Passionate, committed, and selfless only begin to describe Tinotenda “Tino” Kuretu ’22, a student leader and social justice advocate who strives to work at the intersection of economic development and global health. From a young age, Tino began to wonder why some people die from easily treatable diseases like cholera and malaria while others thrive. “I was always intrigued by that question and how I could answer it,” Tino says. “Studying economic development has helped me understand how I can find solutions—and also how the global health field can help me reimagine how healthcare works in my home country of Zimbabwe.” Tino was attracted to Dartmouth because of the abundance of research opportunities for undergraduates and began his own research on molecular biology and drug discovery in the summer following his first year. As a sophomore, he began researching policy interventions for low-value care in the U.S. thanks to an E.E. Just Undergraduate Research Fellowship. The two-year award is designed to increase the number of underrepresented students
at Dartmouth who choose to enter a STEM doctoral program after graduation. Given his interests, it’s perhaps not surprising that Tino is also a budding social entrepreneur. He notes that one of his all-time favorite classes, “The Economics of Governments and Public Policy,” taught him about the many ways that education and healthcare can be accessed, which sparked his interest in social entrepreneurship. His first entrepreneurial venture was a result of a visit to nearby Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where he experienced firsthand the challenges of navigating healthcare settings in a country where most healthcare professionals do not share his first language. With the help of a $23,000 award from the Verizon and Clinton Global Initiative 2021 Social Innovation Challenge, Tino launched Macaw, an app that connects healthcare workers and patients with translators to allow them to communicate between any two languages in real time. “You can think of Macaw as the Uber of translation,” Tino says. “The app aims to fill the vacuum of the
many languages that are underrepresented in translation services.” Outside the classroom, Tino keeps busy as an executive board member of Dartmouth Coalition for Global Health and as a cofounder of the Sadie Alexander Organization, a student group dedicated to supporting underrepresented students in economics. Following graduation, he will begin work as an analyst at a healthcare consulting firm in Boston—but in the future, he envisions himself returning to his home country to work at the intersection of economic development and global health. His Dartmouth education has forged the path to that return. “I wanted to be at a place where my colleagues and professors would push me to change my way of thinking, and I can confidently say that Dartmouth’s academic rigor and freedom have made me change the way I think— not only as an intellectual but as a person.” —Sydney Wuu ’24
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IN AND OUT OF THE CLASSROOM, YOUR DARTMOUTH EXPERIENCE CAN CROSS INTELLECTUAL AND INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES.
