(www.hsph.harvard.edu)

Information about developments in many of the countries of the Soviet Union, for example, has not, for the most part, been widely disseminated outside the region (indeed, for many within the region as well!). The Moscow-based UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) has been perhaps the best ‘one-stop shop’ for information about ICT use in the region. Recent work by the Asian Development Bank has gone much further to help to fill in one of the most apparent ‘blind spots’ in our collective global understanding of how countries are using ICTs to help meet a variety of objectives within their formal education systems. ICT in Education in Central and West Asia summarizes research conducted over five years (2006-2011) in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, with shorter studies on Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, and Pakistan.

Some key findings from this work:

[-] While the importance of ICT in education has been recognized widely, it is still in its infancy in most of the region and its role and impact have yet to be fully determined or realized.

[-] While all the participating countries consider effective teacher training in ICT skills to be among the key determining factors in its effective ICT use, most are not providing sufficient training to use ICT to best effect.

[-] There is an urgent need for governments to adequately fund school ICT operational costs.

Interesting conclusions, you might say to yourself, but not all that different in what has been happening in many places in the world. Especially so, when you consider that the report identifies “an emphasis in most systems on hardware provision — amid the unfortunate but widespread assumption that provision of the hardware by itself is the solution to a range of educational problems”. (Longtime readers of the EduTech blog may here echoes of what we have more generally labeled the ‘classic example of worst practice’ in ICT use in education: Dump hardware in schools, hope for magic to happen.)

That said, and like other regions, there is a wide range of both intention, ambition, and implementation across this set of countries. Compare, for example, Kazakhstan, where all schools are connected to the Internet, interactive whiteboards are in common use, and lots of digital learning materials are available, with a place like Tajikistan, where ICT use in education is still in the early stages, with targeted investments at a few grade levels — primarily in support of an ‘informatics’ (i.e. computer literacy) curriculum. (Side note: Reading the report, one gets the impression that the specter of ‘informatics’ has cast a heavy and often determining shadow over investments in computers in schools across the region, which in many cases have been closely linked with efforts to expand access to informatics courses — typically within the confines of school computer labs. This is, to my knowledge, not unlike how things have developed in other regions of the world, but the impression this survey leaves on me is that this influence is comparatively stronger in this region than in most others.) Technical support and maintenance is a problem in many places: Almost a third of computers in Kyrghyz schools, for example, weren’t working when survey work there took place.

The ADB study finds “a remarkable unanimity in the identified constraints on ICT development and effective use in basic education”, with challenges related ‘divides’ of various sorts (between rich and poor, for example, between urban and rural); inadequate school infrastructure (including power supplies) and gaps in so-called last mile connectivity; insufficient teacher training (compounded by lack of sufficient attention to how to motivate and support older teachers in their use of new technologies); and lack of digital materials in local languages. Not surprisingly, funding is often stretched quite thin. Core components of the educational landscape (curriculum, assessment mechanisms, etc.) have remained largely the same, and so have not been modified to take advantage of some of the affordances offered by the introduction of ICTs. Studies on the impact and effectiveness of ICT use in education remain few and far between, in part due to a lack of adequate mechanisms and funding to support such activities.

For most people not working in these places, I suspect the good (and short) executive summary will provide a sufficient general overview of what has been happening.

Those with more detailed interests — especially about country-level activities — are directed to the full (337 page) report, ICT in Education in Central and West Asia: A Work in Progress, which (obviously, given its length) goes into much greater detail. In addition to more substantive analyses of specific issues across countries, drawing on lessons from other parts of the world in certain circumstances, the publication includes a set of ‘ICT in Education Country Reports’ for Azerbaijan; Kazakhstan; the Kyrgyz Republic; Tajikistan; and Uzbekistan, as well as a shorter series of ‘ICT Rapid Assessments’ for Afghanistan; Armenia; Georgia; and Pakistan. Here you can find useful updates of many of the ICT/education country reports that appeared in the original UNESCO ‘meta-survey’ of 2003, as well as complements to the country reports for Afghanistan and Pakistan which are available in the infoDev regional survey of South Asia.

—

As with other regional surveys of this sort, some of the most interesting stuff is in the details of the individual country reports. Just one quick example: I was interested (and heartened) to see the apparent priority that Kazakhstan has given to ICT use to support the education of students with special educational needs. This is an area where the potential for ICT use to help meet goals that call for ‘learning for all’ is quite clear and compelling around the world and where (unlike many other aspects of the ICT use in education) there is a compelling evidence base to support investments that can make tangible, measurable impacts on student outcomes. This is not to say that Kazakhstan would appear to be a ‘model’ in this regard — the report notes that “computer/student ratio in special needs schools was 1:22 in 2010, which was only slightly less than the general secondary figure of 1:18″. Plausible arguments could be advanced that goals of parity in such things are only a starting point, given the outsized impact that ICTs can have on educational opportunities for special needs students. Rather, it is to note that Kazakhstan would appear to be doing more in this area than many of its neighbors — and similar countries around the world (even if ‘more’ is still felt by some to be ‘insufficient’). Might there be lessons in this regard from Kazakhstan for other countries around the world who are beginning to place greater priority on special needs education, and the potential role that ICT can play? Perhaps. A close reading of the country reports may unearth dozens of other examples where opportunities for learning and knowledge sharing around specific topics or issues might be worth exploring.

—

The Asian Development Bank’s work to survey ICT use in education in Central and West Asia helps fill an important gap in our collective global knowledgebase. For those interested in tracking developments across the globe in this area, it is an invaluable resource, pointing to issues and activities, initiatives and policies of potential relevance to scores of other middle and low income countries. For those working in, or considering working in, these specific countries, it contains a wealth of information and will most likely remain, for the immediate future, the best source of detailed data and insights about how countries in this diverse region are exploring the use of new technologies to help meet their educational and developmental objectives.

(blogs.worldbank.org)

Individual responders are now connected.
Individual responders are now available in a more immediate way than ever before thanks to advances in mobile technology. Organizers can interact in real-time with responders, something that wasn’t possible (or at least wasn’t happening) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The new challenge is leveraging this properly.
Response is still dependent on utilities.
While mobile is important, ultimately ICT runs on power and telecom companies. Twitter, Facebook groups, email, even phone calls and SMS still rely on communications providers and charged devices.
LTE is everywhere.
One of the most interesting discoveries was the value of LTE. While LTE coverage is still very limited internationally, domestically LTE coverage is robust and complete. One organization reported setting up an inflatable satellite dish on arrival, but took it down in less than 24 hours because it wasn’t needed.
Deploy wired infrastructure early, wireless when you must.
Wireless networks are easy to deploy quickly, which makes them an obvious choice when setting up an operations center. With only so many wireless channels and frequencies available it doesn’t take long for networks to start interfering with one another as operations grow. Starting with wired and adding access points when necessary avoids having to reconfigure once the traffic jams have started.
In extreme situations, people reach for low-tech.
In strained situations people will reach for what they know instead of taking the time to learn something new. Hackathon-created tools are great for people who feel comfortable with them, but email, printed forms and even yellow legal pads still rule on the ground. This explains why the most commonly used digital tools in disaster response are still Excel spreadsheets, Word docs and Access databases.
Video is now informing major decisions.
Sandy saw official agencies bombarded with conflicting information and photoshopped imagery (movie stills, sharks, etc.), and for the first time user-submitted video provided reliable info that was used to make decisions in real-time.
“The Fog of War is Huge.”
In any emergency situation focus can narrow leading to blind spots and communication issues. Responding to Hurricane Sandy, NYC officials were not aware of additional communications channels used by volunteer groups and had almost no insight into their actions. To make matters worse national response agencies use ICS and NIMS frameworks to coordinate, but most volunteer groups either don’t know these frameworks exist or don’t know how to integrate with them.
The most important response elements happen before the disaster.
Preparation is key both in making communities more adept at helping themselves in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and helping response organizations coordinate response as help arrives. Hackathons can be extremely helpful, but logistics in response situations are generally strained enough without having to educate people in the field on which new tools to adopt. Preparation gives communities a common, familiar set of tools to fall back on, meaning less fragmentation and more focus on response.

(www.ictworks.org)

As of 2012, just two years since the iPad burst onto the scene, physician tablet adoption for professional purposes had reached 62 percent, with Apple’s device being the dominant platform, according to healthcare market research firm Manhattan Research. Here’s how they are used in medical imaging:

Viral image sharing

The most obvious differences between an iPad and the iPhone smart phone that preceded it are screen size and resolution. At 9.7 inches diagonal, and up to 264 pixels per inch, for the first time radiologists can view and share the images and accompanying reports on a mobile device.

And PACS vendors have responded. The ability to access images through a mobile app is a standard feature in the PACS industry, and has made sharing information with referring physicians easier than ever.

“It’s been a great tool for our referring physicians because iPhone and iPad penetration in the physician space is very high … so everyone is kind of used to the app ecosystem and the utilization of products through apps,” says Satish Mathan, MD, incoming president of Raleigh Radiology in Raleigh, N.C.

Raleigh Radiology has been using a mobile image sharing app supported by its PACS vendor for about two years, and Mathan says it’s a much faster way to access images and makes it easier to take care of patients while on call. He says the practice felt offering the app would be a good way to differentiate itself in the market, as opposed to relying on more cumbersome browser-based mobile viewing systems. Their marketing team went to work, too. Flyers with instructions on how to install the app, connect with the server and search patients were created and sent to referring physicians.

Once physicians found out about the app, its spread was almost viral, says Mathan. One physician could tell another during an elevator ride, and the second person would download the app on the spot and instantly access the system using the same credentials they had for traditional portals.

Raleigh Radiology doesn’t track usage, but Mathan says use by outside physicians is strong, and during the few times server maintenance shut down access to the app, the practice fielded a number of calls asking when it will be back online. Anecdotally, Mathan reports that specialist use of the app is higher than primary care physician use.

Edging into interpretation

The iPad’s screen resolution is high for a mobile device, but it’s not ready to replace the standard clinical workstation in a reading room. That said, a few studies have compared the tablet with consumer-grade LCD monitors and found that, in a pinch, either works just as well as a secondary display for interpretation.

