I interned at Research Triangle Institute-Global India, a subsidiary of RTI. RTI is a nonprofit organization that conducts research in diverse areas such as health and pharmaceuticals, education and training, surveys and statistics, advanced technology, international development, economic and social policy, energy and the environment, and laboratory testing and chemical analysis. They “work with governments, businesses, foundations, universities, and other clients and partners to improve the human condition by turning knowledge into practice.” RTI operates in over 75 countries and has offices across four continents, with the headquarters in North Carolina.
RTI has many connections with medical colleges and government officials in India. Dr. Suneeta Krishnan and her team were able to leverage these past collaborations and partnerships for this project, by recruiting interviewers and data collectors as well as stakeholders. For example, to gather the perspective of women who live in urban slums, the RTI team had reached out to Coimbatore medical college. Because they had interviewed and been connected with these stakeholders in the past, the school probably would have recruited more participants than RTI could. Therefore, RTI trained people employed at the college on the interview process and was able to receive valuable data from them.
Further, through RTI, Dr. Krishnan is able to explore many projects. National organizations reach out to RTI for collaborations. For example, the Indian Cancer Society reached out to us about ideas regarding how to design the Indian-equivalent of cancer.gov to spread cancer awareness. RTI maintains a presence so that such clients can reach out to them. For example, one of my co-workers was making a promotional video to showcase the viewpoints of medical professionals in India by taking video shots of Indian landmarks and hospitals.
Sometimes when I went on weekends to New Delhi to visit family, I would work in the Delhi office on Monday’s or Friday’s. This main office had great facilities (computers, plenty of office space, etc), food (a small cafeteria), and wifi. Although there was no wifi at the Bangalore office, St. Johns also had well-maintained facilities.
One of the main problems at the Bangalore office was that there was no wifi, and all the wired computers were often taken. Although I had bought data to access the Internet, it was extremely slow. Therefore, I would sometimes have delays in work due to this. Especially because the office has a high turnover for people (interns, visiting researchers, rotational office workers), having a central wifi system instead of making everyone arrange their own wifi would make the research process more efficient.
Currently, the RTI team in India are mainly involved with projects related to cancer and domestic violence. The next step may be to grow the team and the diversity of projects to areas such as education and technology.
Recent Comments