What do you think of when you think of NASA technology? “Space” is probably going to be the answer most people give, unless they’ve heard of SERVIR, the result of a partnership between NASA, USAID, the World Bank in Washington, and several other organizations.
Daniel Irwin, the director of the program, knows this better than anyone. “When people think of NASA,” he says, “they think of Mars Exploration Rovers or finding water on the moon, but a big part of our mission is to study earth from space, to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs.”
SERVIR is actually not an acronym – it is taken from the Spanish word meaning “to serve,” because the goal of the initiative is to do just that.
By combining NASA’s technology and humanitarian groups’ understanding of what areas need what resources and what would benefit people the most, SERVIR is able to better serve the needs of populations.
The NASA website says that the resources developed by SERVIR can help governments and other agencies to more effectively “respond to natural disasters, [improve] food security, safeguard human health, [and] manage water and natural resources.”
SERVIR has hubs at locations throughout the globe, ad just this August, SERVIR-Mekong was launched in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Mekong river is located in Southeast Asia that acts as a major trade route to China. Depending on the seasons, the Mekong sometimes floods the surrounding area, leaving the residents of the Mekong area in severe need.
This is one of the reasons why Mekong was chosen as a location for this SERVIR project.
The Mekong center in particular was the result of NASA and USAID partnership with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC.) This is a partnership that will work to make land use more sustainable and to monitor and (hopefully) decrease the effects of climate change.
For example, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is something that can be monitored with NASA technology. It is an indicator that comes from the amount of light reflected off of the surface of the earth based on the quantity and quality of plant life.
Areas that have lots of healthy vegetation will have a high NDVI and vice versa. Understanding the NDVI of an area can provide everyone from small farmers to forestry service personnel a better understanding of where to plant crops, develop urban centers, and more carefully preserve vegetation.
The power to help individuals and populations all over the world better respond to the effects of climate change extends to areas of food security and water resourcing as well. It truly is a remarkable innovation.
NASA technology can also be used to chart the course of natural disasters. For example, in the past, during hurricanes, it has allowed scientists to map out the paths of mudslides, which allowed them to understand which areas would be most affected and need the most help.
SERVIR’s track record has been vastly successful. Its team has worked with over 200 institutions in over 30 countries to develop local solutions, and to link local offices all over the globe in a network of ideas and innovations. Over 40 custom tools have been developed through the work of SERVIR.
It’s an excellent example of many of the tenets of humanitarianism: utilizing technology, creating partnerships, thinking big (even beyond the global scale) and dedicating existing resources towards a worthwhile cause.
As Irwin says, NASA technology and USAID’s resources together are helping to create “real time, real world applications that are changing the lives of people where they live.”
– Emily Dieckman
Sources: USAID, NASA, Servir Global, Washington Post
Photo: AmericaSpace
Launch of W20 for Women’s Economic Empowerment
On September 6, financial leaders from the G20 countries met to discuss issues within the global economy. During this meeting, they launched W20, an engagement group focused on advancing women’s economic empowerment.
W20 will work in conjunction with U.N. Women, the IMF and other international bodies to promote women’s involvement in financial decision-making and monitor the G20’s commitment to women’s education and entrepreneurship initiatives.
Because G20 countries hold two-thirds of the world’s population and produce 85 percent of the world’s GDP, holding these countries accountable to their pledges for gender equality sets the standard for how women should be treated globally.
The launch included speakers such as the U.N. Women Deputy Executive Director Lakshmi Puri, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Generally, speakers remarked on the connection between women’s economic empowerment and the well-being of a community, and thus a country. In the words of Davutoglu, “If the women are smiling… you can be sure that their country is happy.”
With the 2014 pledge from the G20 to improve gender equality in the labor force, international bodies and governments have much to do, and the assistance of W20 will be a critical resource in guiding their success.
If the goal is reducing the gender gap in labor force participation by 25 percent, more than 100 million women will be added to the labor force. To do so, issues of maternal health, unpaid care work and access to education must be addressed.
