An interesting debate has quietly ignited in the education and technology world, revolving specifically around developing countries. During the TED 2013 Conference, Sugata Mitra, a TED veteran, proposed his ‘wish’ for a School in the Cloud. Based on his ‘minimally invasive education’ (MIE) philosophy, Mitra’s ‘Hole-in-the-Wall’ experiments inspired the project for School in the Cloud. What it involves is bringing together different resources from educators to computers to expand the reach of education to rural areas.
The 22 minutes talk discusses Mitra’s experiment and interaction with children from villages in India and their unexpectedly quick understanding of information such as DNA replication and computer processors all in a language they didn’t understand. Education for Mitra has changed since the Victorian era. Children are not only able to teach themselves but are also able to teach each other without the consistently present teacher. It is through curiosity and encouragement that these children will be able to have access to the same education and thus future that children in developed countries do have, if not more.
Though Sugata Mitra won the 2013 TED Prize, he is not short of criticism. John J. Wood, founder of the organization Room to Read respectfully protested the idea behind School in the Cloud in a recent article for the Huffington Post. While the ‘Hole-in-the-Wall’ experiments have proven certain hypotheses, Wood believes otherwise. “Literacy is a baseline skill that every child needs and if they don’t have that — all the computers and clouds in the world mean nothing to them,” Wood argues.
The solution to educating children in the developing world should rely on, according to Wood, tangible and simple materials such as books. The fact that electricity, let alone internet access and broadband, is a rare and unpredictable commodity in these target areas should be a huge issue. Books don’t require updates or charging; they aren’t susceptible to crashes or even require an advanced understanding of technology. Books and libraries provide the ultimate learning experience that combines knowledge and a sense of community.
With 793 million illiterate people, the world should not focus on one extreme solution or another. Different solutions and pathways will provide equally successful results. For the children in these specific villages in India, learning through collaboration within themselves clearly worked in their favor. Perhaps physical books in a school setting with teachers would have brought them to the same point but the goal was reached and that is what matters.
Both John J. Wood and Sugata Mitra come from a heavy background in education, advocacy, and technology. Their efforts are all backed by statistics and other professional opinions. What could be done from this point on is to understand what areas, ethnicities, communities, age-groups, and other factors work best with which type of solution. Time and energy shouldn’t be wasted on experimenting. They should be spent on maximizing either computers and technology or books and teachers to help educate every child for a more stable and productive future.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source:TED
WorldHaus Provides Homes for the Poor
In India alone over 500 million people, almost half the population, want and need better housing but the average cost of materials and labor makes it impossible to attain. There is no financing for the rural poor, or collateral to put up against a mortgage. WorldHaus is trying to fill this gap by manufacturing and building quality homes at a tiny fraction of standard costs, specifically developing a model that can be made affordable to the global poor.
Started in 2011, in India, WorldHaus makes customizable, weatherproof homes that can include amenities like clean-burning stoves, toilets, and solar electricity systems. Using a modular building system, families can build to any size and configuration they want. The base model – a one-room, 220 square foot home – can be built in about 10 days at a starting cost of below $2,000. Using local materials and on-site construction stimulates local economies through purchasing and employment, and cuts cost as well.
Additionally, they are working with mortgage providers to make homes available at $40/month, well within the reach for people making even $3 to $10 a day. They are setting up partnerships with governments, NGOs, and landlords to try and make homes available to families making less than $2 a day (through subsidies and rental programs).
A video from the Gate’s Notes website shows Bill Gates visiting Idealab and interviewing WorldHaus President Daniel Gross. WorldHaus was generated inside Idealab – a think tank and development project for innovative products.
– Mary Purcell
Source: WorldHaus
A Solution to Global Poverty: Mobile Money
The impact of mobile money on people living in developing economies is vast. They now can boast financial independence, control of their funds, and the ability to assist family members and friends with ease. Mobile money can also improve financial security and local economic activity for small, low-income villages. Most importantly, this is all available with the convenience and simplicity of a cell phone.
Safaricom developed the mobile money service in Kenya in 2007 and named it M-Pesa. Since then, many other companies have been eager to join the mobile sensation. However, despite the success seen in Kenya, mobile money providers have not been able to reproduce its effects in other countries like Afghanistan and Zambia. Many other factors contribute to mobile money besides technology. One reason why the Kenyan program has been so successful is due to its regulatory policies. The Kenyan government employs flexible regulatory rules after the innovative process occurs in order to ensure protection for customers and service providers.
Before this phenomenon, those living in poverty had little access to financial services. There are now 150 money mobile services throughout the world, which means that every day more and more impoverished people are able to benefit from mobile money. Little by little, one village at a time, we can hope to see improving economies in developing countries thanks to this innovative money service.
