to them. The vast majority of these people live in developing countries like Kenya where there is barely one optometrist per one million people. Given the high poverty levels, access to eyeglasses is almost non- existent. Lack of proper eyeglasses severely impacts people and their livelihoods by decreasing their productivity at work, limiting or eliminating new opportunities, affecting their quality of life, deteriorating their general health and possibly leading to (preventable) blindness. What solution do you propose to address this problem?
As I have been nearsighted for the most part of my life, the topic is close to me. I have read a lot about the poor vision and the ways to prevent it. I have read different scientific articles and the most curious discovery for me was the role of natural light. According to studies, natural light plays a significant role in eyesight development. One of the primary reasons people develop blurred vision is due to the insufficient amount of natural light. Exposure to artificial light hinders normal eye development leading to cases of nearsightedness and farsightedness. While the natural light stimulates the production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that positively affects vision. Recognizing this fact, one of the possible solutions that came to my mind is creating an incentive for people to participate in outdoor activities. Especially the children, whose vision is still in the process of development. Encouraging them to spend more time outside during the daytime could be a helpful step in preventing poor vision problems. For example, building playscapes with intriguing features for kids would boost their willingness to step outside. Also, if the safe environment could be provided, parents would be more willing to spend time with their children outdoors. That would maximize the amount of time children spend in natural light, and minimize, even if by little, the exposure to the artificial light, which negatively affects eyesight development. This way first steps in fighting the problem of poor vision could be taken.