This week was super interesting to me. I gained useful insight into how to identify and describe a need. However, coming into the week, I had a notion that I know how to describe a need. I had a belief that all you have to do is just observe and you can immediately tell what's missing.  I learned I was very wrong.

The ethnography model had me realize that my old way of thinking just imposed my beliefs on the need. That it is really important to get multiple inputs like background research, and interviews with those in the situation and other objective observers to mix with your own observations to define the need. Otherwise, you really are just taking one perspective to define a need which ultimately defines the solution.

The homework also really helped me with defining needs. What I quickly realized that in homework 4, I was defining needs with solution. For example, one of my needs for the Sierra Leone Clinic was an automatic weighing machine. I also realized the needs often boils down to essentials and like the lecture discussed, if we don't take much time with identify the need, we often come up with solutions with a lot of unessential bells and whistles. This is especially important to realize when coming up with solutions to needs for areas where resources are scarce.

Another important thing I realized was a lot of the needs of patients boils down to getting a diagnosis and prescription for their ailment in a reasonable fast manner. It got me a little more excited by my idea of an app that uses the patients symptoms and machine learning to give diagnoses and prescriptions to patients.