– Mary Penn
Source: Brookings
Photo:Business Daily Africa
World Bank & India’s Most Impoverished State
To illustrate India’s need more clearly, Minister Yadav took World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on a tour of Uttar Pradesh. Home of the Taj Mahal, Uttar Pradesh is also home to the largest number of impoverished people in all of India – a country that has an estimated 37% of people living below the country’s poverty line. With India’s urban population expected to grow by 10 million each year, states such as Uttar Pradesh are in dire need of assistance.
After seeing the poverty in India’s most impoverished state firsthand, Kim agreed that helping Uttar Pradesh and other Indian states are in line with the World Bank’s mission of eliminating global poverty. Among the goals the World Bank supports is the national mission to clean the Ganga River. The World Bank will be contributing $1 billion. The money is to be dispersed through five of the basin states. This contribution supports an existing Indian program: the National Ganga River Basin Project. The Ganga River’s basin community supports more than 400 million Indians, about one-third of the population, and is India’s most important river.
– Pete Grapentien
Source: The World Bank
Fijian Exports Seeking New Markets
There are many different types of funding that sometimes go unnoticed by farmers and those in the industry that could make the difference in breaking even or making a profit. These funds can be put towards something as simple as buying new equipment or even helping advertise a company’s products to markets outside of the general PIC area.
Programs have been created over the past two years whose focus has been specifically on working with distributors to bypass certain export regulations that have inhibited them from selling their products in different markets. Pacific Horticultural and Agricultural Market Access (PHAMA), funded by the Australian government, helps target specific markets for high-value Fijian goods. Through collaboration with government agencies, PHAMA tries to help in the application process and a basic understanding of the different rules and regulations Fijian companies must by-pass to sell their goods.
Increasing Agricultural Commodity Trade (IACT) is similar to PHAMA in its goal to increase exports, however, it works with other PIC such as the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, among others.
Having the financial support and involvement of Australia and New Zealand as well as the EU is important to minimize the distance that money and information have to travel to Fiji and other PICs. Eliminating a huge geographical distance allows the Fijian agricultural sector and its various workers to operate faster and have greater transparency.
Although the FEC is focusing on its agricultural sector which employs so many people, it may also be wise to shift some of their energy into revamping their tourism, as this is their second-biggest source of revenue aside from sugar export. For island countries, tourism provides a high number of jobs and has the ability to completely transform the economy; a major revitalization project currently being undertaken by another island country, Haiti.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source: Fiji Times
Poverty Reduction Efforts on Women
Poverty reduction efforts should focus on women because women have fewer opportunities for equal and meaningful education, jobs, and health care. Access to these human rights is essential in order to escape from poverty. Currently, women own only one percent of all property and earn just 10 percent of all income, yet they produce half of the world’s food.
Over 70 percent of the world’s poor, those living on less than $1.25 USD per day, are women. Because women compose the majority of those living in poverty, and because they face additional hurdles in achieving economic and social equality and success, poverty reduction efforts should focus on women across the globe, especially among the most disadvantaged and marginalized populations.
Most of the world’s poor women spend the majority of their time performing household chores, including cooking, cleaning, growing or obtaining food, collecting fuel and water, and caring for family members. Women do not receive monetary compensation for these tasks, yet they compose up to 63 percent of the gross domestic product in countries like India and Tanzania. Time and energy spent on these essential tasks result in fewer opportunities for advancement, such as education or economic pursuits.
A 2000 study by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that the majority of the reduction in global hunger between 1970 and 1995 could be attributed to the improvement of women’s social status. Progress in women’s education, food availability, and health care all played major roles in the reduction of hunger.
Because women play a major role in the world’s food production, poverty reduction efforts should focus on women farmers in order to help them earn a viable income and rise above poverty. Programs have been instituted in China, Bangladesh, and the Philippines that subsidize women farmers in order to allow them to grow food while earning extra income from selling vegetables or raising animals. Access to adequate sanitation facilities, health care, and children’s education are also priorities for bringing more women out of poverty.
– Kat Henrichs
Sources: Center for American Progress, NY Times
Photo: Muslimah Source
The End of a 50-Year Debate: Lake Malawi Mediation Begins in March
Lake Malawi is located in the southeastern region of Africa between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. It is Africa’s third-largest and second-deepest lake and is the ninth-largest lake in the world.
The lake is an extremely valuable resource for the region’s inhabitants. Besides being home to thousands of types of fish and other plants and wildlife, Lake Malawi is the primary source of income, food, transportation, and other basic needs for about 1.5 million Malawians and 600,000 Tanzanians. Local residents report that they are unable to cross freely between the countries because of tension, and even mistreatment, at the border.
The dispute over Lake Malawi ownership began in 1963 with the reaffirmation of the Heligoland Agreement, which stated that the national border lay on the Tanzanian side of the lake. Since that time, the countries have, tried twice to resolve the problem, to no avail. Malawi claims ownership of the lake as a stipulation of the treaty, while Tanzania claims the treaty is flawed and that the boundary should be redrawn down the lake’s center.