In addition, the recently-passed Sustainable Development Goals include gender-sensitive targets in 12 of the 17 goals, adding further significance to the launch of the W20.
“Addressing the significant underinvestment in gender equality and women’s empowerment is critical in and of itself,” Ms. Puri said at the launch.
“The W20 has the potential to influence economic governance and promote gender-inclusive economic growth in a more potent way than has ever been possible in the G20 until now.”
The W20 will be led by Gulden Turktan, one of the founders and the president of the Women Entrepreneur’s Association. The two-day inaugural summit will be held on October 7-8 in Istanbul.
– Priscilla McCelvey
Sources: UN Women, US News
Photo: Wikipedia
Preparing for Smart Cities in India
Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his plans to revitalize Indian cities through the creation of 100 “Smart Cities” in India. More recently, Mr. Modi has announced that he will be giving annual federal grants of 15 million for the next five years to a list of 98 cities to help them become ‘smart.’
Modi, who has faced critique over the vague nature of his ‘smart city’ concept, has himself argued that “there is no universally accepted definition of a smart city.” Nevertheless, experts argue that the idea of a smart city generally refers to a city with criteria such as good roads, power, access to water, and livable homes–which many Indian cities currently fail to meet.
Mr. Modi’s Smart City project has also more specifically toyed with the idea of promoting mixed land use in area-based developments, creating walkable areas in cities, and creating a variety of clean and safe transport options.
According to Mr. Modi, the Indian Smart City initiative is only one among many urban development projects aimed at keeping up with the pace of economic and population growth within India. Indeed, India, which has a burgeoning population boom that will overtake China’s by 2028, also has the world’s third-largest growing economy, according to the World Bank.
India has also experienced an enormous influx in rural to urban migration in recent years, with more than 30% of India’s once mostly urban population now living in cities. This figure is also expected to rise, as many Indians move to urban areas in search of better job opportunities and diminished caste-based persecution.
In light of the demographic changes occurring in India, many experts have argued that Mr. Modi’s ‘Smart City’ initiative is an enlightened plan that will serve to bring relief to millions of Indians migrating to larger cities.
By focusing on issues in Indian cities–such as poor sanitation and access to water–the ‘Smart City’ initiative is thus not only a retroactive plan that serves to correct the poor state of many cities, but also a proactive plan, that takes into account the strain that a burgeoning urban population will pose to Indian cities in the future.
As Mr. Modi’s plan regarding his list of 98 Indian cities begins to be finalized, the Prime Minister also hopes that the somewhat paltry funds currently allocated to the project will be able to be bolstered by private donations.
Other government officials, such as Home Minister Rajnath Singh, have also proposed ways in which the ‘Smart City’ concept could be further improved. Mr. Singh, for instance, just recently proposed the idea that ‘Smart Cities’ could also be built as ‘Safe Cities’, which would require the installment of security equipment such as CCTV, aerial surveillance, and an increase in female cops.
Other officials have also begun to float ideas for how Indian cities can be better improved–making them overall smarter, safer, and more livable for the millions of Indians who currently live in sub-par urban conditions.
– Ana Powell
Sources: BBC, Forbes, India Times, NY Times, Smart Cities Challenge
Photo: KadvaCorp
The “Big Push”: MIT-Yale Partnership Could Fight Poverty
In the United States, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Yale University partnered by conducting an experiment using the concept of the “big push” theory in relation to extreme poverty.
With positive results, the ivy league universities can improve the experiment, helping more people around the world suffering from extreme poverty.
Originally, the big push theory was an economic term coined by Paul Rosenstein-Rodan in 1943.
In relation to the economy, Rosenstein-Rodan proposed, “That even the simplest activity requires a network of other activities and that individual firms cannot organize such a large network, so the state or some other giant agency must step in.”
The MIT-Yale partnership used the basic concept of the big push to conduct their experiment.
