The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2015

14 JANUARY FEBRUARY 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA Dissent Awards afsa.org/awards AFSA Scholarship AFSA.org/Scholar AFSPA AFSPA.org Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. ameripriseadvisors.com/ theodore.s.davis Clements Worldwide clements.com Embassy Risk Management Embassyrisk.com The Hirshorn Company Hirshorn.com/USFS IE School of International Relations Mir.ie.edu Inside A U.S. Embassy afsa.org/Inside McGrath Real Estate Services McGrathRealEstate.com PROMAX Management Inc. promaxrealtors.com University of Kentucky/ Patterson School www.pattersonschool.uky.edu WJD Management wjdpm.com USAID notes that the maximum amount of time aid workers can stand to wear the suit without a break in the hot climate is 40 minutes, severely limiting the time they can spend caring for the sick and dying. To nd a solution to this problem, USAID joined with the White House O ce of Science and Technology, the Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion and the Department of Defense to launch “Fighting Ebola: A Grand Chal- lenge for Development.” Part of a programUSAID rolled out in 2011, the “Grand Challenge” initiatives are rooted in the agency’s belief that sci- ence and technology can have “transfor- mational e ects,” and that engaging the world in the quest for solutions is “critical to instigating breakthrough progress.” ( ere have been ve previous Grand Challenges, covering literacy, safe water and maternal health). e Ebola Grand Challenge (see www. ebolagrandchallenge.net) seeks to iden- tify ideas that would deliver practical and cost-e ective innovations quickly. e prize for the winning ideas is $5 million in grant money. e challenge opened for submis- sions in early October and accepted ideas through a formal grant process and through an open platform. As the open platformwebsite noted, “some of the brightest solutions may be found in the most unthinkable corners.” (To view some of the open platform ideas see https://openideo.com/content/ ghting-ebola.) USAID reports that 1,250 ideas were submitted: 600 through the open innova- tion platform and 650 through the formal grant process. Of these, 25 semi nalists were invited to Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges fromUSAID, CDC and DoD. Five nalists were selected from this group to go on to the next stage. e ideas pitched took novel approaches to the problems of the hot PPE suits. One group of undergradu- ate students from Columbia University demonstrated a suit that included an internal cooling pouch and an absorbent lining to soak up sweat. Another company group pitched cooling packs—originally intended for athletes—as inserts for the PPE suits. Wendy Taylor, director of USAID’s Center for Accelerating Innovation, told e Washington Post that USAID will help selected teams create prototypes and mass-produce the designs quickly. USAID announced the winner of the Ebola Grand Challenge as this issue went to press. Look for more in the March edtion of “Talking Points.” —Debra Blome, Associate Editor Reel vs. Real N ov. 4 was not just Election Day, but also the 35th anniversary of the rst day of the Iran hostage crisis. To mark the occasion, the Central Intelligence Agency’s social media team spent the day sending 20 tweets about “Argo,” Ben A eck’s 2012 lm about the CIA’s rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the crisis. ose tweets are now available in a slideshow contrasting the “Reel Argo” with the “Real Argo” at: www.bit.ly/ Argo_factcheck. Of course, faithful FSJ readers are already well aware of the di erences between the ctionalized account and what actually happened. We ran FSO Mark Lijek’s rst-person account, “‘Argo’: How Hollywood Does History,” in the October 2012 issue. —Steven Alan Honley, Contributing Editor