Mark McEntee, PhD, of the University of Sydney, Australia, and colleagues completed a study analyzing the results of eight U.S. board-certified radiologists attempting to identify intracranial bleeding, fractures and lung nodules on iPads, LCD monitors and high-resolution clinical monitors. The findings, presented at the 2012 International Society of Optical Engineering conference in San Diego, showed that while there were “noticeable differences” with the clinical monitors, both the iPad and LCD monitors fared the same.

Likewise, there was no detectable effect of using an iPad rather than a consumer-grade LCD for diagnosing tuberculosis, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Despite the consensus on interpretations between the displays, readers noted the iPad felt slower than the LCD monitor, according to Samir Abboud, MS, and colleagues from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

“The limiting factor is a question of real estate. The typical tablet is smaller than a sheet of notebook paper, while a typical workstation can have two or three monitors with a 21-inch diagonal or greater,” says Abboud.

“The mainstay of diagnostic radiology is, and should remain, the workstation,” he adds. “However, interpretation of imaging studies is only half of the equation, communication to our clinical colleagues is equally important. While the tablets are not likely to change how studies are read, they do hold promise as communication and education tools.”

(ictpost.com)

It uses a network of 2,000 quake-detecting instruments now in place up and down the state.
Its backers say it could warn emergency workers and the public as much as a full minute before a big quake ruptures the ground along any of the faults in the state.
There is a 99 percent chance of a magnitude-6.7 earthquake or larger in the next 30 years in California because of the number of fault lines in the region, the biggest of which is the 810 mile San Andreas Fault that forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.
Using the new system, an alert would go out whenever the system senses the first pulse of short shock waves – known as P waves – that speed through the ground just as a seismic fault starts to rupture.
California senator Alex Padilla, said his bill, SB135, is based on recent advances in preparing the California warning system to operate.
Padilla, an MIT-trained engineer from the San Fernando Valley and a former space systems software specialist, said it could provide ‘critical seconds for teachers to get their pupils to duck and cover, for drivers to pull to the side of the road, for trains to stop, and for utilities to power down.’
The plans, unveiled at a news conference at the California Institute of Technology, are have been under development for a decade, and include studies of other early warning systems in Japan, Mexico and other quake-prone nations.
Padilla estimated it would take $80 million to develop a statewide version of ShakeAlert through the California Emergency Management Agency, and $20 million more in annual operating costs.
‘But an investment like that is a no-brainer,’ he said.
‘If you think about the lives we can save, the injuries we can reduce, and the billions upon billions of damages associated with every large earthquake, the system would more than pay for itself.’
The researchers say the scheme is now ready.
‘We’re ready to build it up right now,’ said Richard M. Allen, director of the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory.
‘It’s ready for prime time.’
The system’s test phases have proved so successful that BART trains in San Francisco are already equipped to stop instantly whenever the system flashes a hazard warning for the are, Allen said.

Lucy Jones, senior adviser for risk reduction for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of the monitoring network partners, said a lot of the technology needed for the system is already in place.
‘If we were building it from scratch, it would cost $650 million,’ she said.

It would take from one to three years to fully launch the new system, Jones said.
The system is based on a highly sophisticated algorithm that can send out a signal from any one of the 2,000 quake-detecting instruments now in place up and down the state.
An alert would go out whenever the system senses a temblor’s first pulse of short shock waves – known as P waves – that speed through the ground just as a seismic fault starts to rupture.

(www.dailymail.co.uk)

Watch the interview…

The app essentially gives you stats about your smartphone usage (such as how often you unlock your phone, interval and frequency) – but it comes at a price. Every time you unlock your phone, 0,2 SEK (about 3 cents) is ‘collected’ in the app for SOS Children’s Villages. You also get reminders about how much you’ve ‘collected’ and you can then choose to donate the money directly.

Read more…

Convened by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Motorola Solutions, the roundtable discussion will be attended by leading policy makers, development practitioners, technology manufacturers and local innovators.

Now in hands of more than 6 billion people across the developed and developing world – smart phones, tablets and other mobile technologies have become increasingly important channels through which innovative development solutions are being delivered or advanced. Kenya is known for its social innovators who have dynamically adapted mobile applications for development and also for its success with Open Source Software application design and development.

Read more…

Organised in Delhi by the CMAI (Communications, Multimedia and Infrastructure) Association of India (http://cmaievents.com) and Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (www.cto.int) headquartered in London, the event covered topics such as innovation policies, entrepreneurship, service infrastructure, smart devices, app development, universal access obligations, renewable energy, and empowerment of girls and women through ICT’s.

Smart Devices and Content Models

Making ICT accessible as well as affordable is a key priority in India. Therefore the aim of computers such as the Akash tablet is to provide Internet access via a device which is “just good enough,” and not necessarily the market leader in quality or excellence, said Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind. The project is not without its share of controversy, but Singh claimed the model was based more on principles of frugal innovation, strong focus on cost, and avoidance of ‘feature kill.’

“Computer penetration in the US took off when the PC price point dropped below 25% of monthly income. For a similar take-off in India, tablets must come below Rs. 5,000 at least. The next versions of Akash will be priced below Rs. 2,500,” said Singh.

India has only 50 million landlines for a population of 1.2 billion people, and mobile is the best way ahead for widespread Internet access. Content is the other half of the equation, and Datawind is part of the Apps To Empower contest (http://appstoempower.org/) which invites app developers to submit apps for education and empowerment for the next billion users, by July 26.

Other device players in this space are Nokia, which is targeting the 1.2 billion mobile phone users in the world who have access only to voice and SMS. Nokia Life, for instance, provides SMS and IVR based access to information about tractor management for farmers, health tips for diabetes patients, and educational information for rural school children.

The service has acquired 100 million users over the last years in India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria and Kenya, according to Nikhil Narayanan, product marketing manager, Nokia Life. Content partners include UNICEF, IGNOU, Plan International and Arogya World.

Sapna Narula, professor at TERI University, highlighted the importance of social entrepreneurship in bringing the fruits of ICTs to Indian farmers and fishing communities, via initiatives such as mKrishi, Handygo, and FisherFriend which help overcome information asymmetries.

In the discussions after these sessions, I shared the examples of competitions and awards held by YourStory, such as TechSparks, MobiSparks and eSparks. For example, KashmirBox was an eSparks 2013 winner, and is a social e-commerce marketplace that takes Kashmiri products to the globe by linking artisans, craftsmen and entrepreneurs via cybercafés. The Digital Empowerment Foundation also recognises innovative use of ICTs by government and social entrepreneurs (Manthan Awards, mBillionth Awards).

Girls and ICT

A special session was held to mark ‘Girls in ICT’ day. Giving more ICT access to girls can spur employment and entrepreneurship among women, according to the panellists.

While the IT industry has attracted more urban women than many other sectors, they are still not present in adequate levels at top management. Studies by companies such as Intel have shown than ICT access can give women not just information and education but jobs and a sense of self-esteem.

Unfortunately, patriarchal barriers and some regressive attitudes by Indian men towards women hold them back; other emerging economies are doing better – for instance, Uganda has a larger percentage of women accessing ICTs than India.

Currently, India has only 15 million broadband Internet users for a population of 1.2 billion, and initiatives like the government’s Bharat Broadband Network Limited are addressing this gap.

Swati Rangachari, vice president at Ericsson India, cited data which suggests that a 10% increase in broadband penetration can increase a nation’s GDP by 0.1%, and doubling the broadband speed can increase GDP by 0.3%. According to research by consulting firm Booz, if Indian men and women were equally employed, India’s GDP would increase by 27%.

This calls for more interventions by government, such as women entrepreneur training programmes, according to Tulika Pandey, scientist at the Department of Electronics and IT. More mentoring, women leadership councils and role model sessions are needed.

This is an issue in other countries as well. “Did you know that sixty years ago, six young women programmed the world’s first all-electronic computer, the ENIAC,” asked Pandey. But the programmers (http://eniacprogrammers.org) — Betty Holberton, Jean Bartik, Kathleen Antonelli, Marlyn Meltzer, Ruth Teitelbaum and Frances Spence – were honoured for their pioneering work only 50 years later.

Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director at Bangalore’s Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), shared insights on other aspects of digital inclusion, from her work in drafting the Indian National Policy for Electronic Accessibility. She has also participated in the World Blind Union Treaty negotiations at WIPO. CIS is working on an open source text-to-speech project for 15 Indian languages.

The Other Divides: Hardware and Energy

In addition to accessibility and affordability, other divides in India exist at the level of hardware and energy. Most of the components of mobile phones in India are being imported; the domestic manufacture of these components needs to increase, advised Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications & IT. By 2020, India will be spending more on hardware imports than crude petroleum imports, he cautioned.

Domestic hardware manufacturing will be good not just for India but also other emerging economies such as Africa, and reduce dependencies on external manufacturers, according to Sibal. For this to happen there needs to be not just corporate social responsibility but global social responsibility by the telecom industry, and we need not just an Internet but an ‘Equinet,’ he said. (I wondered whether there needs to be more ‘government social responsibility’ in India as well, given the 2G Scam and other such scandals!)

India is currently importing 80% of its energy, and that is still not enough. The telecom sector is one of the heaviest users of energy, observed Farooq Abdullah, Minister of New and Renewable Energy. This calls for innovative approaches in cleantech and renewable energy, he urged, and the government should set up a Centre for Innovation in Energy.

In addition to manufacture and access, the creative application of ICTs for tackling important problems is key. For example, India is responsible for the highest number of road deaths annually in the world, followed by China and the US. “In terms of road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles, India is unfortunately at the top of the list. Can ICTs help improve traffic safety? That is the focus of this year’s World Telecom Day on May 17,” said Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General, ITU (http://itu.int).

I thought the best observation of the day about the challenging divides facing India came from Mukul Sangma, chief minister of Meghalaya. “The real divide in India is the political divide, between parties and states,” he joked!

(yourstory.in)

Frost & Sullivan’s report, “EMR and EHR Market in APAC,” finds that the market saw some $1.2 billion in revenue in 2012 – projected to nearly double to $2.2 billion by 2018.

