Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 59

The Value of Preparedness

Six weeks ago the devastating force of mother nature reminded us again how things can change in a matter of a few minutes. For the first time we were able to watch live images of the destructive power of tsunamis as they struck the coast of Japan following a massive 9.0 earthquake. I have spent most of my time since March 11th, working on supporting the NetHope member organizations active in Japan.

It now appears that over 27,000 people died as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami that followed. Over 500,000 people were affected and close to 70,000 families lost their homes. Many towns and villages along the coast were totally wiped out.

But instead of focusing in this blog post on the aftermath of the disaster then I rather want to focus on what didn’t happen because of how Japan has invested in disaster risk reduction activities or what is often called emergency preparedness.

It is my firm believe that if this disaster had struck any other country than Japan then we would have seen the number of deaths multiply by a factor of 5-10. Ever since the big Kobe earthquake in 1995, the Japanese have spent lot of effort on disaster risk reduction activities. This includes systems for monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis. This includes systems for warning about impeding earthquakes and tsunamis. It includes running training and awareness programs for citizens.

Japan has a very extensive network of earthquake detectors. These monitor both the S and P waves (see this Wikipedia article for a great overview of how the difference between those two waves can be used in early warning). When a strong earthquake is detected through these monitors then a public warning is issued. I got to experience this first hand when visiting Japan at the start of April when a series of 6.5-7.1 aftershocks struck within a 48 hour period. In one case I was in a meeting on the 31st floor of a building an through the loudspeakers we were told a strong earthquake had been detected and would arrive in 10-15 seconds. About 7 seconds later we could feel the tremor. This of course works best when the earthquake strikes at a bit of distance, but there are also examples, at least from Taiwan that I know of where this is used to automatically slow down high speed trains and open up elevator doors.

But more importantly on March 11th was the early warning and training on the potential of tsunamis. Japan being a country that “frequently” gets struck by tsunamis has developed a very good system of monitoring ocean movements, but also of warning people. Regular evacuation drills are done in coastal areas and people are educated on the dangers of tsunamis. It was especially this effort that saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives on March 11th.

It has often been said that a dollar spent on preparedness saves at least six dollars in response costs. With the March 11th earthquake being the most costly disaster ever worldwide, with at last $300 billions in material damage according to government estimates, that figure might easily have risen substantially and caused even greater effects on the overall world economy.

It is therefore important for donors and governments around the world to learn a lesson from the people of Japan. Even though it might sometime be difficult to justify spending money on preparedness it is at times like these that we are reminded of its value. Lets make strategic decisions to move in that direction before the images of the devastation in Japan are too easily forgotten.

On May 10th-13th, 2500 representatives of national governments, regional and international organizations, civil society and non-profit organizations come together for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. It is my challenge to those showing up there, including myself, that we put our money and action where our mouth is and not just talk about preparedness but actually start working full-force on preparedness activities that will pay off multiple times when the next disasters strike.

April 28, 2011/by actualize

Health, Infectious Diseases, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

World Malaria Day 2011

Photo Credit: TopNews

Yesterday commemorated the fourth World Malaria Day and increasingly ICTs are being used in the battle to fight against this deadly disease.

In 1997, Dr. Julia Royall was named the chief of international programs at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health to create a telecommunications network to support scientists working on the Malaria Multilateral Initiative in Africa.

Dr. Julia Royall Photo Credit: NIH

Dr. Royall explains that she soon became interested in, “NLM’s attempt to reach the end user with information”.

In 2007-2008, Dr. Royall was a Fulbright Scholar in Uganda and traveled to a Mifumi, a remote village in the Eastern district or Tororo, Uganda to conduct research on 300 received bed nets that had been received.

Along with a team of medical students from Uganda’s Makerere University Faculty of Medicine they conducted an observational survey to see how the 300 families were using bed nets to protect themselves from malaria carrying mosquitoes.

She quickly discovered that nets were not being used properly due to widespread misunderstandings about the disease and the purpose of how to use the nets themselves within the community.

In the village, they eat outside at dusk when mosquitos presence is at a peak; believe that health effects of malaria are due to “witchcraft”; and standing water around houses attracts the bugs near windows and doorways.

The World Health Organization has reported a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds in Africa.