Between 2007-2014, 10,000 households in Peru, Pakistan, India, Honduras, Ghana and Ethiopia were given the graduation program, a resourceful package that included a stipend for food and money, income in the form of bees or chickens, health care, advice for saving money and regular visits to reinforce the skills and accountability.
The goal was to give these families the initial “push” and a sense of stability so they could carry on positive habits even after the experiment concluded.
“The results show that three years after the intervention, hunger is down, consumption is up, and income is up,” says Abhijit Banerjee, the Ford Professor of International Economics at MIT, and a co-author of the paper detailing the findings.
With positive results, governments around the world are considering giving the program a try.
In regards to the original big push theory, MIT and Yale University can further improve their experiment with more partnerships including other U.S. universities.
With more partnerships, the experiment can gain more funds and a larger pool of volunteers.
For many college students, especially ones majoring or interested in the nonprofit sector, being part of this type of experiment would give them real-world experience and a once in a lifetime opportunity. In this way, students can play a part in helping end extreme poverty by 2030.
With the original MIT-Yale partnership, there was hope for people who believe extreme poverty is not savable. Now, a larger network can be created to make further impacts, turning the “big push” into a “big leap” toward the end of extreme poverty.
– Alexandra Korman
Sources: MIT News, The Boston Globe, The Economist
Photo: Flickr
Overcoming Neural Bias and Living in Poverty
Poverty cuts deep – malnutrition, stress, a lack of access to medical care, little social mobility and other factors all affect how a person can interact and engage with their environment and community.
For those in poverty, a neural bias caused by stress can limit one’s ability to consider events neutral; this has implications for education, conflict resolution, gender equality and rates of violence.
This bias is called the hostile attribution bias. The hostile attribution bias primarily affects how people view neutral stimuli, such as a dog barking in the distance, a pencil dropping or a sudden movement by a person nearby.
As a result of this bias, an individual may attribute negative, hostile intent to this action, assuming that the action will end up hurting them in some way. This thinking views the world in binary: good or bad, black or white, safe or unsafe.
For those who grew up in stressed environments and were frequently exposed to or victims of aggression, this is a perfectly natural way to react; it works as a protective mechanism.
But, it also can lead to an inability to focus, difficulty trusting others and higher levels of perceived threats. In addition to its effects on cognition and emotional processing, the hostile attribution bias is also correlated with higher levels of aggression and violence.
While this bias may be protective for those in conflict areas, it also perpetuates conflict whether or not the affected individual is in a conflict zone. Consequently, if an individual is at home or any safe place, they may perceive a threat when there is none.
This can lead to acts of aggression in the home, such as domestic violence, abuse or neglect. If this behavior is being conducted by an adult, this behavior will most likely be passed down to children.
For children with this bias, this affects their development of social skills and also their academic performance.
Because neutral events are immediately perceived as negative, this increases their reactivity and reduces attention while impacting their relationships with teachers and peers. In conjunction with malnutrition and poverty, the hostile attribution bias creates another hurdle to success.
The hostile attribution bias has several implications for aid and development work. First, given the propensity of the hostile attribution bias in conflict areas, mental health initiatives should consider the bias during program development and implementation.
Secondly, since the hostile attribution bias is often occurring in tandem with malnutrition and poverty, it emphasizes the necessity of proper nutrition for mothers and children to ensure healthy brain development.
In ensuring the brain is healthy, the plasticity of the brain is more feasible as individuals move from poverty and conflict zones and the individual will be able to adapt.
While the hostile attribution bias may be a safety skill for those in conflict zones or facing abuse at home, this bias is ultimately maladaptive. As individuals are empowered, gain safety and reduce stress in their lives, addressing this bias will help them be more productive and successful in changing not only their lives but also the lives of those in their communities.
– Priscilla McCelvey
Sources: Pacific Standard, Practical Ethics
Photo: Amazon News
Bankers Without Borders: Global Integration
The developing world is constantly in need of skilled professionals to not only provide immediate assistance but also to help train future workers so as to create a sustainable and self-sufficient community workforce.