A combination of regulations and incentives is spurring adoption of EHR systems in Asia-Pacific countries as the region’s healthcare industry moves towards digitization, according to Frost & Sullivan. Governments, non-profit entities and the private sector are aggressively investing in health IT projects at both regional and local levels in an effort to achieve seamless information exchange and recognize cost savings and improved clinical outcomes.

“Government initiatives to establish standards, regulations and infrastructure further encourage healthcare providers to adopt EMR and EHR technology,” said Frost & Sullivan. Medical professionals hope to improve operational efficiency; medical resource utilization; patient data access in rural areas and aged care programs through EMR systems.

However, challenges related to interoperability and a lack of technical skills among medical professionals threaten to symie market development, according to Frost & Sullivan. Expensive health IT investments are a challenge to justify as providers in Asia Pacific countries struggle with tight finances. Their inability to extend their operational budgets to include sophisticated solutions restricts revenue inflow, researchers say.

Governments looking to fund the implementation of these solutions must balance their grants between new investments as well as maintenance and upgrades, according to the report, which finds that, in addition to funding, governments are collaborating with software and infrastructure companies to build EHR networks in public hospitals.

Healthcare groups and solution vendors are investing in training programs to build a skilled medical workforce that can leverage sophisticated technologies.

There’s a hunger for knowledge in fast-evolving countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), too. As was proven in a Manhattan Research report from May, which showed higher-than-usual use of social networking among docs in those countries, “where physicians are still hungry for clinical information and peer knowledge.

Developing countries are happy for the help. They realize that international companies have this vast experience and are very eager to learn and work with international companies.

Telehealth has not only shown an increase in its demand in the U.S., Europe and Japan, but also in emerging and lucrative markets, such as India, China and other South Asian countries,” said Frost & Sullivan. The development of new technologies and availability of sufficient funding from government agencies and venture capital firms has stoked growth

From imaging in Russia to telehealth in India and China to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where GE Global Research recently announced it would be opening a new site, health IT companies are increasingly finding their way to the world’s fastest developing countries.

(ictpost.com)

“Part of the value of civil society is holding power to account, and if this can be underpinned by good quality data, we will have a very powerful tool indeed”, said Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society.

“The UK is absolutely at the vanguard of the global open data movement, and NGOs have a great sense that this is something they want to play a part in.

“There is potential to help them do more of what they do, and to do it better, but they’re going to need a lot of help in terms of information and access to events where they can exchange ideas and best practice.”

Third sector has for too long been misread as third place when it comes to nonprofits. Data has been widely touted as the future of the public and private sectors but when it comes to the adoption of big data initiatives, it is difficult to find a sector more ripe for revolution.

The opportunities offered by wider use of data in the third sector are many, from allowing individual organisations to provide donors and funding bodies with more tangible evidence of their successes, to opening up previously inaccessible datasets that could revolutionise their operations.

Peter Wanless, CEO of the Big Lottery Fund (BLF), which distributes lottery money to community-run projects, has already seen how better use of data and increased openness can streamline the funding award process, allowing deserving charities to get the money they need as quickly as possible.

“We are a massively oversubscribed fund, we are operating in a much tighter funding environment, so evidence is absolutely essential if the BLF is to move beyond random acts of kindness and to convince ourselves – and others – that we’re learning from what went before”, said Wanless.

The BLF has at any time 20,000 awards under consideration, but the traditional funder-fundee model has weaknesses that open data could be used to combat.

“There is a conspiracy of honesty: the organisations which apply to the BLF and get the money are desperate to show they’re successful, because they worry that if they’re not successful we’ll withdraw the grant”, said Wanless.

“This has led to a shift towards sharing a sense of success rather than being able to open up, celebrate and understand failure, and acknowledge that as an important part of the learning process.”

Solving the fear of failure problem is one of the main arguments for adopting an open data policy in any sector or industry, and the ‘fail fast’ approach has been used by big data businesses for decades.

The competitive marketplace and bilateral nature of funding awards make this issue perhaps even more significant in the charity sector, and it is in changing attitudes and encouraging this warts-and-all approach that movement leadership bodies such as the Open Data Institute (ODI) will play their biggest role.

“We’re in a new era of open data where we need permission to fail, we need to try to open up the whole conversation to allow everybody to see what we’re doing, to learn from our mistakes,” said Gavin Starks, CEO of the ODI.

An altogether different opportunity offered by open data is the ability for charities to use data directly to improve the service they provide.

“We use data to capture the complexity of how we deliver palliative care and to improve this process,” said Ian Carey, CEO of Barnsley Hospice.

“We can demonstrate as an organisation that we’re providing an important service to the people of Barnsley. Are we achieving our mission? Are we delivering a good and dignified death? We can use data to answer those questions.

“But we also want to know how we compare to others and this is where we’re really keen for other hospices to publish some of their data, so we’ve got a bit more of a benchmark. For all we know, we could be rubbish in Barnsley, because it’s very difficult to compare ourselves with other hospices that don’t publish their data”, said Carey.

Joining the ODI in driving and overseeing wider adoption of these practices is the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN). One of its first projects was a partnership with an organisation called Publish What You Fund, the aim of which was to release data on the breakdown of funding to sectors and departments in Uganda according to source – government or aid.

Without knowing such relatively basic information, charities distributing foreign aid to Uganda could have been blindly providing money for an already well-funded industry, or unknowingly overlooking a sector in desperate need of additional cash.

“We found huge disparities: more than half of spending on government projects in Uganda was coming from non-government sources”, said Rufus Pollock, co-founder and director of OKFN.

“Disaster management was [funded] entirely by donors, but health was much more mixed. This was something the government of Uganda didn’t even have. Publish What You Fund took this to them and they actually discovered spending they didn’t know about.

Open data can often take the form of complex databases that need to be interrogated by a data specialist, and many charities simply do not have these technical resources sitting untapped. OKFN is foremost among a number of organisations looking to bridge this gap by training members of the public in data mining and analysis techniques.

“We’re all familiar with the phrase ‘knowledge is power’, and in this case knowledge means insight gained from this newly available data. But data doesn’t turn into insight or knowledge magically. It takes people, it takes skills, it takes tools to become knowledge, data and change.

“We set up the School of Data in partnership with Peer 2 Peer University just over a year and a half ago with the aim of enabling citizens to carry out this process, and what we really want to do is empower charities to use data in the same way”, said Pollock.

(www.guardian.co.uk/)

Through Open Data for Africa, users can access a wide range of development data on Africa in AfDB’s Data Portals as well as from other regional and international partners. The platform also facilitates the collection, analysis, and sharing of data on emerging and crucial development topics such as food security, gender equality, and climate change. The platform offers a unique opportunity for AfDB staff, policymakers, analysts, researchers, business leaders, and investors around the world to gain access to reliable and timely data on Africa. Users can visualize socioeconomic indicators over a period of time, utilize presentation-ready graphics or create their own, perform comprehensive analysis at country and regional levels, blog, and share their views and work with others, thereby creating an informed community of users.

(opendataforafrica.com)

When she and her colleagues studied the data, she found that people making calls or sending text messages originating at the Kericho tower were making 16 times more trips away from the area than the regional average. What’s more, they were three times more likely to visit a region northeast of Lake Victoria that records from the health ministry identified as a malaria hot spot. The tower’s signal radius thus covered a significant waypoint for transmission of malaria, which can jump from human to human via mosquitoes. Satellite images revealed the likely culprit: a busy tea plantation that was probably full of migrant workers. The implication was clear, Buckee says. “There will be a ton of infected [people] there.”

Read more…

The result is a book full of fresh thinking, tightly researched examples and creative twists that are bound to get the digerati buzzing and cause regular people to reflect deeply about our future.

The book takes an old idea — that there are both digital and physical worlds — and extends it, arguing that today nothing less than two civilizations have arrived. One developed over thousands of years and the other is in its infancy. One is a world of old cultures, nation states, governments, institutions, power structures and laws. The other is a dynamic, ungoverned, even anarchistic world where boundaries are porous, rules unclear and where power is resilient and distributed. While these two co-exist, each restraining the negative aspects of the other, they increasingly come into conflict.

Leggi l’intero articolo…

“They just told me I don’t qualify. My income was too little,” said Ms Achieng, who was asking for about $250 — about half her monthly turnover — to expand her fruit and vegetable stall in Nairobi.

But early last month, she applied for the same amount through a different source — and got the money in a matter of minutes. She credits the Kenyan mobile telephone money application called M-Shwari.

It expands on Kenya’s revolutionary use of sending money by cellphone — known as M-Pesa, “mobile money” in Swahili — launched in 2007 and now widely used across the country, where about 70% of people have cellphones.

With a minimum transfer of cash set at five shillings — about five US cents — the application revolutionised day-to-day banking for millions who have been left out of the formal system. It is used for transactions ranging from money transfers to paying utility bills and school fees.

Now it is hoped that the new M-Shwari application — meaning “no hassle” — can do the same for savers and borrowers.

“We have always been thinking of how to move M-Pesa forward. We knew there was a boundary to be broken and the next frontier was to be reached,” said Nzioka Muita, communications manager at Safaricom, which owns both the M-Pesa and M-Shwari systems.

On this platform, Safaricom says clients can open a bank account, move money in and out of their savings accounts, and access instant microcredit of a minimum of 100 Kenyan shillings — slightly more than a dollar — at any time, all through the cellphone application.

While loans must be repaid within a month, a single fee of 7.5% is charged, a far lower interest rate than high-street banks. Maximum loans depend on how much clients have in their M-Shwari accounts.

The mobile banking application has been so successful that on its first day of operations late last year, more than 70,000 new accounts were opened.

“Up to this point in time, no one in the formal banking sector had thought of implementing such an idea,” said Tiberius Barasa, an economic expert with Kenya’s Institute of Policy Research and Analysis.

“I am sure that a few bank managers are looking at M-Shwari steadily to see if it is a potential threat to their business,” he says.

At least 12-million Kenyans remain outside the formal banking system, according to the central bank.

