Rice 360° brings together faculty, students, clinicians, and private and public sector partners to design innovative health technologies for poor settings around the world, increase access to these technologies, and prepare students to lead tomorrow’s global health technology workforce.

The lack of appropriate technologies – high-quality, affordable technologies that function sustainably in settings without reliable electrical power, clean water, consumable supplies, or sufficient human capacity – is a major barrier to improving global health.  Drawing on Rice’s foundational strengths in bioengineering, nanotechnology, and translational research, Rice 360° develops affordable point-of-care diagnostics, with a focus on the detection of cancer and infectious diseases, point-of-use water monitoring and purification systems, and technologies to improve maternal and neonatal health.    

Working closely with partners in the developing world and the private sector, Rice 360° strives to make its technologies sustainably available in resource-poor communities around the world.  Rice 360° seeks to understand the cultural determinents influencing technology uptake, use locally available materials in technology development, and work with local and private sector partners to generate economic growth and innovation in resource-poor communities.  

Rice 360° has developed the country’s best undergraduate program in global health technologies, Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB).  Students in BTB work in interdisciplinary teams to design technologies that address challenges to healthcare delivery identified by clinicians in the developing world.  Exceptional students undertake international internships to implement their technologies under the guidance of physicians and nurses in clinics and hospitals in the developing world.