For years, organizations like Doctors Without Borders, and Engineers Without Borders have been doing just that: on the one hand these organizations provide care and construct necessary structures respectively, but they also train and instruct local medical students and potential engineers.
However, as developing economies grow, there too needs to be financial assistance and instruction. Bankers Without Borders is attempting to propel developing countries into commercial modernity.
The mission of the organization is to enable citizens in developing countries to realize their full economic potential given the proper tools and training.
The organization was founded by a parent body called the Grameen Foundation. The Grameen Foundation was formed to help optimize other NGOs in terms of gross impact and overall efficiency.
In 2008, the group realized it could use its expertise to directly help those living in abject poverty.
Bankers Without Borders works as an independent organization and also teams up with local and global businesses to offer educational, financial, and consulting services across the developing world.
The organization utilizes nearly 19,700 business professionals, all of whom volunteer their time to help grassroots campaigns, small businesses, and individual investors and entrepreneurs.
As cliché as it is to say, knowledge is power, and anyone who posses it can reach a higher plane of potential. Those living in poverty certainly have the drive to become financially independent, and Bankers Without Borders is giving them the tools.
By encouraging modern, practical, and useful financial knowledge as well as helping to optimize new businesses, the organization is proving to be a huge relief to developing economies.
Bankers Without Borders hopes that one day those in developing countries can pass on the information learned to the next generation, thereby creating strong and self-sufficient modern economies.
– Joe Kitaj
Sources: Bankers Without Borders, Stand4, Doctors Without Borders, EWB-USA
Photo: Bankers Without Borders
Innovative Ways Universities are Fighting Poverty
Many university presidents and college students alike have taken it upon themselves to help fight for those less fortunate than them. From creating chapters of organizations like ONE and conducting research for the benefit of medicine, universities have played a major role in shifting the scale of poverty over the years.
The Economist once said Africa was the “hopeless continent,” but after years of innovation, the same magazine has deemed it “Africa Rising.” One way colleges and universities play a significant role in this is by partnering with global nonprofits.
Universities originally began creating partnerships to support low-income students and help them carve a secure pathway to college, but in doing so, they also managed to foster relationships with these nonprofits that have blossomed into much bigger roles.
Much of the research conducted by students and professors has also contributed to aiding those living in poverty. Many universities, such as Stanford, UC Davis and Columbia University have designated research departments for research on global poverty.
Columbia University has The Earth Institute, which focuses on a magnitude of projects ranging from agricultural sustainability and global poverty mapping to economic growth in underserved communities.
Their Millennium Villages Project, led by The Earth Institute, United Nations Development Programme and the Millennium Promise, a charity dedicated to fighting poverty, focuses their efforts on reducing global poverty by helping rural African villages become more economically and agriculturally sustainable.
The Center for Poverty Research at the University of California at Davis dedicates their time to training scholars to combat poverty. Their research net encompasses topics like health, education and the intergenerational transmission of poverty, which studies how poverty can be transferred from parent to child.
The Center is one of three poverty research facilities focused on using this research net to decrease poverty. The other two centers are comprised of the University of Kentucky and the University of Wisconsin.
In February of 2014, Stanford launched a new research facility focused on ending global poverty called the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED).
SEED’s initiatives focus on using entrepreneurship, economics and business innovation to help create new markets and job opportunities in underdeveloped communities to help them rise out of poverty.
The program grants researchers at Stanford sums of money to conduct interdisciplinary research focused on poverty. SEED is housed in Stanford’s graduate school of business and has so far dedicated over ten million dollars to its research.
Lastly, universities contribute to fighting poverty through action-based organizations that use their efforts to create awareness, raise money and advocate for the alleviation of poverty.
For example, universities around the world continue to use their resources to end poverty, and with their efforts can help Africa go from “Africa Rising” to an economically and agriculturally stable continent.
