The Future from the Past?

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Of course, this is a play on The Future in the Past by:

Romila Thapar (born 30 November 1931) is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent. Thapar is a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Thapar has received honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago, the University of Oxford, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, the University of Edinburgh, University of Calcutta, University of Hyderabad, Brown University, and the University of Pretoria. In 2008, Romila Thapar shared the US Library of Congress’s Kluge Prize, for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

And, I am back in India, for my annual vacation, and the very first thing I did after a good night sleep (and a wonderful breakfast at Taj, yes, Aloo Poori) was to go to Khan Market, to the bookstores, and get something to read about India written by an academic (see Language of the Gods in the World of Men). More on this book in a later post.

Just as I was leaving the US, we received this email:

Dear authors,

We are delighted to inform you that your submission to the Service Science Best DEIJ Paper Competition has been selected as a finalist. Congratulations!

Through a double-blind review process, the award committee considered the relevance of the submissions to DEIJ and service science subject matters, methodological and analytical rigor, and potential impact and uniqueness of the results. We were very impressed by the exceptional quality of all submissions showcasing the strength and diversity of research pursued by the Service Science Section members. Among this inspiring pool of submissions, your paper stands out as it is clearly relevant, rigorous, and your results have much potential for social impact.

The winners will be announced at the Service Science Business Meeting, scheduled at 6:30pm-7:30pm on October 16 (Monday). Please attend this meeting for the award ceremony and group pictures.

Here is our paper:

Dynamic Exception Points for Fair Liver Allocation

You may recall that static versions motivated by this policy have been studied in our AJT paper:

Awarding additional MELD points to the shortest waitlist candidates improves sex disparity in access to liver transplant in the United States

As I sat down for my breakfast at Taj, and opened the newspaper, I found this article:

Organ shortage continues to cost lives

As you know from a previous post, I am now collaborating with folks in India – IIMB faculty and Mohan Foundation – and here is their most recent progress:

Hi Sridhar

Firstly, we went ahead and connected with NIMHANS regarding their NTORC (non-transplant organ retrieval center) related activities. We had couple of meetings/visits to NIMHANS to understand their current status of affairs and offered to help them in improving their processes. They welcomed our ideas and seemed to be happy to work with us. We are currently in the process of signing a tripartite MoU between IIMB, Mohan Foundation and NIMHANS. Once that is done, we will start working with them and hope to create a role model NTORC from which other NTORCs can learn from.

Second, we are organizing a conference to bring all NTORCs in the country together, give them an opportunity to voice their concerns and challenges they face, brainstorm and come up with a set of recommendations based on these discussions. This conference is scheduled for 2nd and 3rd of September at IIMB campus…

Then this:

I am attaching the draft schedule with this email. The idea is to do a lot of ground work before hand with all the stakeholders, so that the discussions during the conclave can lead to a consensus towards the necessary policy recommendations. We hope that we can succeed in this endeavour and bring about a positive change in the organ supply from deceased donors.

Best

Haritha

Looking forward to seeing how ideas from the US, such as Nudge Videos that I mentioned in Making Death Enhance Life, can be made useful in India. Can the Future (of Transplantation in India) benefit from the Past (of Transplantation in the US)?

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