Safaricom controls about 70% of the Kenya cellphone market, translating to about 19-million subscribers. Of those, about 15-million are already M-Pesa users, a customer base rivalling any banking institution. On its own, M-Pesa transactions account for more than $50m every day in Kenya.

M-Shwari was launched in partnership with one of Kenya’s privately owned banks, Commercial Bank of Africa, a deal that could see it boost its slice of the banking sector in Kenya. The family of newly elected President Uhuru Kenyatta holds the majority stake in the bank, which provides the banking infrastructure for M-Shwari.

Currently, even with its slightly more than $1bn asset base, it is still some distance away from East Africa’s largest banks, such as Equity Bank, Co-operative Bank and Kenya Commercial Bank.

(www.bdlive.co.za/africa)

While this may sound like a doom and gloom scenario, this Earth Day I want to focus on an area of promise: the increasing availability of affordable technologies that have the potential to reduce greenhouse gases and increase productivity in agriculture. I am referring here not to agricultural technologies—although those certainly play a role—but rather to information and communications technologies, like the mobile phone, video, and even radio. If you are wondering how a mobile phone, a video camera, and a radio might relate at all to climate change, allow me to explain.

For starters, so-called “climate-smart” methods of agriculture, such as conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and others already exist. The challenge is that not all farmers know about them, there is no single prescription, and traditional practices can often die hard, particularly when you are working with very small margins and taking risks could spell utter ruin for yourself and your family. So how do ICTs change this? In short, they make it easier to share locally relevant information on improved techniques and to provide time-specific information and recommendations (such as weather forecasts, and when to do what).

As mobile phone penetration rates continue to grow at a rapid rate throughout the globe, farmers now have access to a growing number of agricultural information services both through SMS and voice. In some cases, these services charge farmers a fee for access to agricultural content and advice, while others provide it for free through donor subsidies, or by selling advertising and providing other services, like user surveys. Many are accessed directly by the farmer, although others rely on a trusted community intermediary with access to the device.

In addition to mobile phone services, a growing number of agricultural organizations and agribusinesses have been using low-cost video equipment to create locally made extension videos to share the stories of farmers who have made the change to more sustainable practices with their peers in other communities. And not to be outdone, by coupling mobile phone access with radio access, interactive radio programs are being developed that are completely transforming rural radio from a one-way disseminator of information to a two-way exchange of sharing and learning.

Certainly not all services are created equally, and the depth of research on impact is still fairly shallow, but what the research to date has shown has been promising. This is particularly the case when we look at the rate of adoption of new practices. To be sure, not all of the agricultural content providers are promoting environmentally sustainable farming methods. The fact though that these technologies are leading to changes in agricultural practice over control groups without access to these services is telling. Here’s a selection of some of what we do know: research by the Grameen Foundation on its Community Knowledge Worker program in Uganda, which shares agricultural content via mobile phone, found a significant and positive impact in the use of organic manure within communities with access to this program; while research by Farm Radio International found that having a radio station call out to farmers can increase adoption rates by up to 14%; and a pilot study on the impact of low-cost video on agricultural practices in India by Digital Green found video to be up to ten times more cost effective on a cost per adoption basis than traditional extension methods alone (although more recent analysis by Digital Green is showing slightly lower, but still significant impact).

Of course, the potential impact of ICT on its own is not enough to overcome the very real climate and food security challenges that the world faces over the next several decades. It is important to remember that while the technologies can be used to support the transition to more sustainable agricultural practices, they still require someone to create high quality and relevant content, and someone to pay for the dissemination of that information. Compared to the state of agricultural extension in much of the world prior to the ready availability of these technologies however, there is cause for optimism that just as technology has enabled the rapid spread of entertainment like Angry Birds and Gangnam Style, it may also facilitate a faster transition to environmentally friendlier forms of agriculture in the parts of the world that need them most. And while that alone won’t solve the problem, it is certainly a helpful start.

(www.e-agriculture.org)

I numeri, in questo senso, non lasciano molto spazio a dubbi ed incertezze. Tra pochi giorni, fra l’altro, Torino farà da cornice ufficiale ad un evento dedicato alla promozione della cultura digitale, il 4/o Digital Festival. La manifestazione, che si terrà dal 3 al 30 maggio, pone l’accento sulla necessità, sia per motivi di business aziendale ma anche nella sfera del quotidiano, di un’Italia adeguatamente digitalizzata. Fino ad ora, infatti, come reso noto dall’amministratore delegato di Seat Pg Italia, Vincenzo Santelia, il Belpaese è rimasto visibilmente indietro rispetto agli altri Paesi europei; prova ne è che solo un insufficiente 41% delle aziende italiane possiede un proprio sito web. Nonostante, quindi, quasi tutte le imprese sfruttino il collegamento ad internet – circa il 75% – quelle che in realtà hanno costruito un business sull’attività e-commerce sono solo il 3%.

Una spinta forte in questo senso proviene dalla società Seat Pagine Gialle, da anni una delle principali interlocutrici tra piccole e medie imprese italiane, e recentemente impegnata anche sulla fornitura di servizi internet necessari in questa era digitale e nella creazione di oltre 70 filiali su tutto il territorio nazionale.

“Solo nel 2012 abbiamo contribuito alla digitalizzazione del paese gestendo 126mila siti di imprese. Inoltre attraverso il web ne presentiamo 300mila a fronte di oltre 1 milione e mezzo di aziende italiane che hanno bisogno di comunicare”- ha dichiarato, per l’appunto, Santelia.

Se, da una parte, però l’ecommerce stenta a decollare, il settore della telefonia mobile è in continua ascesa e gli sforzi per aumentare l’estensione della banda larga coinvolgono tutta l’UE. In Europa, infatti, sono stati aggiunti 120MHz al portafoglio dello spettro radio per le tecnologie 4G attorno alla banda 2GHz.

(www.bitmat.it)

The portal provides a library of the agency’s on-going and completed projects nationwide. It also details their fund allocations and cumulative disbursements, completion period, percentage of accomplishment and other relevant data, including regularly updated photos, which were provided by the attached agencies, corporations and regional field units of the Department of Agriculture.

In addition, as part of its efforts to enhance the portal, the agency has also started mapping the projects through GPS.

Mapped projects include farm to market roads, irrigation, post-harvest facilities, production support facilities, market related infrastructure, post-harvest equipment and machines as well as other major projects nationwide.

Furthermore, users are encouraged to post their comments on the projects so as to help the agency improve its project management activities.

(www.futuregov.asia)

Under the agreement, KOICA will construct an ICT innovation centre in Kicukiro, Kigali. The centre will be a major step in the Information Technology front in the entire East African Region, according to officials.

The agreement was signed on Wednesday by Rosemary Mbabazi, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth and ICT, and Sang Chul Kim, the resident representative of KOICA.

The centre, which will be constructed late next year over a period of 24 months and will cost $5.6 million, will be under Rwanda Development Board’s IT department.

Speaking at the ceremony Kim said, “This agreement is another significant step for the friendship between Rwanda and South Korea. This is the 50th year of our friendship. So we had to move it a step further by starting this important journey as well as helping Rwanda move further towards its Vision 2020.”

KOICA affirmed to continue its support of the ICT development in the country with a plan to put up other IT centres around the country to help rural youth access information.

“This signed document represents another milestone for ICT in our country,” Mbabazi said.

Upon completion, the centre which is targeting 78 per cent per cent youth will be a major leap for the ICT industry.

“It will also help in job creation and give more exposure for the youth in the country. Not only will it be good for the urban youth which is our main target but also for the rural youth,” Mbabazi asserted.

The ceremony was a culmination of a six months survey by a Basic Design Survey Team (BDST) that consisted of members from KOICA and officials from RDB who took a Kigali-wide research to determine the essential tools and strategies which were necessary for the commencement of construction of the centre.

(allafrica.com)

Fifteen (15) African Governments – Kenya, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, South Sudan and Sudan have signed the Charter establishing the AVU as an Intergovernmental Organization.

The AVU has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and a Regional office in Dakar Senegal. The AVU has Host Country Agreements with the governments of Kenya and Senegal and the AVU has diplomatic status in these countries.

The AVU has developed significant experience in the following areas since 1997:

• Delivering programs though information and communication Technologies (Degree Programs, Certificate and Diploma Programs)
• Building and managing large consortia of African Educational Institutions
• Designing and implementing Multinational eLearning Projects
• Developing African-based residential and eLearning materials for Partner Institutions
• Establishment of state of art e-learning centers in Partner Institutions
• Training of Partner Institutions staff in eLearning methodologies
• Developing and implementing Open Education Resources (OER) strategy
• Managing a digital Library

The AVU has established ten (10) ODeL Centres, one at each of the 10 selected institutions.

Read more…

In 2012 India was polio-free for the first time in its history. This was achieved because of the Pulse Polio Programme started in 1995-96 by the government of India.  The differences in urban-rural health indicators are a harsh reality even today. 42% of India’s children below the age of three are malnourished, which is greater than the statistics of sub-Saharan African region of 28%. Diseases such as dengue fever, hepatitis, tuberculosis, malaria and pneumonia continue to plague India due to increased resistance to drugs. In 2011, India developed a totally drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. India is ranked 3rd highest among countries with a high rate of HIV-infected persons.

Indians are also at particularly high risk for atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. This may be attributed to a genetic predisposition to metabolic syndrome and adverse changes in coronary artery vasodilation.

While the powers of healthcare IT to radically transform the health of a patient population are widely lauded, one thing that isn’t discussed as much are the areas where the technology could do the most good but doesn’t often reach to.

Tough, the inroads health IT can make in these populations, and provided some key insights on how health IT can benefit minority populations and how to reach them.

Are there big factors holding developers back? One of the problems in getting health IT to reach underserved populations is that there is a lack of developers working to create applications for those groups.  There’s no real personal connection to the populations that are the most underserved. The first big step to take is to connect with the underserved populations and to begin to understand the communities and their needs. People need to build those bridges so they can take the amazing things they’re doing that are so creative and make them useful to those who really need it. Partnering with local organizations can be a way to break the ice and get input on how best to reach people. We can work now with what we have and where we are and if we educate, there will be this great population who’s able to continue to do it moving in the future.

