“It Made All the Difference”
Logan Sackley thought he’d major in finance or strategy at the BYU Marriott School of Business, but after taking his introductory information systems class, he discovered a new passion.
Change people's lives at home and around the world
February 2018
The morning after Erica and Kindall Palmer’s son was born, he turned blue from lack of oxygen.
“He was instantly hooked up to all kinds of machines, and the doctors discovered he had a heart defect,” says Erica, a senior in communications. “A newborn ventilator helped him breathe for the next two months.”
This experience brought home to the Palmers the importance of ventilators, which are standard equipment in U.S. hospitals but not usually in developing countries due to their traditionally high cost.
The Palmers learned about BYU Marriott’s Ballard Center Y-Prize Challenge, a humanitarian competition which focused in 2016 on distributing low-cost ventilators developed by BYU engineering students in 2014. Joined by fellow BYU students and Dr. Stephen Minton, a neonatologist at Utah Valley Hospital, the Palmers developed a business plan to distribute the ventilators and won $75,000 to do so.
“We get used to what we have in the U.S., but the Ballard Center brings awareness of key issues that mil-lions of people are affected by every year,” says Kindall, a recent graduate in economics. “The more programs we can execute, the more blessings we and people around the world will receive.”
Logan Sackley thought he’d major in finance or strategy at the BYU Marriott School of Business, but after taking his introductory information systems class, he discovered a new passion.
BYU scholarship makes playing football and competing academically in other areas a possibility.
With long hours, late nights, and a tight deadline, Marriott School student Ether Tam and two colleagues produced a three-minute video for a nationwide marketing contest-and won.