After this baseline research, Dr. Royall passionately pursued developing a new method to demonstrate that information can be targeted to improve health awareness among underserved populations in Africa.

She decided to work with the local community to produce informational tutorials on malaria prevention, which Dr. Royall deems as “health information intervention”.

Dr. Royall with Makerere University Medical Students Photo Credit: NIH

Collaborating with Makerere University medical faculty, students, and a team of artists and translators, she produced an interactive tutorial to try and discover if ICTs have an impact on malaria mortality rates.

Dr. Royall field tested the malaria tutorial in the Mifumi village villages by students and then translated into three local languages: Luganda, Runyankole, and Luo. She wanted to see how this ICT could be used:

We wanted to see if such a ‘health information intervention’ from NLM through medlineplus.gov could make a difference

Makerere University medical students then took the lead in making and distributing booklets, posters and audio CD formats to be used on the radio, an important communication tool in rural Uganda.

Dr. Royall was adamant about making the content culturally relevant to ensure overall sustainability. Cultural context also has an affect on the results of preventative malaria campaigns.

“We had to be careful,” she said, “about working with these communities to define what the products would look like.”

Screen shot of the tutorials in English

Her health information intervention tutorials have resulted in reduced mortality in Eastern Uganda:

ICT interventions, are making a difference at the village level

Dr. Royall’s virtual tutorials have promise for other malaria prevention projects facing similar barriers. All of the materials are available online here to anyone with access to the Internet in the five languages (Luo, Japadhola, Luganda, Runyankole Swahili and English)

In addition to the tutorials, health workers can use a laminated presentation to explain how malaria works and there is also an audio version in the five languages available for radio broadcast and illiterate communities.

View this video on her story:

April 26, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Farm Extension Services: an Update

Photo Credit: Mr.S.Vithiyatharan

Two weeks ago, USAID held an event on the current initiatives using ICT to strengthen Farm Extension Services (FES). Judy Payne, ICT Advisor at USAID, was joined by Chris Locke, Managing Director GSMA Development Fund, to update the ICT4D community on new initiatives, approaches, and challenges in FES.

To start the discussion, Judy Payne provided an overview of some promising examples under USAID’s Fostering Agriculture Competitiveness Employing Information Communication Technologies Project (FACET). Some of these include Reuters Marketing Light, Mali Shambani, Community Knowledge Worker, Manobi, and Digital Green. She did not linger on the technicalities of these projects, opting to focus on how new technologies can complement traditional tactics for the most sustainable use.

The combination of the “push” and “pull” information allows a feedback loop from the farmer to the organization, crucial for monitoring and evaluation. “Push” services are those are those that are being used to provide the farmer with information, such market information through SMS or voicemail. “Pull” services consists of the feedback from the farmer, such as their queries on demand in the market via SMS.

Ms. Payne asserted that the combination of new ICTs with more traditional tactics, such as face-to-face training and verbal feedback, are necessary for the most efficient implementation.

She also explained that collaborative new business models, such as sponsor mobile network operators (MNO) and farmer pay services, are non-agricultural components of FES that ensure well-defined distribution channels and access to users.

Chris Locke, Managing Director, GSMA Development Fund

Chris Locke of the GSMA Development Fund echoed the importance of leveraging the private sector and combining ICT channels for FES in current e-agriculture projects.

The Development Fund works with mobile operators to accelerate mobile solutions for people living on under US$2 per day. They have been working with the Gates Foundation and USAID on a new e-agri initiative called mFarmer in Kenya and India.

Currently in its second phase of the project, the goal of the mFarmer program is to work with MNOs and partners to support the launch of quality agricultural value-added-services accessibly to over 2 million smallholder farmers. The program aims to provide a sustainable way for farmers to obtain critical agricultural information that can help them improve their farm productivity and income.

The role of GSMA in this program is to develop this content database for ICT-enabled farm extension services to share and create, but building alliances with local MNOs is equally important.

Mr. Locke discussed how partnerships with local MNOs play a major role in disseminating information in developing areas. Local private sector involvement allows organizations to tap into previously established distribution channels that are culturally relevant and have widespread reach.