Concerns around cost. The cost of health IT is often seen as a factor that holds it back from underserved populations. Health problems such as obesity can be so damaging but can also be targeted by health technology; it is a smart investment to target underserved populations, as it can greatly improve the standard of health for all. If we design things that are for populations that often times have the worst disparities … but also produce some of the highest costs, then we have an opportunity to reduce costs in healthcare.

Go local first, and then scale up. Launching an initiative aimed at underserved populations can be a daunting task.  Many minority groups are simply not understood well enough to have an effective health technology partnership. Starting with a focus on a particular local group and partnering with a community is one way to create a lasting, scalable model for success. Even if a community group isn’t particularly tech- or healthcare-centric, they still are a valuable partner who understands the populace and can help communicate and engage with people. Once a local project begins to take off, those lessons can be scaled up.  You’re going to learn some basic principles in worthing with local organizations that you can apply on a national level.

Communicate. Collaborate. Because minorities are often misunderstood or underrepresented, developers are not often willing to jump in to uncharted territory. This is partly because “people aren’t always ready to ask the tough questions or hear the tough answers. For communities, you’re going to hear the tough answers.” What matters in launching a project designed to target health matters in underserved communities is an open and effective line of communication.  Taking the time to build relationships, and not jumping in and jumping out, I think are the key things. This all needs to be part of the communication process.

(ictpost.com)

(eprints.usq.edu.au)

The GoN has been operating an Aid Management Platform (AMP) since 2010 with admirable results. AMP Nepal currently has information on nearly 700 development projects (both on- and off-budget) representing over $US 6 billion in disbursements, including over $1 billion in fiscal year 2012 alone. GoN officials use AMP for internal reporting, district-level aid analysis, and an annual public Development Cooperation Report, among other things. In 2012, with the support of AusAID, AidData geocoded over half of the AMP project portfolio. All remaining AMP projects will be geocoded in 2013 under the USAID HESN award.

GoN staff are eager to put this new geo-coded aid data to work. The AidData team conducted a first-ever training on geocoding and the AMP GIS module for 17 Ministry of Finance staff. Attendees were exposed to geocoding projects and creating their own visualizations. Future trainings will include more hands-on practice, and will be expanded to include development partners and civil society.

On one occasion, a line ministry under-secretary commented that aid project maps would expose gaps in service delivery and issues with aid fragmentation, highlighting the acute needs that AidData hopes to address with data and visualization.

In a move intended to further leverage the impact of AMP and geospatial data, GoN will soon make AMP fully public via an online Ministry of Finance portal. The public AMP will allow any user to view AMP data, download reports, and use analytical tools (including the GIS mapping tool). With this portal, GoN hopes that more stakeholders – including local government officials, more development partners, civil society organizations, media, and even concerned citizens – will use AMP data to further the aid effectiveness agenda in Nepal. The public launch is slated for May 2013 (formal dates and venues will be announced shortly).

To ensure that development stakeholders in Nepal are eager and able to use the public AMP data, the AidData team also worked to build a strong network of local partners in Nepal, including universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, civil society organizations, and non-governmental organizations. We will continue to engage with this network through trainings and collaborative work to effectively leverage geocoded information to analyze and implement development projects in Nepal. Coupling strong government relationships with new stakeholder outreach efforts will ensure that aid data are used to improve development planning in Nepal for the long term.

In sum, the successful launch of HESN work in Nepal bodes well for AidData’s similar work in 15 countries over the next 5 years. Government, donors, and civil society are all eager for visualized information on aid activities. We are excited and confident that good development data, made public, will have significant impacts for the development community in Nepal and around the world.

(www.aiddata.org)

Every five years, the US’s National Intelligence Council publishes its analysis of “Global Trends”. This time, the analysis looks forward to 2030 and highlights four “megatrends” all of which will probably feel quite intuitive to people living in Africa.

The first major trend is an increase in individual empowerment, stemming from declines in poverty, the growth of a global middle class and more widely available communications and other technologies. Second, power will become more diffuse across countries, as emerging markets grow rapidly and many rich countries age and grow sluggishly. Third, demographic changes will take place slowly but inexorably. The world population will continue to rise rapidly and reach 8.3 billion in 2030 mainly on account of increased life expectancy in developing countries despite declining fertility. While some countries will “shrink” (such as Germany) others, like Kenya, will experience significant youth bulges, and rapid urbanization. Finally, as populations grow and increased consumption levels strain existing resources, access to food, energy, and water will become ever more crucial.

So how will the global megatrends play out in the Kenyan context? The 2030 horizon also has a special meaning for Kenya’s economic development, not least because its own development strategy is anchored in Vision 2030, Kenya’s aspiration to become a vibrant middle-income economy in the next 17 years. In line with global trends, Kenya will have many more people who will live longer, choose to reside in urban areas and benefit from more and better education. If current trends continue, Kenya will have 63 million people, about the same as the UK today. The country’s workforce will almost double: from 21 million today to about 39 million while the number of dependents (children and elderly) will grow much more slowly. In other words: the “dependency ratio” (dependents divided by workforce) will decline dramatically.

With these big transitions come better economic opportunities, which Kenya has yet to leverage. In other parts of the world, a rising workforce and urbanization have been synonymous with significant and rapid productivity gains and poverty reduction. With more workers and customers, companies are able to produce at scale with lower costs. The East Asian miracle describes a process of rapid industrial expansion which Kenya has not yet experienced. Over the last decade, the share of manufacturing in Kenya’s GDP stayed constant at around 10 percent. In 2000, manufacturing was still the second largest sector in the economy (behind agriculture), but now it is fourth, overtaken by transport and communications as well as wholesale and retail trade. Yet, in other parts of the world manufacturing has proven to be the most effective way to offer jobs to bulging youth populations.

In the social sectors these mega transitions will be underpinned by more complex development issues, which will increase further with an urbanizing and aging population. In education, service provision will shift from quantity to quality. In the health sector, Kenya is experiencing a dual disease burden: communicable diseases, such as malaria, diarrhea and AIDS, are still weighing on the country’s health system, while non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood-pressure and cancer are emerging, presenting new challenges and higher costs to the health system.

These development challenges require the “second generation” of reforms. These are more complex because they no longer involve ‘brick and mortar’ development, but rely heavily on improving the quality of public institutions. The reform objectives include raising the quality of education and reducing child and maternal mortality, areas where other middle-income economies are also struggling.

By 2030, the world may have completed its shift away from the West and (back) to the East as well as from the North to the South. But this isn’t the zero sum game that some pundits like to describe. The emergence of Asia, Africa and Latin America can be to everybody’s benefit. The West stands to gain from increasing wealth in emerging economies because they will provide new markets for their products. For example, Germany’s auto industry has been steadily stepping up exports to Asia at a time when its traditional markets were looking gloomy.

By 2030, we will be in a different stage of our lives. The authors of this article will be close to retirement (and some of its readers as well). A new generation will be in charge and a new world will come about in making sure Kenya becomes one of the emerging economies of the 2030s.

(blogs.worldbank.org)

- More than 1,200 people aged 18-25 submitted entries, and a panel of World Bank experts picked 10 winners, who each will receive a portable video camera.

- The winning messages will be displayed during an expert panel on ending gender-based violence at the World Bank’s spring meetings on April 18.

From across South Asia, the entries poured in – by SMS, email, Twitter, and even a few by postal mail. Young people from seven countries submitted their ideas for ending gender-based violence, in the wake of recent incidents in the region that shocked the world and triggered popular outrage.

Entrants sent messages in nine different languages, and though they were limited by length, they packed powerful words into their messages. “Shed conventional femininity notions, spread gender sensitive-education, make women fiery and gritty, launch ’Safe Cities’ campaigns,” wrote Bhumika Billa, 18, from India. Billa said fear of violence affects her movements on a daily basis.

“Whenever I have to go out with my friends…my parents have to think twice and four times,” she said. A runner, she had to curtail her workouts because she was the only young female running alone on the track and felt unsafe.

Read more…

(www.worldbank.org)

LurnQ is unified, socially styled and open online learning platform for learners and teachers. LurnQ makes online learning simple and noise free through is ‘Learn Feed’ and ‘Learn App’. For people who wants to teach; the ‘Create Lesson’ app can take full advantage of the information scattered all over the web, and yet gives reasonable original creative freedom of expression to teach.

Read more…

You use this as part of customer experience design, and then also plug it into ongoing VOC monitoring that can serve as a source of metrics. You can use qualitative feedback to identify new solutions to ongoing customer issues, and can also go back to that customer to ask further questions. In emerging and frontier markets, this is just as important. Some methods need to be altered for these markets, and there also exist specific approaches that work well in these markets.

Here are a few approaches you might want to consider to get more information from your stakeholders. This is just a few of hundreds of different approaches you can use.

In-Person Feedback

Employee/Customer panels

This is a classic, right? But you can change the focus of these panels to gain additional insights you might not have expected before. Bring together a group of employees or customers, and ask them to provide insights on the customer lifecycle.

Ask them what their pain points in working with you are, and how their ideal organization would engage them, and what is most important to them. If you can continue to meet with the same group over time, you can dig deeper into what was identified as a key issue in previous sessions, and you can also track the impact of changes you make to the experience over time.

Customer Satisfaction surveys

Inside of the VOC space, this is considered extremely valuable, but also a source of continuous debate. What should be asked? How should we ask it? How do we pick our respondent pool? These are all questions you have to ask yourself, but developing an ongoing CSAT is great for tracking results over time. Ideally, you want both a transactional CSAT that measures satisfaction at different points in the customer lifecycle, and an overall CSAT that can inform you of customers’ satisfaction with your entire experience.

Using this, you will be able to identify what has the highest impact on overall satisfaction, which is where you need to concentrate on providing the best experience. If you have a relatively simple approach to CSATs, you might try using an SMS survey to collect this information.

Suggestion boxes on steroids

It seems like every retail establishment and restaurant in the world has a suggestion box. And when you open it, it almost always seems to have one submission in it from 2005. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In some countries, suggestion cards are everywhere, and are almost expected to be completed and returned with a bill. But building up this culture in a place where your customers are not used to it, requires engaging your employees.

