Perhaps the biggest thing to come out of this years famed South By Southwest Conference (SXSWi) was the GroupMe app. And since there’s basically an app for everything, we need to wonder what is so special about this one. What has captured the attention of tech nerds, and social network junkies all over the US? (more…)
Tag: mobile phones
Deep in the “Chaco” of Paraguay where farmers live under two dollars a day, resides a budding entrepreneur named Alfonso Parada. “I took out a loan to start my farming business and with the profits I’ll send myself to IT school,” he told me. “I want to become a computer programmer and give a good life to my family.” Then he showed me his most recent investment: a cell phone that housed two SIM cards from different service providers. “I need to make sure I always have coverage and get the cheapest rates wherever I am.” Alfonso’s access to a mobile phone in one of the least physically accessible areas of South America is a symbol of communication equity. (more…)
While the world’s eyes are on Egypt, it is imperative not to forget the struggle in Belarus, which has entered a new phase following the December 2010 election. The aftermath of the recent elections in Belarus sent shockwaves around Europe; it also provides a crucial test for the Obama Administration’s attitudes towards human rights. In Belarus, the 19 December 2010 election, marked by widespread fraud, was followed with wide demonstrations by the opposition. In the month afterwards, the Belarusian regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka has engaged in a broad crackdown, arresting over 600 activists and 7 of the presidential candidates. In addition to those of the opposition, social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and even Google Talk and Gmail were blocked in Minsk. Human rights groups, independent media and other NGOs have been pressured to close or suffered online attacks against their websites in addition to threats and tirades from Minsk. (more…)
Mobile health technologies are one of the fastest growing, arguably most innovative new platforms that utilize the power of mobile phones. As mentioned before by Jordan Hosmer-Henner on the TechChange blog: “Mobiles have the potential to increase efficiency at nearly every step of health care provision.”
Despite dramatic increases in global internet penetration, many people still depend on radio as their primary connection to the outside world. However, as inexpensive mobile phones are becoming widely available, a number of organizations are seeking to combine the popularity of radio programming with the interactivity of mobile phones to engage listeners, provide personalized content, and create a more active dialogue between civil society and decision makers.
For nearly two thousand years, Silk Road land and sea routs — which created an “intercontinental think tank of human ingenuity” in terms of trade and communication — connected the Mediterranean to Persia, Indian to Japan, and many more places within Eurasia. Media technologies, such as the printing press, even found their way across these merchant paths some years ago. Today, now online, “The Silk Road Project takes inspiration from this age-old tradition of cross-cultural exchange.”
There are no ATMs, the countries currency is unrecognized without an official exchange rate, and every American dollar translates into 17, 000 Somaliland Shillings. With all of this, Somaliland is on track to become a cashless society. Some may argue this is out of necessity and others argue it’s because of ingenuity; most likely it’s both. (more…)
Expanding wireless coverages to the more remote areas of the world is the obvious first step in enabling individuals to benefit from the myriad mobile tools under development by social entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, for a traditional network provider building a base station requires too much capital investment to be cost effective in sparsely populated areas. As is often the case when commercial interests aren’t aligned with what is socially desirable the open source community has stepped up to design a system capable of bringing low-cost connectivity. The foundation has been the development of the OpenBTS system by Harvind Samra and David Burgess.
It’s hard not to get excited about the work being done bringing health care into the digital age. Mobiles have the potential to increase efficiency at nearly every step of health care provision. These efficiencies aren’t hypothesized—waiting to develop given improvements in technology or infrastructure—they’re being realized right now in clinics and health systems around the world.
Imagine two clinics in rural areas, Community Health Workers (CHW) in one are overburdened searching through paper records to identify previous drug treatment regimens, unable to confirm children with diarrhea are receiving oral re-hydration salts, travelling hours carrying blood samples and results back and forth from the nearest hospital where tests can be preformed.
We’re going to continue to look at emerging mobile health applications this week. While last time the focus was on promising technologies on the horizon, these projects share an approach that maximizes the impact of what’s already available—in most places that means sending an SMS. The low cost and high penetration of mobiles make them an incredibly powerful platform for promoting health. In these examples, mobiles are used to expand public health education and improve patient monitoring.