Unlocking the power of MNOs provides potential nation wide scalability. He argued these are distribution channels where:

Operators have the capacity to spread it across at a national level

Post-discussion, it was apparent (as it always is) that there has to be more than just the use of ICTs to help rural farmers in FES projects. ICT channels should be complemented with traditional tactics to heighten impact and sustainability; and organizations should establish alliances with local MNOs to leverage their local distribution channels.

April 25, 2011/by actualize

Anti-corruption, Democracy & Governance, Elections, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Using Mobiles to Monitor the 2011 Nigerian Elections

woman placing paper ballot for Nigerian elections

Photo Credit: DailyMail

For many of the 73 million registered voters in Nigeria, the decision they were faced with on election day was not just who to vote for, but how to cast their ballot safely.

This year’s election, only the 3rd national election held in Nigeria since military rule ended in 1999 was fraught with difficulties and confusion, including two postponements of the election after what officials call “logistical problems.” Previous votes- in 2003 and 2007 – were marred by allegations of widespread ballot stuffing, voter intimidation, and violence.

Amidst this backdrop, Nigerian voters turned to social media and mobile apps to help them make their voices heard.

Mobile phone applications and SMS were utilized to monitor and evaluate official election results and processes. Looping this information back to Nigerian citizens empowered their action and created an effective and transparent means for free and fair electoral processes.

One application called ReVoDa, is part of the EnoughisEnough (EIE) Nigeria’s RSVP campaign, and connected voters to monitor and evaluate the entire election processes. This is a medium where citizens could report incidents such as ballot box thefts, violence, the late arrival of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials, police behaviors, and ultimately, the election results. INEC officials are responsible for running the elections, thus they represented the voice of the people to the authorities.

With ReVoDa, EiE Nigeria had the potential to turns the 87,297,789 Nigerians with mobile phones, 43,982,200 with Internet access and 2,985,680 on Facebook into informal election reporters.

ReVoDa allowed voters to report as independent citizen their observations from their respective

polling units across Nigeria, having registered to map their mobile number, name and polling unit number to specific locations. This allowed EiE Nigeria to send relevant information about the electoral process to registered users; and users can view and share reports of electoral processes with one another.

Subsequent to their connectivity, users could choose from the ReVoDa Mobile App or connect via regular SMS, the latter seems to a more popular alternative. Users would create a profile, enter their Polling Unit Code and Name and are then registered on the EiE Nigeria network.

A week prior to the polls opening, ReVoDa, was downloaded by over 7,700 people. Building on the reports received on April 9 for the National Assembly elections, they saw 466 new incident reports from ReVoDa users across 35 of 37 states – compared with 27 states the week before.

Report map of final election results

A similar program called ReclaimNaija has corresponding aims, but provides deliverable reports directly to the

corresponding electoral bodies.

ReclaimNaija uses FrontlineSMS to receive and send text messages reports, and Ushahidi to visually map the election reports. Alike to ReVoDa, ReclaimNaija makes it possible for citizens to monitor the electoral process and report incidents of electoral fraud.

Unlike ReVoDa though, ReclaimNaija has a direct line of communication with electoral officials. Instead of having a database that merely aggregates information and contains reports, they send the reports directly to INEC. By providing evidence of detrimental electoral processes, it can be combated and corrected.

Femi Taiwo, a member of INITS Limited, a Nigerian company that helped set up the technical side of ReclaimNaija’s monitoring system, says:

On election days, citizens have been frustrated by a number of things; missing names, seeing ballot boxes stuffed or even stolen and other electoral fraud and yet being unable to do anything about this. This time however, is the time to speak out”

ReclaimNaija's map of the final election numbers

ReclaimNaija uses FrontlinSMS or calling dedicated numbers in four major languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and Pidgin) as the gateway platforms to placing reports to promote electoral transparency.

Another difference between these two programs is that ReclaimNaija achieved a large amount of participation through voter education forums for community leaders, spread across Nigeria’s 36 states, and the capital Abuja. By engaging community based social networks, they ensured the information got across to large segments of society and has been crucial to RecalimNaija’s monitoring and evaluation.

Public launch of the reclaimnaija.net citizens reporting platform on the 2011 elections

Public launch of the reclaimnaija.net citizens on the 2011 elections

During the January 2011 Voters Registration Exercise, ReclaimNaija received 15,000 reports from the public over two weeks, highlighting the importance to have a election monitoring service to offset problems and expose fraud.