If you train your employees to seek out suggestions, and promote response cards in the establishment, you can gain real insights and value from them. If your customers are illiterate, you can make it a conversation, where your employees take a quick survey at the end of the engagement. This also can reinforce the experience for employees if you have them process these surveys at the end of the day, looking for areas of improvement.

VOC Ambassadors

Ambassador programs are used by many different organizations, including Barclays, Fidelity, and Walt Disney. But you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 firm to build a successful ambassador program. Typically, this is done by identifying employees who show a strong interest and understanding in what the customer wants and needs.

You then train them on how to collect customer feedback inside their function, and then empower them to engage other employees inside their function as well. Promote not only feedback, but ideas for innovation as well, and this becomes a great change management tool.

VOC Listening posts

Once you have feedback collected, you can use that information to educate your employees on what your customers are saying. Tape recorded conversations, summaries of comments, and videos of customer interactions are great ways to put the customer front and center in the minds of your employees.

Like I said, these are just a few starting points you can use. You may notice a trend: incorporating VOC feedback into the organization through your employees is a great way to also ensure a stakeholder experience is prioritized by everyone in the organization, which will help in creating a stakeholder obsessed operation.

Remote Feedback

In some frontier markets, customers are not very accessible for face to face focus groups. At the same time, companies have a tendency to focus on customer feedback from the capital city where they are based, and do not sufficiently gather insights from more rural populations. Although it is not always a preferable solution, technology such as SMS and social media can provide other ways of engaging the remote customer.

There are a few scalability issues that need to be considered here. If you are an organization with the budget for it, it is probably best (and easiest), to hire a firm to process the data for you. But most of the examples I list here have a free option, in case you need to process the data yourself.

Just about every country these days has a provider that can conduct SMS surveys for you. But if you don’t have the budget for that, Frontline SMS is a great resource. Download the program, hook it up to a SIM card with a worksheet of phone numbers for your customers, and you can start sending out texts that they can respond to. If you need help, they also have a ning-based social network to address your issues.

Jana used to be known as TXTEagle, and has a great SMS survey model as well, but you have to pay for their service. They have partnerships with telcos around the world, and pay survey takers in cellphone credit when they complete a survey you send via SMS.

You are either operating in a space where your customers use social media, or you’re not. The applicability of social media depends greatly on who you are targeting. That being said, Brazilians and Indonesians are some of the most prolific tweeters on the planet, and Facebook penetration has grown to include many people in the developing world who are on the network even though they don’t own devices to access it, so don’t assume that because you are in a frontier market, you can’t get value out of these resources.

Here are 3 ways you can use social media in this environment (there are more!):

1. Track comments on social media sites that specifically refer to your organization or area of interest.
2. Create a fan page on social media that allows customers to communicate with you and use it proactively to ask questions of your customers. This also allows you access to private conversations that they only have with “friends” that you would otherwise not see.
3. Use a social media site to create a virtual focus group of customers that you may supply with the technology to access it (e.g. give your BoP customers cell phones and credit)

Facebook for every phone is a java –based application that allows feature phones to get on Facebook, but if you are targeting a BoP segment, they are going to be less likely to want to pay for communicating with you. This might be a way to conduct long distance focus groups: give a small group phones with the app, and then have them check in periodically to update their profiles regarding your experience. There are many ways to do this though, and Facebook is only one of many resources for community management.

Wisdom is a quick, freemium app in Facebook that allows you to identify affinity rankings for users in a given space. It will pull up user statistics based on the parameters you chose, or it can also tell you about fans of specific fan sites.

Tweetreach provides basic metrics on your tweet penetration. This is good to track who is reading what you write, and can give some basic metrics. Use this in conjunction with comment tracking.

The real way to use social media though, is to create a page that you can use it to interact with your customers, promote it with your customers, and respond when they comment. It is essential that you provide quick feedback so that customers will believe that you are listening and want to hear what they have to say.

There are plenty of private networks that you can set up and use as well, and community management solutions have exploded in the past few years. Whether you use one or another should depend on ease of accessibility for your customers, whether you can afford or need analytics support, and whether you are up to being a community manager.
(www.ictworks.org)

A delegation of French businesses, together with some of their African partners, visited the World Bank last month to share lessons emerging from their recent efforts to utilize “digital technology to provide quality education for all”, and to outline some of their related upcoming initiatives and activities.

The focus of much of the small workshop, which included World Bank staff working in the education sector and the ICT sector (and a few of us whose work straddles both areas), was on the activities of 2iE, an international, nonprofit higher education and training institute which provides training programs, courses and degrees in the areas of water and sanitation; the environment; energy and electricity; civil engineering and mining; and managerial sciences. 2iE, which the World Bank has supported in various ways over the years, is affiliated with the French network of “grandes ecoles” and trains 2000 students from Africa at its campuses in Burkina Faso.
(blogs.worldbank.org)

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(aiars.org)

The Paris-based thinktank attributed the drop in aid for the second year in a row to the continuing economic crisis and turmoil in Europe. Since reaching a peak in 2010, ODA has fallen by 6% in real terms.

Excluding 2007, which saw the end of exceptional debt relief operations, the fall in 2012 is the largest since 1997. It is also the first time since 1996-97 that aid has fallen in successive years. However, on the basis of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) survey on donors’ plans, a moderate recovery in aid levels is expected in 2013.

“It is worrying that budgetary duress in our member countries has led to a second successive fall in total aid,” said Angel Gurría, the OECD secretary general, “but I take heart from the fact that, in spite of the crisis, nine countries still managed to increase their aid. As we approach the 2015 deadline for achieving the millennium development goals [MDGs], I hope that the trend in aid away from the poorest countries will be reversed.”

In 2012, aid provided by members of the DAC – the club of rich countries – came to $125.7bn (£83bn), or 0.29% of their combined gross national income (GNI), well short of the UN target of 0.7%. The 2012 figure was a 4% drop in real terms compared with 2011.

There is also a noticeable shift in aid away from the poorest countries and towards middle-income countries, said the OECD. The shift benefited countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

By contrast, aid is likely to stagnate to countries with the largest MDG gaps and poverty levels, including sub-Saharan African countries such as Burundi, Chad, Madagascar, Malawi and Niger.

Bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa last year fell 7.9% in real terms to $26.2bn compared with 2011. Aid to the whole continent fell by 9.9% to $28.9bn, following exceptional support to some countries in north Africa after the Arab spring in 2011. Bilateral net ODA to the group of least developed countries (LDCs) also fell, by 12.8% in real terms, to about $26bn.

Adrian Lovett, Europe executive director at the ONE campaign, said the drop in aid to the LDCs went against the rhetoric of focusing on the needs of the poorest people. “The world’s poorest countries are paying a high price for economic failure in the richest,” he said.

“These figures show aid for the least developed countries falling more sharply than aid overall. This does not fit the intent of many major donors – to focus increasingly on countries most in need.”

The new DAC chair, Erik Solheim, urged members to live up to their commitments, and mentioned the UK as a country that had done that despite austerity. “I welcome the efforts of those nine DAC members that increased their aid in 2012, and urge others to increase their aid as soon as their budget circumstances allow,” he said.

“Maintaining aid is not impossible even in today’s fiscal climate. The UK’s 2013-14 budget increases its aid to 0.7% of national income, which gives hope that we can reverse the falling trend.”

In his budget, the chancellor, George Osborne, said Britain would meet the UN target set in 1970 this financial year, although this has not gone down well with members of his own party who believe that the aid budget should not be protected when other departments, including defence, are taking hits.

European NGOs criticised governments for trying to balance the books at the expense of poor people. “European leaders are in a scramble to cut what they can, despite the very real damage this could do to the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poorest people,” said Zuzana Sladkova of Concord, the European NGO umbrella group.

“Aid has the support of the public in Europe, but support to poor countries is being hit hard by cuts that balance the books on the back of the world’s poor.”

NGOs are bailing out of projects as a direct result of aid cuts, said Concord, citing the example of Spain, where aid levels have sunk to their lowest level in 22 years. “This has resulted in Spanish NGOs pulling out of developing countries. 68% of NGOs have had to close some of their aid projects on the ground. This is axing life-saving support to some of the poorest people in need,” said Mercedes Ruiz-Jimenez, director of the Spanish NGO platform Coordinadora.

Ben Jackson, chief executive of Bond, the group of British NGOs, said: “A fall of 4% in global aid in 2012 is very disappointing … It’s great news that the UK will reach the 0.7% aid target in 2013, but it is crucial that other EU member states live up to their international commitments. We have only two years left to meet the millennium development goals, and need urgent action to get back on track.”

The largest donors, in absolute terms, were the US, the UK, Germany, France and Japan. Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden continued to exceed the UN’s ODA target of 0.7% of GNI.

(www.guardian.co.uk)

During the next 15-20 years, as power becomes even more diffuse than today, a growing number of diverse state and non-state actors, as well as sub-national actors, such as cities, will play important governance roles. The increasing number of players needed to solve major transnational challenges—and their discordant values—will complicate decision making.

The lack of consensus between and among established and emerging powers suggests that multilateral governance to 2030 will be limited at best. The chronic deficit probably will reinforce the trend toward fragmentation. However, various developments—positive or negative—could push the world in different directions. Advances cannot be ruled out despite growing multi-polarity, increased regionalism, and possible economic slowdowns. Prospects for achieving progress on global issues will vary across issues.

The governance gap will continue to be most pronounced at the domestic level and driven by rapid political and social changes. The advances during the past couple decades in health, education, and income—which we expect to continue, if not accelerate in some cases—will drive new governance structures. Transitions to democracy are much more stable and long-lasting when youth bulges begin to decline and incomes are higher. Currently about 50 countries are in the awkward stage between autocracy and democracy, with the greatest number concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. Both social science theory and recent history—the Color Revolutions and the Arab Spring—support the idea that with maturing age structures and rising incomes, political liberalization and democracy will advance.

However, many countries will still be zig-zagging their way through the complicated democratization process.