– Julia Hettiger
Sources: University of California, Davis, Columbia University, Stanford University
Photo: Flickr
Cheapest Smartphone: Productivity and Connectivity for All
Global mobile carrier, Orange, has just launched the world’s cheapest smartphone. By doing so, they have opened up countless potential opportunities for low-income individuals and their families.
The new device is called Klif and runs on Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0 mobile operating system. Retail has been set at $34, or the equivalent exchange rate in countries where American dollars are not used. Features of Klif include a two megapixel camera, Firefox web browser, an FM radio and full Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth integration.
While smartphones are readily available to Africa’s upper and middle classes, those in lower income brackets are typically unable to afford the devices, let alone the sky-high data plans required to run them. Klif includes a data, text and voice plan, and can be run immediately after activation.
Klif marks a key milestone in the greater tech revolution already occurring across Africa. The device allows for thousands to afford Internet access, and increased connectivity has been shown to increase economic income and output. It also allows for thousands to now contact friends and family in a moment’s notice.
With smartphones and certain apps, farmers can check the weather, nurses and doctors can receive patient updates and students can supplement their learning. As Orange expands its network, even more people will be able to reap the benefits of increased data access.
Orange has released Klif in 13 countries across Africa and the Middle East, with the hopes to enter more markets in the near future.
Executive Vice President of Connected Objects and Partnerships for Orange, Yves Maitre, said of Klif, “By scooping up all the costs into one, incredibly priced digital offer, we hope that critical access to the mobile internet and all the opportunities that that opens up, will be within reach of many more people.”
With Klif and increased mobile access in general, developing countries have more potential to catch up with the top nations of the world.
— Joe Kitaj
Sources: CNET, It News Africa
Photo: Wired
Addressing the Measles Outbreak in DR Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo is facing the worst measles outbreak since 2011, according to Doctors Without Borders. So far this year, over 23,000 cases of measles were reported in the Katanga region of the country. The UN and Doctors Without Borders have calculated over 400 deaths.
The epidemic started in February of this year. In just one village with a population of 500, 30 children died in just 2 months. Despite the number of deaths, the central government in Kinshasa hadn’t recognized the measles epidemic and the deaths caused by it until earlier this month.
Doctors Without Borders has vaccinated over 300,000 children, despite the difficulties of having to keep the vaccine cold and requiring 2 shots, weeks apart for effectiveness.
An additional difficulty has been the lack of infrastructure with bad roads and railroads that are usually never fixed or where fuel runs low. Some villages are hardly accessible, only way to get there is by foot, motorcycle or canoe.
The UN has estimated $2.4 million to vaccinate everyone. The vaccine is effective enough it has wiped out the measles outbreak in western countries. The problem in countries such as the DR of Congo is children’s immune systems have been weakened from malnutrition, malaria and cholera.
The vaccine while effective, cannot prevent death when complications such as blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and related dehydration, or severe respiratory infections.
In addition, vaccination has proved difficult in a region which has tried to become independent from the rest of the country. The ongoing fighting between local militia and Congolese army over mining areas leads to villagers fleeing for days or weeks. However, efforts are ongoing to improve the current living conditions for Congolese citizens, especially children.
– Paula Acevedo
Sources: New York Times, Yahoo
Photo: CDN
NASA and USAID Partnership: Mekong River
What do you think of when you think of NASA technology? “Space” is probably going to be the answer most people give, unless they’ve heard of SERVIR, the result of a partnership between NASA, USAID, the World Bank in Washington, and several other organizations.
Daniel Irwin, the director of the program, knows this better than anyone. “When people think of NASA,” he says, “they think of Mars Exploration Rovers or finding water on the moon, but a big part of our mission is to study earth from space, to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs.”
SERVIR is actually not an acronym – it is taken from the Spanish word meaning “to serve,” because the goal of the initiative is to do just that.
By combining NASA’s technology and humanitarian groups’ understanding of what areas need what resources and what would benefit people the most, SERVIR is able to better serve the needs of populations.
The NASA website says that the resources developed by SERVIR can help governments and other agencies to more effectively “respond to natural disasters, [improve] food security, safeguard human health, [and] manage water and natural resources.”