The election registration process proved this; on receiving messages about problems such as lack of registration cards, ReclaimNaija was often able to communicate with the INEC, thus helping improve the efficiency of the registration process.

One message received through ReclaimNaija during the first attempt at the National Assembly election said:

more than half of registered voters here [in my voting station] couldn’t find their names… Is this an attempt to reduce the number of voters in Lagos?

These type of citizen based reports and monitoring systems have become a valuable source of information for the INEC to create an environment for fair and balanced elections. ReclaimNaija collate reports and send directly on to the INEC in real time.

“If the INEC hadn’t seen these reports they would not have known about the level of problems being experienced by Nigerians; there would not have been this kind of proof” says Linda Kamau, an Ushahidi developer was in Nigeria to see the launch of ReclaimNaija system.

Kayode R. Idowu, Chief Press Secretary for the INEC Chairman, responded positively to ReclaimNaija and citizens actively reporting incidents to the Commission, “…through SMS and voice calls on phones, or by emailing. Such reports should reflect useful details such as location, time and action involved in the incident, to enable the Commission respond appropriately”.

Clearly, there is a great power in leveraging the use of ICTs to ensure that Nigerian voices were heard in this past election and streamline the efficiency and safety of the electoral process.

April 21, 2011/by actualize

Business Enabling Environment, Economic Growth & Trade, Economic Policy and Governance, Enterprise Development, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Morocco Launches Project to Fund Innovations

Morocco has launched three new projects, including a $US 65 million research fund, to encourage partnerships between researchers and businesses and boost investments on cutting edge innovations.

The project includes building four new ‘innovation cities’—science and technology hubs that will host research centers, specialized companies and business incubators—will establish the Moroccan Center for Innovation (MCI), and three research funds worth $US 65 million.

Moroccan education minister Ahmed Akhchichine said that three innovation cities will be built this year in Fez, Marrakech and Rabat, and the preparations for a fourth center in Casablanca are underway and will be ready next year.

The goal of the Moroccan Centre for Innovation, who leads the strategy, is to track down potential inventors at the country’s universities and provide them with the financial backing to implement their innovations.

The funds will support grants for young researchers, and the research and development divisions of certain companies according to Ahmed Reda Chami, Morocco’s minister of industry, commerce and new technologies.

Youssef Ait Ali, an inventor, said that these grants could help in removing the financial blockades that have continuously obstruct the rolling out of new inventions.

“The government is prepared to raise the amounts that are budgeted for encouraging innovation and creativity to keep up with the demand,” Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar said.

We’re waiting for your proposals, ideas and projects, and we will provide the necessary means to realise them on the ground

These government-backed initiatives have the financial and regulatory framework to heighten and sustain innovation throughout the country. Akhchichine is hopeful at this projects prospects, “Last year, Moroccan universities managed to produce 40 patents, compared with less than 10 patents in the previous year”, he said, giving credit to the government incentives.

Moroccan inventors and innovations unions welcomed the new projects but emphasized that there is still a long way to go for the country to maintain a threshold of innovation,

Abderrahim Boumediane, president of the Moroccan Inventors and Innovators Association, said most of the government’s reforms in the innovation field could turn out to be ineffective as, “Morocco still doesn’t have a ministry for scientific research”, which hampers the sustainability of such projects.

However, according to Akhchichine, the government is currently working to reform this measure and is in the process of creating a legal and regulatory framework for scientific research.

April 18, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Rural Connectivity Challenge: Extending Access to the Rural Edge

Photo source: PCFastlane

Over the past several years a tremendous amount of progress has been made in narrowing the urban-rural “Digital Divide.” This has primarily been accomplished through market liberalization and subsequent build out of mobile networks–some of which reach into rural localities.

While this urban-rural gap is being narrowed, this is not universal. Further, it is primarily a voice phenomenon. With regards to Internet and specifically broadband, this divide remains, and in relative terms it continues to grow even wider in most rural locations.