The widespread use of new communications technologies will become a double-edged sword for governance. On the one hand, social networking will enable citizens to coalesce and challenge governments, as we have already seen in Middle East. On the other hand, such technologies will provide governments—both authoritarian and democratic—an unprecedented ability to monitor their citizens. It is unclear how the balance will be struck between greater IT-enabled individuals and networks and traditional political structures. In our interactions, technologists and political scientists have offered divergent views.

The characteristics of ICT use—multiple and simultaneous action, near instantaneous responses, mass organization across geographic boundaries, and technological dependence—increase the potential for more frequent discontinuous change in the international system. The current, largely Western dominance of global structures such as the UN Security Council, World Bank, and IMF probably will have been transformed by 2030 to be more in line with the changing hierarchy of new economic players.

Many second-tier emerging powers will be making their mark—at least as emerging regional leaders. Just as the larger G-20—rather than G-7/8—was energized to deal with the 2008 financial crisis, we expect that other institutions will be updated—probably also in response to crises.

(ictpost.com)

This view was contained in the keynote paper entitled: Biotechnology Prospects and Challenges for Africa delivered by world renowned Science Professor and Director, International Basic Sciences Programme, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, Maciej J. Nalecz, at the Inaugural Conference of the International Centre for Biotechnology (UNESCO Category II), University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State.

Polish-born Nalecz noted that science has a primary role in pursuit of knowledgeand sustainable development and, in general, the advancement of civilisation.

“Science drives economic growth and prosperity and creates jobs.Therefore, investment in science in Africa is a must,” he argued

Currently, Africa’s contribution to global research and development is less than 1 per cent of global investment in Research and Development and a mere 1.5 per cent of total scientific publications, a situation deemed as grossly inadequate.

Calling for more focus in science, Nalecz said such investments would offer exciting research opportunities in addition to other applications critical to development in agriculture, medicine, energy, etc.

The renowned scientist also called for creation of physical infrastructure in critical platform technologies that could support education and training, including interdisciplinary education to create the human resources required in such field as engineering, chemistry, physics and medical sciences.

Professor Ademola Adenle of the UN University-Institute of Advanced Studies, UNU-IAS, said a science-based development drive will tackle hunger, poverty and food insecurity, saying there is an urgent need to characterize germplasm used for diets and traditional medicine where more than 70 percent of indigenous people rely on for daily health needs”

The Biotechnology Conference marked the official commencement of the International Centre for Biotechnology, UNESCO Category 2, University of Nigeria, Nsukka as a UNESCO Centre following the signing of the MoU between Nigeria and UNESCO in October 2012.

(allafrica.com)

eHealth is becoming more relevant to regional needs in Africa by addressing local issues associated with the paucity of medical centres in rural areas. However, there is uncertainty as to whether the current eHealth model will be as effective on a larger scale. A recent study found that the major challenges for eHealth in Africa are:

“The complexity of ensuring interoperability and integration of information systems and securing privacy of information… [and finding] sustainable financing required for large-scale use of mobile phone technology in resource-limited settings.”

Nevertheless, it is clear that eHealth initiatives are urgently required, as found in asecond report into the effectiveness of such mobile initiatives:

“Many of these deadly conditions are relatively simple to treat, prevent or contain… For HIV patients, simple weekly text reminders have consistently shown higher adherence amongst the patients.”

In addition, the report found that SMS reminders sent to health centres to monitor stock levels have shown positive results in reducing the risk of malaria, TB and HIV medication shortages.

Indeed, initiatives involving mobile phones such as m4RH, eMOCHA and Text to Change have shown encouraging results and the potential for scalability.

Mobile for reproductive health (m4RH) is a simple low-cost information sharing tool that allows users to access information on contraception and reproductive health through a text messaging service.  The m4RH system also provides service delivery information so users can locate local clinics that can provide information and services specific to their needs.

The service has the added benefit of correcting misinformation about the use of contraception, ensuring correct use and encouraging uptake. The initiative is still in a testing stage, but since its inception in 2010 m4RH has reached over 70,000 users in Kenya and Tanzania.

The electronic Mobile Open-source Comprehensive Health Application (eMOCHA) is a smartphone app designed to assist health programs in resource-limited settings and improve provider communication and education, as well as patient care. Active since 2010 and currently in use by the government of Uganda, eMOCHA uses video, audio, touchscreen quizzes, GPS and SMS to collect and analyse large amounts of health-related data.

Text to Change, like eMOCHA, is a platform for collecting health data and information; however, it approaches the task in a decidedly low-tech – smartphone not required – and interactive way, often through incentive-based SMS quizzes, personalised medicine reminder programs and self-assessment.

The Text to Change mobile platform has been successfully used to quiz users on their knowledge of general health, provide information on local clinics and refer users to prevention and treatment facilities.

The tool has been active since late 2008 and has issued more than 8,400,000 text messages containing vital health information on HIV/AIDS, maternal health and nutrition.

While mHealth solutions are gaining traction, crowdsourcing projects are proving to be important tools for diagnosing complex cases. Projects such as MEDTING allow health workers worldwide to share health trends and crowdsource diagnostic advice and expertise. On a smaller scale, telemedicine and information sharing between medical centres in Africa are being used successfully by health workers in distant rural communities where specialists are not available locally.

Other eHealth programmes such as eLearning@ttcih are focusing on addressing the shortage of skilled health workers, one of the biggest challenges faced by health systems. eLearning@ttcih, a collaboration between the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development (NFSD), the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and the Tanzanian Training Center for International Health, functions as an eLearning hub for improving the quality of health education and training and thus increasing the number of trained health workers in Tanzania.

(www.elearning-africa.com)

Amid all of the submissions are some familiar innovations we’ve already encountered at Atlantic Cities, formerly as nascent ideas now competing for a chance to scale up: our favorite guerrillawayfinding campaign from Raleigh, North Carolina; Code for America’s playful StreetMix web app; the San Francisco-based Urban Prototyping Festival; and a community-driventransportation planning project based on the kind of data analytics we wrote about here.

But that’s barely scratching the surface of all the proposals that Knight has corralled. We’ve put together a list of 12 ideas from the competition that are new to us and that we think would be worth developing (and we’ve included the applicants’ description of their programs). Through Friday, you can comment on (or “applaud”) any of the submissions as applicants continue to refine their proposals. On the 29th, Knight plans to announce a set of semifinalists, who will be invited to complete more detailed proposals. The final winners (there’s no predetermined number of them) will then be announced in June.

Continue to read…

Technology has transformed social and economic life in countries with emerging economies, in many developing countries, and in many communities in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The scope of change includes sectors such as finance, manufacturing, health, agriculture, and government. As these changes are taking place, ministries of education (MOEs) and donor agencies grapple with questions about appropriate, effective, and valuable uses of education technology for learning, teaching, and strengthening educational systems: Is ICT the most cost-effective way to improve our students’ performance? How can we connect our ICT projects in schools to improved youth employment? How should we gauge the support that technology companies are offering? Should we invest in a “one laptop per child” initiative?

(www.equip123.net)

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Start EMPOWERING GOOD in your community today with the Cause.it app!

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Cause.it for Nonprofits from Andrew Blejde on Vimeo.

The Report identifies more than 40 countries in the developing world that have done better than had been expected in human development terms in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the past ten years. The Report analyzes the causes and consequences of these countries’ achievements and the challenges that they face today and in the coming decades.

(www.undp.org)

With this new solar project, Masdar will be producing 10 per cent of world’s renewable energy, said Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar, adding that the UAE is now producing 68 per cent of the total renewable energy produced by the members of Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic union of the Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf.

The construction of Shams 1, a joint venture between Masdar, a company based in Abu Dhabi and international operatives such as Total and Abengoa, started in the third quarter of 2010 and will produce 100 Megawatt of electricity.

The solar park features long lines of parabolic mirrors spread over an area equivalent to 285 football pitches in the desert of the Western Region, some 120 kilometres southwest of Abu Dhabi.

(www.ictpost.com)

YPaycash, a prepaid mobile wallet, supported various kinds of payments including payments at retail shops, mobile/DTH recharge and fund transfer, Ravi Jagannathan, Vice-Chairman, Y-Cash Software Solution, told reporters here.

The company’s target was to enroll small and mid-sized merchants who typically did not use credit/debit car payment system, he said.

Already launched in Chennai some three months ago, the platform had received tremendous response and over 4,000 retail merchants had already signed up, M Sathish Kumar, vice-president, Business and Operations, Mobile payment, said.

This has twin benefits of lower cost and ease of use and the partnership with Karur Vysya Bank has strengthened the company’s reach to the market, which helped position YPaycash as the non-cash instrument of choice for retailers in Tamil Nadu, he said.

The platform would be launched across the cities and town in Tamil Nadu soon and across the country in another three years, Jagannathan said.

(www.thehindubusinessline.com)

Emerging innovations in the delivery of health care, particularly in developing countries, offer insights on how to tackle its rising cost, estimated at $7 trillion a year globally. Health care is consuming an escalating share of income in developed and developing nations alike. Yet innovators have found ways to deliver care effectively at significantly lower cost while improving access and increasing quality. They are uncovering patterns for raising productivity, and leaders across health sectors—public, private, and social—should take heed. With the recent passage of health reform legislation in the United States, for instance, tackling costs is imperative there, but it is also an important goal in every other part of the world.

GE Healthcare has brought out affordable handheld ECG machines and cardiac ultrasound systems specifically for the Indian market and at about 50-70 per cent lower cost. GE sees a huge opportunity in this market, and in terms of better access to healthcare.

Disposable incomes are on the rise, increasing sales of white goods. Tax-free agricultural income is also triggering a lot of spending. Market is clearly big. From a healthcare point of view, people are more disease-prone. Most don’t come to cities to spend, so you have to take goods to them at a cost they can afford. Last year, the company launched CritiNext – India’s as well as Asia’s first eICU. As part of a national roll out of this technology, Fortis Healthcare and GE Healthcare aim to deploy the solution connecting a minimum of 500 ICU beds in 20 hospitals by 2014.

GE’s team of 1,400 engineers/scientists is now focusing on developing specific solutions for India and it has announced a $50 million investment in the R&D facility in India to bring out nine to 10 products a year.