SERVIR has hubs at locations throughout the globe, ad just this August, SERVIR-Mekong was launched in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Mekong river is located in Southeast Asia that acts as a major trade route to China. Depending on the seasons, the Mekong sometimes floods the surrounding area, leaving the residents of the Mekong area in severe need.
This is one of the reasons why Mekong was chosen as a location for this SERVIR project.
The Mekong center in particular was the result of NASA and USAID partnership with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC.) This is a partnership that will work to make land use more sustainable and to monitor and (hopefully) decrease the effects of climate change.
For example, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is something that can be monitored with NASA technology. It is an indicator that comes from the amount of light reflected off of the surface of the earth based on the quantity and quality of plant life.
Areas that have lots of healthy vegetation will have a high NDVI and vice versa. Understanding the NDVI of an area can provide everyone from small farmers to forestry service personnel a better understanding of where to plant crops, develop urban centers, and more carefully preserve vegetation.
The power to help individuals and populations all over the world better respond to the effects of climate change extends to areas of food security and water resourcing as well. It truly is a remarkable innovation.
NASA technology can also be used to chart the course of natural disasters. For example, in the past, during hurricanes, it has allowed scientists to map out the paths of mudslides, which allowed them to understand which areas would be most affected and need the most help.
SERVIR’s track record has been vastly successful. Its team has worked with over 200 institutions in over 30 countries to develop local solutions, and to link local offices all over the globe in a network of ideas and innovations. Over 40 custom tools have been developed through the work of SERVIR.
It’s an excellent example of many of the tenets of humanitarianism: utilizing technology, creating partnerships, thinking big (even beyond the global scale) and dedicating existing resources towards a worthwhile cause.
As Irwin says, NASA technology and USAID’s resources together are helping to create “real time, real world applications that are changing the lives of people where they live.”
– Emily Dieckman
Sources: USAID, NASA, Servir Global, Washington Post
Photo: AmericaSpace
Top 50 Technologies Fighting Poverty
There is no question that the technology revolution of the past 40 years has had an immense effect on human health and development, but many have wondered if there is a single, specific innovation that has proven to be the most impactful.
The answer ends up being that there are many necessary technologies and innovations crucial to human development: 50 to be exact.
The Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies at the Lawrence Berkeley National Research Laboratory (LIGTT) has recently published a report called, “50 Breakthroughs: Critical scientific and technological advances needed for sustainable global development.”
The Berkeley Lab, as it’s commonly known, was founded in 1931 at UC Berkeley, and is now owned and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. A subdivision of the lab, the LIGTT’s mission is to “identify, develop, and deploy, the next generation of breakthrough technologies for sustainable global development.”
The report ob 50 technologies fighting poverty comes after two years of intense analysis and research. The project was funded in part by USAID’s Global Development Lab.
USAID’s Dave Ferguson, who serves as the Director of the Center for Development Innovation, said “We believe science, technology, and innovation can deliver transformational results, and the 50 Breakthroughs study is an extremely valuable contribution in this endeavor.”
The study is divided into nine different categories and aims to give aid organizations and agencies a map of where to invest their time, funds and resources so as to have the greatest impact.
The categories are global health, food security and agricultural development, human rights, digital inclusion, water, access to electricity, gender equality and resilience against climate change and environmental degradation.
The report finds that water is the most important and needed breakthrough. Director of the study, Shashi Buluswar, said, “Water will be the defining problem of the next 50 years. It’s probably the single most important thing that needs to be solved.”
Other breakthroughs include greater access to vaccines, improved and highly efficient fertilizer and increased water filtration capacity.
Buluswar states that the Berkeley Lab is capable of working to implement many of the breakthroughs but encourages organizations both domestically and around the globe to contribute to their further development. You can read the report here.
– Joe Kitaj
Sources: Berkeley Lab 1, Berkeley Lab 2, LIGTT
Photo: desalinate4kids