A May 2008 report from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) report entitled, “Measuring Information and Communication Technology Available in Villages and Rural Areas,” defines this challenge in the following manner:

At the time of the report, the total population of developing countries stood at 5.1 billion;
Of this total, approximately 56 percent, or 2.85 billion lived in rural areas;
This rural population lived in 2.96 million discrete rural localities, with an average population of 1,826.

More recent data estimates while there are approximately 5.0 billion mobile subscribers world wide–out of a world population of 6.7-6.8 billion, somewhere between a population of 1.0 and 1.5 billion live in rural localities where they are without any mobile coverage. A likely near-equal number are without “affordable” coverage.

The Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) Program places a priority on addressing this urban-rural gap, with a focus on two key areas;

Enhancing Universal Service Funds (USFs), and
Promoting deployment of low cost connectivity solutions.

Universal Service Funds–A growing number of countries have established USFs, however, often these are not well designed to reach optimal benefit, nor are they managed such as to provide maximum value. The GBI has been designed to provide targeted technical assistance (TA) to help countries with better design and operations of their USFs. Current efforts are underway in partnership with Intel in carrying out a series of regional USF Workshops to move this agenda forward. Another project is underway in Africa through support of the Africa Bureau, to provide TA to a number of countries where TA will make a near-term impact.

The focus of USFs is no longer simply placing a phone or two into a rural community, but rather seeking to leverage both broadband and voice connectivity for expanding socioeconomic opportunities into these rural communities.

Nor is the focus such as to create an approach for subsidizing on-going operations of carriers operating in rural localities. There is also a focus on leveraging USFs to fund needed CapEx, where–where by working with the carriers and high tech firms producing low-cost solutions, financially sustainable approach can be deployed for connecting the lower-income, lower-density rural communities.

Low Cost Broadband and Voice Solutions–This parallel effort is also being undertaken by the GBI Program. Here the GBI is engaged in research and dialog to identify low-cost rural connectivity solutions. This focus is on providing wireless community-wide convergent networks that provide both broadband and voice services.

Preliminary research has uncovered a small but growing number of innovative solutions now being commercialized. A potential new set of technologies, Femtocells, hold significant promise in lowering the capital and operating costs for reaching into lower-income, lower-density rural communities. Several of these are solar powered solutions such they they can provide affordable coverage in areas where there is not access to a national power grid.

The GBI program has informally partnered with Femto Forum—a global Femtocell industry group and the Global VSAT Forum, a global satellite industry group, to further explore the technical and financial viability of these technologies. Discussions are underway to build off of their respective strengths towards delivering scalable, replicable, and sustainable solutions that reach even further into remote rural locations. And with this expanded connectivity, delivering access to a wide range of socioeconomic services.

Other lower-cost solution sets are being explored with regard to meeting this low-cost requirement. This exploration has included proof-of-concept trial configurations here in the U.S., as well as working with satellite and femtocell firms on broader scale international deployments.

The combination of USFs and the emerging lower-cost solutions more suitable for rural settings, hold the promise of ultimately eliminating the urban-rural “digital divide.” The GBI is working towards accelerating this where possible.

April 12, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Ecuador: eAgri Fairtade Banana Farmers Digitalize

Photography by Glenn Edwards

Ecuadorian banana Fairtrade association La Asociación de Pequeños Productores Bananeros (APPBG) has recognized the potential of going digital.

In Ecuador, the association has received computers and training from Computer Aid to help improve farmers access to the marketplace and improve IT literacy to boost rural livelihoods.

APPBG in el Guabo, is one of the largest Fairtrade associations in Ecuador’s rural El Oro region. With a membership of over 450 small to medium sized banana producers, APPBG export 50,000 boxes of bananas a week, which are then exported to Europe.

Producers who sell through APPBG cooperative are guaranteed a stable price, which covers the cost of production when market prices go down. As a Fairtrade Labeling Organisation (FLO) approved body, APPBG provides an equitable platform from which to trade in international markets. The association also encourages consumers to make ethical considerations when purchasing imported products. FLOs are able to issue the Fairtrade logo, which is now recognized around the world as a guarantee that producers have received a fair price for their goods.

In addition to guaranteed prices for their produce, members also benefit from the association’s social projects. The computers are being used to strengthen Trade Union activity in a country with limited enforcement of worker’s rights and are also being used to improve day-to-day operations within this fast growing enterprise.