V. Vijay Babu, ceo of Vortex Engineering Pvt Ltd, a Chennai-based company which came up with the first solar-powered atm for rural areas at a fraction of the normal cost, says the rush to innovate is no surprise. “It is implicit in India’s growth story, where the consumer base is the rural masses. No company can afford not to tap it,” he adds.

The Vortex atm is now being used by the State Bank of India (SBI) in remote areas with intermittent power supply. Banks do not find it viable to set up base in such areas due to overall costs. The ATM, which is the only one that can also dispense soiled notes, costs Rs.2-3 lakh, compared with a conventional one which comes at over Rs.5 lakh. Even in terms of running costs, the Vortex ATM needs about Rs.500 a month whereas an urban ATM goes up to Rs.10,000. Babu, however, cautions that such mass or rural innovations cannot be supplanted with imported ideas. Products for the Indian market have to be designed specifically for that purpose.

Get close to the patient

Innovators can lower distribution costs and improve adherence to clinical protocols by moving the delivery of care much closer to the homes of patients, providing services that take advantage of their established behavior patterns, or both. VisionSpring, an organization that brings affordable eye care to the poor in 13 countries, succeeds because it takes care givers close to patients through a low-cost franchise model. It teaches local “vision entrepreneurs”—members of the mainly poor communities they serve—how to diagnose problems such as presbyopia (an inability to focus on nearby objects) and how to determine what type of mass-produced eyeglass would correct it. The company also provides its entrepreneurs with a “business in a bag” that contains all the required products and equipment. Distribution costs are low because information, products, and services are standardized, and the model is simple to implement, even if the workforce is relatively unsophisticated.

While every innovator has the potential for a million-dollar idea, hardly 1 per cent make it to the second round, especially for funding. “Most ideas don’t even go to the second level because ideas are not tested. Most are just rough ideas or have no track record of achievement. We like to invest in ideas that are viable and financially sustainable but also make an impact in rural and semi-urban India,” says P. Pradeep, partner and chief investment officer, Aavishkar, which funds such bottom-of-the-pyramid small innovations, considered risky by conventional financiers. Aavishkar was set up in 2001 and has invested in 23 ideas.

India is missing rigour in impact evaluation. Unbiased evaluation needs large data collection and greater administrative machinery. But that’s limited. And till we do that, India won’t get actual impact numbers. Finally, ICTpost team like the quote attributed to Omar Ishrak of GE that the term “frugal innovation” “understates the revolution under way.” He points to how “firms in emerging markets are leapfrogging the latest technologies, such as miniaturization, mobile communications and advanced materials.” The result – both cheaper and better products.

(www.ictpost.com)

(www.ids.ac.uk)

The report asks the following questions and makes recommendations for the knowledge intermediary sector:
what Information and Communication Technology (ICT) do policy actors have access to? Policy actors as a part of the elite of the country have an equivalent access to the average American household. Early adopters of the newer forms of ICT are changing their search behaviour.. Knowledge intermediaries need to adapt their mechanisms for emerging patterns of behaviour. Some policy actors are already using smartphones, and the development of mobile apps that assist research communications is appropriate
do policy actors use traditional media to inform their work? Policy actors do use the traditional media (newspapers, radio, television and other public forms of broadcasting) to update themselves about their work, but there are issues of trust, and its use a primary source of local information is diminishing. However, there is a role for the knowledge intermediary to assist the translation of research and evidence into the media
do policy actors rely on being given information, or do they search for it themselves? There is an assumption that senior policy actors may not be searching for information themselves, and that they are presented with information. While this may remain the case in the poorer more formal countries, it is less so in the mid-range countries. Where connectivity is improving, policy actors will look for information themselves
when policy actors engage with the internet, what do they do? The majority respondents engaged with emails, obtained official information and read online news. Data confirms the dominance of Google (at the moment). In terms of existing websites that specialise in development information there was a reasonable awareness across the respondents but there is room for improvement
how do policy actors value different origins of research? International research is still largely trusted more highly than local research. Although in India and Ethiopia local research is thought to be as relevant as international research. Useful data like NGO surveys, and desk summaries of government policies, are accessed relatively frequently. This suggests it is the utility of the information that encourages frequent access
evidence, persistence and satisfaction – the paper asks what the survey can tell us about the demand for “evidence” (facts and figures)? What does the survey tell us about the demand for “nformation” (are policy actors persistent)? Does Technology lead to information satisfaction? Do policy actors use libraries? Are the policy actors cost sensitive regarding research information? Do people prefer to print out or read on screen? What is the influence of children on policy actors?f
future use of new ICT services – these include Social and business networking, Twitter, instant messaging, Audio Online, Video Online and smartphone use. In general positive attitudes towards the new ICT services, reinforced by positive social referents, and with very few limiting control factors, are all linked to a positive intention to use. It is likely that policy actors will be increasingly using the new ICT services in the coming year

(www.ids.ac.uk)

Five years ago an estimated 400 million people lived with rudimentary, low-quality kerosene lamps, providing poor, polluting and often dangerous light. A further 100m homes were nominally connected to the grid but had intermittent power, often at times when no one wanted it.

But in five years, thanks largely to a single NGO that has not sold one lamp, 500,000 more homes have been provided with cheap, decentralised electricity via powerful solar LED lanterns using the latest batteries and panels.

Teri, India’s leading energy research institute, launched its Lighting One Billion Lives initiative in 2007. After a slow start – only four villages signed up in the first year – it has taken off. More than 2,000 villages now have “charging stations”, each offering 50 or so long-lasting, high-quality solar lanterns that double up as mobile phone chargers.

Teri does not make, distribute or sell the lamps. Instead, it acts as a combined social, developmental and technical enterprise. Its scientists and designers work closely with more than 20 manufacturers to improve the quality and reliability of the lamps, and bring down their cost, while other teams work with villages, NGOs and banks to identify people to run the charging stations. Teri helps to set up repair shops, trains people and provides technical support.

“We are trying to improve the quality of the lamps and build up the chain of local entrepreneurs. We helped seed and catalyse the market,” says Ibrahim Rehman, director of Teri’s social transformation division.

“People were paying about $1 a month for kerosene lamps, so we had to have an economic model which allowed people to pay about the same as they did before. At the start, the lanterns used to cost about $100 each but now they are down to $15-$30. The batteries used to last one year; now they last three.”

People can buy them on microcredit, but in the villages most rent them for a few pence a day. Teri itself, NGOs, businesses, Bollywood film stars and individuals partly or completely sponsor a village to have lanterns, after which a local villager runs the operation as a business, renting them out for no more than they used to pay for kerosene. Villagers drop the lamps to the charging station in the morning and the lights are charged when they return in the evening.

“People were suspicious to start with but now they are queueing to put their names down for them,” says Rehman, who estimates that 500,000 homes have now been provided with light, with numbers increasing exponentially. At this rate, in 10 more years, most Indian villages will have light.

“The benefits are visible,” says Dhairya Dholakia, area convenor for the project. “People have bright, clean, non-polluting light. There’s a clear health benefit. Education is also improved – because children can continue their studies later – and so are livelihoods. All these villages now have ‘entrepreneurs’ running the solar charging stations. They are earning money.”

The lanterns are welcomed, he says. Craftsmen can work later, shops can stay open longer, births are easier to monitor and people have more possibilities to earn money.

“Energy is the missing MDG [millennium development goal]. It is the underlying development goal that fuels so much other development. It has so many co-benefits,” says Jarnail Singh, a Teri researcher who visits many of the villages and has seen how clean light raises people’s development ambitions. “When people have lighting they realise they can have refrigeration, can keep their food and products long term,” he says.

Increasingly, Teri is setting up “micro grids”, where 10 or more houses or shops may be linked to a single solar array. Each house will then have two power points, making the result similar to being connected to the grid. Here, the entrepreneur pays for the equipment, but householders pay for the connection.

India is pursuing electrification remorselessly, but business and the cities are given preference and it is expected to be many years before the grid reaches the remotest places – if it does so at all.

Teri is now expanding the scheme to Afghanistan, Burma, Pakistan and African countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.

“Merely transplanting technological solutions from the developed world … can lead to a mismatch,” says Rajendra Pachauri, director general of Teri, who is also the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “However, there are huge benefits from south-south co-operation [like this] because the cultural context and complexity of the challenge across different developing countries have a great deal in common.”

(www.guardian.co.uk)

Dr. Mitra, an educational researcher and professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), wishes to design the School in the Cloud—a learning lab in India, based on his vision for Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLE). The school draws inspiration from Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiments, in which he observed children both learning and teaching on their own and without any guidance or intervention.

Read more…

The same three regions have experienced phenomenal levels of growth in mobile phone access since 2000. While women’s and girls’ access to mobile phones generally lags when compared to men, gains are being made as costs of ownership fall. But where do gender parity in education and access to mobile phones intersect?

In many of the places where gender parity in education is most unequal, school systems are plagued by a lack of trained (female) teachers, a scarcity of up-to-date educational materials (especially in mother-tongue languages), and demands placed on the time during the day women and girls are expected to contribute to helping run households and/or businesses for their families. Although mobile phones may not be able to resolve all of these challenges, they could provide assistance.

Read more…

THREE STUDENTS ARE hunched over an iPad at a beach café on Senegal’s Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost tip of the world’s poorest continent. They are reading online news stories about Moldova, one of Europe’s most miserable countries. One headline reads: “Four drunken soldiers rape woman”. Another says Moldovan men have a 19% chance of dying from excessive drinking and 58% will die from smoking-related diseases. Others deal with sex-trafficking. Such stories have become a staple of Africa’s thriving media, along with austerity tales from Greece. They inspire pity and disbelief, just as tales of disease and disorder in Africa have long done in the rich world.

Read more…

It was found that there were statistically significant positive differences in students whose teachers showed higher adoption levels when compared both to lower adoption cases and other defined control groups. We conclude that an M&E scheme supports the intervention process by providing real-time information for decision making through the application of assessment instruments according to a monitoring plan. This enables intervention activities to be adjusted so as to ensure an adequate level of adoption.
(dcc.puc.cl)