Appropriate Technology (AT) Update 11-06-05
Updates
Report
by
Cliff
Thompson,
Appropriate Technology Evangelist, Paths of Native
Africa,
Webmaster, Friends of African Outlet
SIG
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Updates
Note: Quotes from some of the sources below may run long, as they aim to represent Abstracts/Summaries of the content, in the event the links to which, free & available in full at the time of the write-up, change to reflect archiving, or registration/subscription/article purchase requirements at the source site - providing the accompanying source name, title & date of the updates below offers the alternative of keeping things free of charge via public library access.
Time Global Health Summit...November 1-3, 2005:
"...Sunday, Nov. 06, 2005...For three days last week, 350 experts and policymakers gathered in New York City to discuss the challenges for public health around the world...The TIME Global Health Summit, whose participants included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Kofi Annan, Madeleine Albright, Rick Warren, Ted Turner, Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank and UNICEF's Ann Veneman...Bono, the rock star of global health, addressed the gathering from Los Angeles...". Meeting a Challenge with Ideas and Optimism
"...As TIME's Global Health Summit comes to a close, some summation is in order...Treat it like a business. Set a goal, set a target and produce the quarterly reports with the results and deliverables, says Patty Stonesifier, Co-Chair and President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation...". How Do We Get From Here to There?
"...Bill and Melinda Gates have poured more than $6 billion into global health. They spoke to TIME's Amanda Bower just before making a $258 million commitment to fight malaria...TIME: Do you find that each of you is interested in different aspects of the problem?...BILL: The biology of some of these diseases is perhaps more fascinating to me...MELINDA: And I've gotten a little bit more in the field than Bill--because he has a day job. To be out in the villages, talking with the women, seeing what really makes an impact on their lives, that really helps me when I come back to the foundation and go through the numbers, go through the grants and say, Can this really make a difference?...When we were in Mozambique, seeing the mothers with babies who are dying of malaria, I think for both of us it really gave us a face to what we're trying to do in the whole area of malaria...TIME: Do you listen to U2?...MELINDA: Of course. So do our children...". Riches to the Poor
Time Global Health Summit: Website, Transcripts, Webcasts
Rx for Survival — A Global Health Challenge...November 5-6, 2005:
A 6-part PBS documentary with web site called Rx for Survival, which web site includes episode descriptions, often profiling innovative NGO AT Solutions. For example "Program 3 - Delivering the Goods" contains a segment on the NGO Riders for Health & their life-saving invention, to wit "...In rural areas worldwide, residents of remote villages that may be 20 miles from the nearest clinic or field hospital are often out of luck when a medical emergency arises. Without ambulances to transport them, thousands of people, including children, die each year on the long walk to the hospital...Riders for Health, an organization with the mission of providing health care workers with motorcycles, which are excellent for Africa's rugged roads and terrain...have also invented a vehicle they call the Uhuru (the Swahili word for "freedom") — a motorcycle with a sidecar ambulance attached. Community health workers use the Uhuru to visit their clients and to transport pregnant women or very sick people to clinics or hospitals...".
San Francisco Chronicle...Friday, November 11, 2005...Bono's Vision...Rocker's
fight to save the world:
"...Bono...The firebrand rock star..has been signing up audience members for his One Campaign to Make Poverty History...Bono's commitment to Africa goes back to 1984, when he and his wife volunteered for six weeks in an Ethiopian refugee camp...Bono is now a leading spokesman in Western politics for the entire continent. He has been seriously considered as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate...He has held three meetings with President Bush. He is on a first-name basis with Cabinet members. He is conspiring on matters of Third World poverty with Bill Gates...". U2's Bono makes fiery case for rocking the world with ambitious mission to eradicate global misery
"Bono speaks (Podcasts):...Bono...tells The San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board...why he's tackling some of Africa's biggest problems [Part III]...how and why he courted the religious right to help his efforts to eradicate AIDS in Africa...[Part II]...his efforts to fight AIDS, reduce poverty and promote trade with Africa...[Part I]...". ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History
The Mercury News...Saturday, Nov. 12, 2005..African-led fund aimed at digital divide:
"...An African-led initiative that will use high-speed Internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso offers inspiration for those working to bridge the world's digital divide...Its great promise lies in its linking of technology spending with existing campaigns to extinguish poverty, diseases and illiteracy, averting the need to choose one over the other...Yet...The age-old challenge remains: Who's going to pay for such works?...As world leaders convene in Tunisia on Wednesday for a U.N. summit on extending technology to the poor...Much of The Digital Solidarity Fund's contributions comes from African nations least able to afford it...Worldwide, just 14 percent of the population is online...The Digital Solidarity Fund has just $6.4 million...for the first round of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal aggressively pushed for the fund's creation...The first $1 million is committed to bringing high-speed Internet access to about two dozen AIDS clinics in Burundi and Burkina Faso. Satellite and other communications equipment will go to nine cities in the African nations, and an emerging wireless technology called WiMax will extend access to more remote sites...The clinics are getting videoconferencing units, with serial ports to attach stethoscopes and other medical equipment, so specialists can examine patients from afar...Lab technicians can remotely analyze blood samples and quickly determine the need for antiretroviral drugs; before, samples had to be sent by mail or messenger...Each site will also get 20 to 30 computers so medical workers can store records for follow-up care and keep up on the latest treatment and prevention techniques...Only after all that is in place can the rest of the community use the computers, too, for other projects...Focusing first on basic needs like health, food and education only makes sense, Ursache said..."The life of vulnerable populations cannot improve dramatically if all of (a) sudden they have a computer," Ursache said. "But if their doctor is able to provide better health care thanks to a computer, then it is the use of the machine that matters, and not the acquisition itself."..the fund is focused on local, targeted projects...said Willie Currie of the Association for Progressive Communications, a coalition of nonprofit groups devoted to improving communication technologies...Past efforts to put computers into schools didn't necessarily come with training, native language Web sites or any plans to integrate the equipment into curriculums, Currie said. "That period is over," he said, and projects now have to be more focused..." African-led fund aimed at digital divide
Reuters, November 15, 2005...Can Technology Ease Africa's Woes?:
"DIPICHI, South Africa...It is hard to believe that 19 shiny flat
screen computers can cure the ills of this tiny community in South Africa's
arid north where people battle every day against poverty, AIDS, illiteracy
and hunger. Yet U.S. computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ.N) and South
African President Thabo Mbeki are promoting Dipichi's smart new IT lab as a
blueprint for how technology can trigger growth and tackle poverty across
the world's poorest continent...as multinationals start to invest in South
Africa and elsewhere on the continent, they are touting technology as a
panacea for development. Hewlett-Packard (HP) says the Dipichi project will
help create jobs, improve farming and educate...`I saved someone from a
poisonous snake bite after I learned about first aid from the computer,'
said Rosina Ledwaba, a 39-year old home-based carer who lives in one of the
village's tiny thatched huts with her five children and husband. Next to the
brightly painted shipping container that houses the IT lab, Viviane
Marakalala proudly showed off the village vegetable garden, which has been
packed with leafy cabbages since a group of women learned about drip
irrigation from a computer program. `I had never seen a computer in my life
but now I know how to use it,' said Marakalala, 27. `We looked in the
computer and it told us in our language how to use our water better.'. HP's
former Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina and Mbeki launched the i-Community
project -- one of only two in the world -- in 2002 at the World Sustainable
Development conference in Johannesburg. The other project is in Kuppam,
India. The project is being run in the Mogalakwena municipality in Limpopo
province where 53 percent of the population is jobless and more live below
the poverty line. Run in tandem with local government, it links libraries,
community centers, clinics and schools around the main town of Mokopane to
the Internet, and includes a PC refurbishing center, call center and
micro-lender. It also includes IT centers in rural villages like Dipichi,
which until recently had neither water nor electricity and can be reached
only by a dirt road. In Dipichi, and in many other locations, the computers
are operated using satellite technology and residents hope that their
presence will pressure local authorities to link their villages to the
electricity grid. Miriam Segabutsa, one of the project directors, conceded
computer literacy might not seem like an obvious priority for a continent
racked by disease and hunger, but insisted it could improve quality of life
for ordinary people.`It is not about teaching computers for the sake of
computers, it is about giving people access to the information they need,'
she told Reuters. HP is not the only multinational to hand out free
computers...Intel...funds community IT centers in townships
and...Microsoft...is setting up `digital villages' to reach half a million
poor South Africans...Cell phone companies have adapted wireless technology
for myriad development uses like low-cost banking for the poor, delivering
price information to rural farmers and monitoring AIDS patients in sprawling
townships...HP and the government say the i-Community project is about
opportunity not aid, and can be easily replicated. `Most digital divide
projects have had a philanthropic impetus, but HP has said that if this
thing is to be sustainable, it has to have a solid business case,' said
Clive Smith, HP's project director. `It can't be sustainable if it is
dependent on grants.'. HP and the local government want to turn the project
into a business, which might include handing community IT centers over to
local entrepreneurs. After that, they hope to launch more projects across
the developing world, eventually making them self-sufficient.`Dipichi is
making history,'' Mbeki told crowds of cheering villagers during a recent
visit to the project. ``Dipichi can show the whole of South Africa how to do
development.'..."
Can Technology Ease Africa's Woes?