Close to Ecuador’s southern boarder, APPBG has established a network of 17 primary schools for the families of its producers. Indigenous children in these schools are now using PCs donated to provide them with the opportunity to become ICT literate.

The integration of ICTs into the APPBG association’s will help streamline their accessibility to the marketplace and the training will help sustain their efforts.

April 11, 2011/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Enterprise Development, MicroEnterprise Development, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Future of BPO: “Cherry Blossoming,” “Gold Farming,” and “Microwork”?

Usually our discussions of ICT and economic growth follow a familiar narrative: how can we use ICTs to more efficiently perform economic tasks? We take this line of discussion because we know that efficiency is productivity, and productivity improvements lead to economic growth.

But a recent book published by the World Bank, called “Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy,” suggests that this line of thought is boxing us in. Instead, it argues, we should ask “what completely new markets have been created by ICT growth, and how can poor people lead the way in these new industries?” If this sounds fanciful consider the following: last year a man in California paid $500 in an online auction for a “virtual” castle. We are not talking about a crumbling, stone-and-mortar, historical relic here; but rather a few lines of code that generate a castle that the buyer can use as a base for his virtual armies in an online video game. He bought this castle from a company in China that creates (and speculates in) these types of virtual products. This Chinese company employs young people, mostly male, from lower class or working class backgrounds. The workers have a decent education but little opportunity, and they are making a healthy living in a completely new industry that offers returns too low to seriously interest anyone in the developed world. But for them it’s a gold mine.

Or rather it’s a “gold farm,” which is the term that has come into use to describe these types of companies (the industry as a whole is known as “gold farming”). Gold farming was a $3 billion industry globally in 2010, and generated jobs for 100,000 full time equivalent workers. But, of the new opportunities identified by the report it is the most demanding of its workers. Other new industries can employ people with less-advanced skill sets.

One of these is called “Cherry Blossoming.” Derived from a Japanese-language slang expression (“Sakura” in Japanese means both “cherry blossom” and “paid spectator”) the name refers to an industry that sells social media “status” to companies looking to use these tools as part of their marketing strategy. For example, a company that has just started a Twitter feed may not want to go through a growth period where they have only a few followers, for fear that this low number will reflect poorly on their product or business. So “cherry blossoming” firms offer these companies the opportunity to buy Twitter followers, by the thousands. Similarly, they sell “Facebook likes.”

This business involves a large number of extremely small tasks that each generate a very low return for the company. A worker will sit at a terminal and, using a host of different profiles and accounts, “like” or “follow” their client companies. Each “like” may only take a few moments, and earn the company only a few cents. For example, a quick Google search will reveal that it is possible to buy 1000 Twitter followers for $20. This type of repetitive, low-margin work does not interest developed world companies, but in the developing world it can offer reliable income to poorly educated people who don’t have any other opportunities.

Though Cherry Blossoming is controversial, it is representative of the emerging field of “microwork,” which on the whole is not. Microwork is usually defined as a task that takes under 30 seconds to complete. Companies throughout the world have lots of this work to do, and it is now possible to parse tasks out and have them done by the very poor in the developing world.

Samasource, a non-profit organization focused on generating employment opportunities in Kenya, is one organziation that does this. They contract with large firms, in this case Silicon Valley tech firms, and perform microtask after microtask out of large telecenters the organization sets up in Africa. The group’s first contract involved digitizing text. This is often difficult for a computer to do, and near impossible if the document to be digitized is handwritten. So Samasource workers will look at scanned copies of the document and manually type in words that the software cannot comprehend. This does not even require the worker to be literate – they just need to be able to recognize all the letters by shape and match them to the keyboard. Samasource has expanded into other small tasks as well, such as vetting sites for inappropriate images and video, and verifying business listings for crowd-sourced yellow-pages sites.

Performing these micro-tasks gives “dignified digital work” to poor people, as Samasource puts it. They have even managed to set up and operate a successful business that employs many people in a refugee camp in Dadaab, on the Kenya-Somalia border.

The next iteration of micro-task work is to find a way to do it on mobile phones. The industry isn’t quite there yet, but once it is there will be no geographic limit to who can easily make a living out of the digital economy. This is the next generation of business process outsourcing, and it holds the potential to employ many poor and at-risk youth in the developing world.

