The collection and analysis of information from the field is a big part of ensuring that programs are working correctly. Recently, journalist Justin Smith interviewed George Mu'ammar of the World Food Programme's Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping Unit on how his department uses mobile technology to collect data. Listen to the podcast below:
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to amplify the voices of poor people around the world. Demand Dignity is an economic, cultural, and social rights campaign for the organization and the online platform, DemandDignity.org, was launched in May 2009. Since then, the site has collected 57,384 comments, or “voices,” from people around the world, via SMS, Twitter, and on the Demand Dignity website.
The campaign attempts to give a voice to people who are living in poverty or who have had their human rights violated, said Sarah Pyke, communications coordinator of the campaign. It enables people to be able to access their rights, hold their governments to account, and to be able to make their voices heard. These aims led to the creation of the DemandDignity.org platform, an interactive website where people can submit audio, video, or text reports and answer prompted questions such as What does living in dignity mean to you?
The Demand Dignity campaign attempts to give a voice to people who are living in poverty or who have had their human rights violated. People can use Twitter, the website, or SMS to comment and add their voice to the platform.
I do like the platform.
Brief description of the project:
Amnesty International has launched a campaign that aims to :amplify the voices of poor people" around the world. Demand Dignity is an economic, cultural, and social rights campaign and an online platform, DemandDignity.org, that launched in May 2009. Since then, the site has collected 57,384 comments, or “voices,” from people around the world, via SMS, Twitter, and on the Demand Dignity website.
Target audience:
Anyone who wishes to comment on the Demand Dignity platform.
Length of Project (in months) :
24
Status:
Ongoing
Anticipated launch date:
What worked well? :
The campaign uses a "house" social network to be channel-independent. The platform allows for submissions from Twitter, SMS, or directly on the DemandDignity.org site. During a mission in Kenya, the Demand Dignity team issues a free short code which contributed to 9000 submissions from people living Kiberam a slum in Nairobi.
What did not work? What were the challenges?:
Spamming of the system can be an issue. Also, the site uses a public moderation approach to flag inappropriate content. Defining languages and issuing replies or responses is a challenge, as is incentive for the user. The team is working to enhance audio submissions.
Having poor vision can affect nearly every aspect of life, and although it’s easy for those with nearsightedness or farsightedness to know something is wrong, getting a correct diagnosis and prescription for corrective eyewear can be difficult in rural areas. A new device called NETRA could change all that with a cheap, small clip-on tool for mobile phones. Developed by the Camera Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab, NETRA works by having users look through a camera lens and align images on a display screen until the images come into focus.
The project goal was to create a cheap, portable way to diagnose vision disorders such as refractive errors and cataracts.
Brief description of the project:
Users look through the clip-on lens at a very close range and align the patterns displayed on a mobile phone screen. The number of manipulations needed to align the images reveals the level of refractive error in the user's eye.
Target audience:
Rural residents who need to diagnose vision problems
Length of Project (in months) :
18
Status:
Ongoing
Anticipated launch date:
What worked well? :
The project allows users to get accurate prescriptions for vision problems in a cheap and accessible way through the use of a clip-on camera lens and manipulable light displays.
What did not work? What were the challenges?:
Challenges include: the reliability on user diagnosis. Because the system does not require a trained optometrist to deliver the test, the chance for user error is higher than with traditional eye tests.
Mobiflock makes cell phones safe for children by giving parents the visibility and tools to manage their children's phone use, and so protect them from harm.
There are umpteen fantastic reasons for your child to have a mobile phone: from letting you stay in touch with them, to accessing the web for school projects, to simply fitting in with their friends. The flipside to this, however, is an unacceptable level of danger – from cyber-bullying and sexual harrassment, to sexting, and spending too much time and money on their phones.
The Mobiflock service allows you to:
* Find out who your kids are contacting and who is contacting them. And what they are saying to each other.
* Control who your child contacts, who contacts them, time and money spent, information sent and received.
* Locate where a missing or stolen phone, or even where your child is. And delete private info from a missing or stolen phone.
* Receive alerts about inappropriate content; cyber-bullying; sexting; predatory activity; spending too much time or money online.
Water is becoming one of the most contested resources in the world as populations increase and the availability of fresh water decreases. MobileActive spoke to the team behind NextDrop, an organization that uses mobile technology to monitor water flow in urban India.
Designed by a team of Berkeley and Stanford graduate students, the idea for NextDrop came out of a class at Berkeley's School of Information on how to use information technology for sustainable development. A group of students wanted to track intermittent water supplies in India. NextDrop was born. Ari Olmos, one of the team members running NextDrop, explains, “There was an opportunity to use information technology to improve the situation and create a schedule and feedback loop.”
Pre-term births can result in dangerous deliveries for mothers and life-long medical problems for children. Currently, one in ten babies are born prematurely, but a new project called SMART Diaphragm is working to change this through an early detection system.
SMART Diaphragm is an early warning system for high-risk pregnancies. Pregnant women insert a sensor-enabled diaphragm that monitors changing collagen levels in the woman's cervix. The results are wirelessly transmitted via bluetooth-enabled phones to a cloud data storage system.
The project goals were: Create an affordable, accessible way to identify problems in high-risk pregnancies before visible symptoms occur. Build a wireless monitoring system that works in both developed and developing regions.
Brief description of the project:
Smart Diaphragm is an early warning system for high-risk pregnancies. Pregnant women insert a sensor-enabled diaphragm (the Smart Diaphragm), which monitors changing collagen levels in the woman's cervix, and the results are wirelessly transmitted via bluetooth-enabled phones to a cloud data storage system.
Target audience:
Pregnant women with high-risk pregnancies for premature birth
Length of Project (in months) :
12
Status:
Under Development
Anticipated launch date:
2011 Oct 1
What worked well? :
The team reports that the partnership between the group of bio-engineers and obstetricians trained for high-risk pregnancies resulted in a great deal of creative ideas as the groups brought different backgrounds and skill sets to the team. They also found that using the sensor-enabled diaphragm worked well as many women were already familiar with the device as a means of contraception, and thus could insert and remove it themselves without needing a physician's help.
What did not work? What were the challenges?:
One challenge the group has faced is getting the product ready for control testing as it's very difficult to clinically study devices in pregnant women; the measures taken for safety are extremely high so as not to hurt the mother or fetus, and the pregnancy only lasts a finite amount of time.
In today's Mobile Minute, we look at CGAP's coverage on branchless banking and micro-insurance, report on Nielsen and mobile privacy concerns, look at how the New York Times investigates Google's mobile approach and how smartphones are collecting data about cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots. Lastly, a meetup for those interested in mHealth and ICT4D.
Interested in how branchless banking and micro-insurance can work together? GCAP has a roundup of three different organizations (from Ghana, the Philippines, and Kenya) that have paired mobile banking and micro-insurance in order to reach the unbanked and uninsured.
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights.
