Please join us for the first Change Seminar of the autumn quarter. Neha Kumar will be presenting work she did over the summer in Uttar Pradesh India working with the Projecting Health project.

Projecting Health is a maternal and neonatal health initiative that was implemented in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP, India) almost two years ago through a collaboration between PATH, UW, and local partner organizations situated in UP. In Projecting Health, frontline workers organize group screenings of locally crafted films using low-cost pico projectors in order to teach pregnant women and new mothers about various health-related issues. This talk will discuss the emerging mobile media practices of the Projecting Health target audience, with a view to examine whether mobile phones can play a role in the dissemination of these videos and if yes, how.

Neha is a postdoctoral researcher at UW CSE, where her research focuses on the design, production, and dissemination of visual media to address maternal and infant mortality in rural India. She recently completed her Ph.D. from the School of Information at UC Berkeley, where she conducted an ethnography of the adoption and self-guided uses of new media technologies of Indian youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Her research objective is to contribute a deeper, more grounded understanding of emerging uses and users to the field of ICTD and its interventions.