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Infant mortality in developing countries is depressingly high, with 3.6 million children dying each year in the neonatal period. Unlike many other global health issues, this one is easily fixable--cutting down on deficiencies of micronutrients like folic acid in women of childbearing age could dramatically reduce infant deaths. So last fall, Scientists Without Borders, a platform that crowdsources solutions to scientific problems, set out to work on the issue with a $10,000 challenge that asked entrants to solve the problem of folic acid deficiency in women throughout the developing world with simple, low-cost solutions.

In Africa, pregnant women are 135 times more likely to die during childbirth than their counterparts in developed Western economies.