Life in Bhutan is difficult right now. Malaria has claimed thousands of lives. The infant mortality rate is at 47.3 out of every 1000 kids and is still increasing while life expectancy is at 66.5 and rapidly decreasing, according to World Bank, World Development Indicators. Besides all the problems humans face there, Bengal tigers are having trouble surviving.

The GHRF (Global Health Research Foundation) is attempting to help put an end to these unfortunate realities by developing a sophisticated Android Application that can both document Bhutan patients with malaria and track all Bengal tigers through a GPS Program.
Cathy Leather, who teaches Digital Photography and Animated Graphics, and along with her husband Mark Leather have taken the initiative to develop and test this application.
Since last November, juniors Kevin Garbe and Benjamin Yang have been helping to develop the Android Application for the Global Health Research Foundation (GHRF), a prototype of which has recently been presented to the Gates Foundation.
Garbe and Yang both worked on the project during their Digital Photography class instead of following the class curriculum.
“I’ve never programmed in an Android environment before. It was another good experience for me, to try out writing a real mobile application,” Yang said.
Mr. Leather, an avid programmer, wrote a lot of the program himself, but allowed Garbe and Yang to finish missing features which include GPS Location and built-in camera since the two showed an interest in programming.
The GPS location feature will allow animal rangers to tag their animals and keep track of them, so they do not run out of sight. Garbe is currently working on this aspect of the application.
“My code basically gives your location using the GPS service on the tablet,” Garbe said. “Testing out my program is a pain, because the computer doesn’t have a built in GPS for the program to operate on screen.”
This app is also designed to enable doctors to document their clients, with their patients’ medical records and all their information. Yang has successfully implemented the phone’s camera hardware into the application software. Doctors will now be able to take a mugshots of their clients.
Both juniors have experience in Java, a common computer language used to write programs. Yang is taking the AP Computer Science course, and Garbe took a course on computer science outside of school.
The Leathers presented their prototype to the Gates Foundation in late November. They displayed features which had included GPS tracking and also the medical record database in which they can record new prescriptions the patients are on or record any new illnesses they may have picked up.
Yang and Garbe finished the application late November and are now heading back into digital photography course work.
“I’ve found a new found respect for mobile app developers since developing for mobile phones and tablet is difficult,” Yang said.