As the host of this podcast, I am in a unique position to hear first-hand from people who are having an incredible impact on the world in such an amazing variety of ways, which in my role, I then have the pleasure of sharing with our listeners. While each episode of the podcast communicates an important discovery or significant impact, it’s seemed like a number of recent episodes, at least in my eyes and ears, have captured stories of the impact of O.R. and analytics that regardless of whether you have a background in these fields, are pretty inspiring.

From reducing poaching to help revitalize populations of wild tigers, to helping teach AI to think more like we do, to helping craft better policies to protect and better serve some of our most vulnerable dialysis patients, to interviews featuring the 2022 Franz Edelman Award finalist teams, these episodes have shared stories of brining together skilled people from a variety of fields, organizations and backgrounds to collaborate on addressing significant problems across the globe.

And I’m excited to share that today’s episode, is no exception. Joining me is Ayan Mukhopadhyay, a research scientist with Vanderbilt University and one of the recipients of the 2021 Google AI for Social Good Impact Scholar Award. Ayan is involved in a number of projects that are having a significant positive impact on the world around us, but today we’ll be talking in particular about his work with HelpMum, a non-profit organization based in Nigeria dedicated to improving the lives of African mothers and children.