Norway: Day 2 and 3

The team has spent the last two days at Laerdal Global Health in Stavanger, Norway interacting with Tore Laerdal himself and a number of his employees.This experience has been a wonderful immersion into the culture of the company in order to understand their mission, motivation and strategy for carrying out their goals in collaboration with organizations like Jhpiego and CBID. We've heard lots of presentations from employees who have had first hand field experiences in the field, toured the facility and been through a couple of interactive training sessions.

On Monday, the presentations were focused on learning about the history of Laerdal, the meaning of innovation and how they have been able to make an impact in the world by helping to save lives. Tore Laerdal spoke about the company's goal of "helping to save 500,000 people by 2015" and I must say; I was inspired by the passion and conviction with which he spoke! I also admired the level of specialization the company has, and its ability to pick and chose projects based on is core competencies yet adapt solutions to the need and country of implementation. Monica Thallinger a pediatrician spoke about her missions in Afghanistan, Somalia and 4 other countries and the challenges presented by each country. Rashmi talked about the success of certain training programs she has been able to implement in India with the support of the government, and Kidanto, a Tanzanian obstetrician discussed the need in Tanzania and the development of a new fetal heart monitor the Moyo. We learned about the success and recognition of "Helping Babies Breathe (HBB)" and the "Helping Mothers Survive (HMS)" training tools as well as how they were implemented.
The exciting part of the day involved touring the facility and playing with different training tools.

Aaron learning how to perform resuscitation on a baby. 

After a fun day at Laerdal, we were off to one of the best preserved medieval monasteries in Norway, Utstein Abbey, to learn about the history of Norway. 

 Allie enjoying the view outside Ustein Abbey

 Our wonderful tour guide Tor told us several historical stories about Norway that led to the formation of the monastery.After which we listened to beautiful songs in the chapel and ate at the oldest dining hall in Norway.

Tor our tour guide in the oldest dining hall in Norway

On Wednesday we continued to learn about the training tools developed by Laerdal, from a more technological standpoint. Tor Inge Garvik who leads project development explained the importance of being able to judge the success of a project early on in the development life-cycle. Next we got to see all the prototypes that were developed and learn how to use different tools. It often takes several iterations to come up with an efficient design!~ Don't be afraid to fail and don't get too emotionally attached to each prototype!

 

Patience holding the Neo Nathalie and trying out the new wrap used for kangaroo mother care 

The day ended with an interactive design training workshop with Paulina and Cansu. This session introduced us to some of techniques used by Laerdal to identify user needs and modify the design based on insight and user feedback.

Some of us had a picnic style dinner with Sunny Chen (a Hopkins alumnus) by the water side which was amazing!

Ian and the rest of the group at the picnic

General insights about Norway:

• Everything is expensive
• Stores close early (around 5pm)
• The food is delicious; especially the fish (salmon, monk fish, etc) and bread!
• Festivities are huge