Mogalakwena
HP i-community Update
HP i-community
Time, November 21, 2005...Clear Water Revival...The LifeStraw...drinking straw:
"Clear Water Revival...Availability: Early 2006; $3 and up...The price...about $3—really can save a life. The LifeStraw, a beefed-up drinking straw...uses seven types of filters, including mesh, active carbon and iodine, to make 185 gal. of water clean enough to drink. It can prevent waterborne illnesses, such as typhoid and diarrhea, that kill at least 2 million people every year in the developing world. It can also create safe drinking water for victims of hurricanes, earthquakes or other disasters..." Best Inventions 2005: Healthy Options LifeStraw
The Mercury News,
Technology section, Associated Press, Nov. 17, 2005...Cheap
laptops are planned for kids:
"TUNIS, Tunisia - A cheap laptop boasting wireless network access and a hand-crank to provide electricity are expected to start shipping in February or March to help extend technology to school-aged children worldwide...The machines are to sell for $100, slightly less than its cost. The aim is to have governments or donors buy them and give full ownership to the children. 'These robust, versatile machines will enable children to become more active in their own learning,' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters. Annan and more than 16,000 people from 176 countries were attending the three-day U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, in its second day Thursday...its original aim was to find ways to extend communications technologies to the world's poorest - through projects like the $100 laptop...MIT Media Lab chairman Nicholas Negroponte, who unveiled the textbook-sized laptop on Wednesday, said he expects to sell 1 million of them to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria...Negroponte did not say who would build the machine, which will cost $110 to make...Also at the summit, Microsoft unveiled a new network of learning centers in Tunisia to train people to be teachers in technology. Jean-Phillippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, said the company would replicate the centers elsewhere as part of its outreach efforts...Addressing delegates on Thursday, Pakistani diplomat Masood Khan said increasing access to communications can help improve relations between regions and religions..."Information is not just an economic tool," Kahn told delegates in the main hall. "We need its infinite power to combat the rising tide of prejudice and hatred..." Cheap laptops are planned for kids World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Small Fortunes...December
27, 2005:
A PBS documentary
"describing the impact that microcredit is having throughout the world
through the stories of eleven microentrepreneurs"
PBS (Website
What is
Microcredit?
Related Links)
Small Fortunes (Website)
Social Entrepreneurship (SE) Supplemental Resources:
Startup Formation:"...Original Apple Computer Principle Evangelist and Garage.com / Garage Technology Ventures Founder Guy Kawasaki, instrumental in Apple's achieving it's Global Branded Identity, & arguably the primary resource in Silicon Valley for delineating the essential principles of Startup formation & development through his popular Garage.com "Startup Boot Camps", has laid out his powerful & effective methodology in his latest book. As noted on Amazon's Editorial Reviews Product Description, "The Art of the Start will give you the essential steps to launch great products, services, and companies—whether you are dreaming of starting the next Microsoft or a not-for-profit that’s going to change the world. It also shows managers how to unleash entrepreneurial thinking at established companies, helping them foster the pluck and creativity that their businesses need to stay ahead of the pack. Kawasaki provides readers with GIST—Great Ideas for Starting Things—including his field-tested insider’s techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz...". The Art Of The Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide For Anyone Starting Anything
Non Profit Boot Camp:"...On Oct 23rd, 2004 Craigslist Foundation produced its first Nonprofit Boot Camp at Metreon in San Francisco...a day-long event to help emerging nonprofits, Board members and those new to the industry...[to]...Develop new skills for marketing and running their organizations...Build relationships with potential donors & volunteers...[and]...Strengthen ties within the nonprofit community...The event included an Educational Track, Pitchathon Track & Exhibit Hall. The Educational Track offered speaker presentations and panels on a variety of topics including 'Strategic Planning-Setting the Vision & Building the Framework', 'Attracting and Managing Great People', 'Doing it Yourself vs. Outsourcing Back Office Functions', 'Spreading the Word-Marketing on the Cheap', 'Producing Successful Fundraisers' and 'Fundraising 101'...The web site also offers a resource directory page, 'Tools for Nonprofits'...". Craigslist Foundation: Non-Profit Boot Camp, Tools for Nonprofits
Venture Philanthropy: As noted on the Silicon Valley Center for Venture Philanthropy website "About" page, typically aims "to create an environment where community donors could collaborate and drive positive change in our communities. Using a venture capital model, investors base "social venture funding" on results-oriented business plans. Investors work directly with the CVP staff and nonprofit leaders to understand community and nonprofit issues, problem-solve, and structure their investments". Silicon Valley Center for Venture Philanthropy
Foundation:
Peninsula Community Foundation is the main Silicon Valley resource for non-profits, matching non-profits to Foundations, hooking proposals to funding resources, & the like. Peninsula Community Foundation
"...Google Inc. is financing its promise to make the world a better place with an initial commitment of nearly $1 billion to a philanthropic arm...The altruistic effort, formally announced late Tuesday under the umbrella of Google.org, follows through on a pledge that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company made last year...At the time, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin vowed to create a company "that does good things for the world even if we forgo short-term gains...We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems," Brin wrote...echoing sentiments that Page first spelled out last year...". Google Commits Funds to Philanthropic Arm
"...eBay Inc...founder Pierre Omidyar...is pioneering a...philanthropy...Omidyar Network...focuses on grants to individuals who are already creating social change through their nonprofits..." The eBay Way Omidyar Network