If this discussion gives you any ideas, you may want to try to develop them. The World Bank is considering holding a “Mobile Micro-work Challenge,” where they would fund promising start-ups in the field.

April 8, 2011/by actualize

Asia, Connectivity, Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Where we work

Connectivity and Governance: World Bank ICT Days 2011

What role should governments play in leading their citizens down the path to become actively engaged in the knowledge society? It varies greatly on the availability, motivations, and agenda behind the corresponding country’s use of ICTs.

Last week, the World Bank held the highly anticipated four ICT Days, which explored the multifaceted functions of ICTs and how governments can use them to, “Innovate, Connect and Transform” civil society in developing nations.

During the “Connectivity Infrastructure Day”, two speakers from different regions discussed their country’s distinctive agendas and how their government’s involvement of ICTs is enveloped within their economic development reforms.

While Korea Telecom’s (KT) Vice President, Dr. Hansuk Kim, discussed the prospects of nation wide interconnectivity in Rwanda; India’s Ministry of Communication and IT Secretary, Shankar Aggarwal, unveiled his country’s e-government initiatives.

In 2008, KT made a US$40 million deal to collaborate with Rwanda’s government to construct a national backbone project expected to connect the country on a fiber-optic network. The contract obliges KT to provide the government with technology, equipment, relevant application materials and training and to manage the cable installation process. KT will also install a wireless broadband network that will be accessible to 10,000 people in Kigali.

Dr. Kim discussed how Rwanda’s proximity to other African countries, such as Burundi, Tanzania, and the Congo, can serve as a potential customer base. In the future, these countries could use Rwanda’s backbone infrastructure to serve as interconnect points.

Kim also argued that a top-down approach is necessary for large-scale investments in developing economies. He states that the supplier should be on location, and relying solely on private investment can result in fragmented connectivity, so “the government had to initiate the development cycle by giving it a jumpstart. It (the connectivity) has to start somewhere.” Please view the video below to see his argument against the common notion that a government subsidized infrastructure, would inadvertently produce a government owned monopoly:

Once completed, Rwanda’s national backbone will possess the capability to enable online activities requiring high speed, broadband Internet. This includes initiating e-government services, to integrate citizens in the governing processes, similar to the e-government proposal that India has been working on for some time.

Shankar Aggarwal, secretary of the Ministry of Communications and IT in India, spoke at the World Bank event about this new e-governance initiative by the government to make public services, and governance regulations, more inclusive and transparent.

India is a country that has experienced monumental economic growth in the last 5 years—but the distribution of wealth to its 1.2 billion residents remains extremely imbalanced. 70% of the total population lives in rural areas and survive off less than a dollar a day.

India is at a crossroads in their development, as aspirations and hopes increase, those left behind are no longer content to live out the remainder of their lives in poverty. E-governance presents the opportunity to include these individuals in the governance process.

Aggarwal noted that India’s growth will be harnessed without involving the rural poor in governing their country, “if we want to have a sustainable growth, if we want to have happy societies, we have to go in to an inclusive growth…where each and every resident of that country feels that they are part of the governance process”. He began his speech by arguing that the catalyst for the current protests in the Middle East were societies are not being inclusive of citizens in their governing processes.

Please view the following video where he discusses the future of India’s e-governance initiatives for citizen’s inclusion.

The role of these governments to actively expand their connectivity and infrastructure is one that has a common goal: to include their citizens in the knowledge society. Whether it is using public funds for a start up backbone infrastructure, or creating an e-government initiative to make government processes more inclusive, governments from around the world are channeling into the benefits of being interconnected.

April 7, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health Systems, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Cell Phone Attachment Helps/Manages Malaria

Today is World Health Day 2011 and theme this year is on antimicrobial resistance. In developing countries, one of the most pressing health issues is malaria, with a high morbidity and mortality rate. Rapid diagnosis and prompt treatment are most basic managerial elements on how to circumvent this vicious disease. The attachment of a microscope onto a cell phone, known as Cellscope, can help with these diagnoses.

View the Prezi below to see how the innovative mHealth tool can help rural health workers.

Copy of CellScope Story on Prezi

April 7, 2011/by actualize