The dispute has come to a head recently due to the Malawian government reports that Lake Malawi holds rich mineral and oil deposits beneath its floor. Over the last eight months, Malawi has awarded oil exploration licenses to oil companies based in the United Kingdom and South Africa, which has increased tensions between the countries. Officials are hopeful that with the help of an objective third party, the Forum for Former African Heads of State and Government, the dispute will finally be resolved.
– Kat Henrichs
Source: All Africa
Photo: Real Malawi Travel
The Connection Between Political Instability and Food Prices
The problem of food riots, which are closely related to hunger, poverty, and high food prices, is nothing new. The French Revolution was due, in part, to the hungry protesting high food prices. In today’s global economy, where countries regularly import and export large quantities of food, even regional riots and resulting political instability hold vast implications for the entire world.
NECSI examines the relationship between political instability and food prices by using mathematical modeling to describe changes in food prices, then interpreting those models to determine the threshold at which riots become likely. Authors of the study predicted that high prices for US-grown corn and wheat in 2010 would cause unrest elsewhere. Their prediction came true with the events of the Arab Spring that began at the end of 2010.
Can socially disruptive riots and protests be accurately predicted? The NECSI study says yes: that when the FAO Food Price Index rises above 210, riots become significantly more likely.
The New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) is an independent research and education institution that studies the development of complex social, biological, and ecological systems. NECSI applies evidence-based science to real-world social problems such as poverty and climate change.
– Kat Henrichs
Sources: NECSI, NPR
Photo: DW
School In The Cloud Or In The Books?
The 22 minutes talk discusses Mitra’s experiment and interaction with children from villages in India and their unexpectedly quick understanding of information such as DNA replication and computer processors all in a language they didn’t understand. Education for Mitra has changed since the Victorian era. Children are not only able to teach themselves but are also able to teach each other without the consistently present teacher. It is through curiosity and encouragement that these children will be able to have access to the same education and thus future that children in developed countries do have, if not more.
Though Sugata Mitra won the 2013 TED Prize, he is not short of criticism. John J. Wood, founder of the organization Room to Read respectfully protested the idea behind School in the Cloud in a recent article for the Huffington Post. While the ‘Hole-in-the-Wall’ experiments have proven certain hypotheses, Wood believes otherwise. “Literacy is a baseline skill that every child needs and if they don’t have that — all the computers and clouds in the world mean nothing to them,” Wood argues.
The solution to educating children in the developing world should rely on, according to Wood, tangible and simple materials such as books. The fact that electricity, let alone internet access and broadband, is a rare and unpredictable commodity in these target areas should be a huge issue. Books don’t require updates or charging; they aren’t susceptible to crashes or even require an advanced understanding of technology. Books and libraries provide the ultimate learning experience that combines knowledge and a sense of community.
With 793 million illiterate people, the world should not focus on one extreme solution or another. Different solutions and pathways will provide equally successful results. For the children in these specific villages in India, learning through collaboration within themselves clearly worked in their favor. Perhaps physical books in a school setting with teachers would have brought them to the same point but the goal was reached and that is what matters.
Both John J. Wood and Sugata Mitra come from a heavy background in education, advocacy, and technology. Their efforts are all backed by statistics and other professional opinions. What could be done from this point on is to understand what areas, ethnicities, communities, age-groups, and other factors work best with which type of solution. Time and energy shouldn’t be wasted on experimenting. They should be spent on maximizing either computers and technology or books and teachers to help educate every child for a more stable and productive future.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source:TED
How Myanmar Will Avoid Being Earth’s Most Isolated Country
A little over two decades ago, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Myanmar when the military junta killed thousands of civilian protestors in one brutal onslaught. Currently, a new civilian government has been established and many of these sanctions have been lifted.
Companies like Google and Microsoft are offering Myanmar more than just tech services by establishing training centers in the country. The effect of these centers will be a reinforcement of Myanmar’s technological infrastructure. The widespread availability of internet and cellular service allows a greater opportunity for online learning and social organizing via websites such as Twitter which can be used through either SMS messages or the internet.
Another avenue that becomes easier to access is international development and trade. By contributing to tech growth, Google, Cisco and Microsoft are also helping Myanmar contribute to the global economy. This in turn allows Myanmar to grow its own economy and strengthen foreign relations.
-Pete Grapentien
Source Yahoo News
How Can Golden Rice Help End World Hunger
In an interview with National Public Radio, Dr. Barry spoke enthusiastically about engineering new types of rice pointing out that it is the staple food of a couple of billion people. His passion for the crop led to a career at IRRI and he quickly began working on Golden Rice which he explains has the potential to greatly benefit those living in impoverished conditions. IRRI hopes to distribute the GMO rice in Bangladesh and the Philippines, where the institute is located.
Vitamin A deficiency is a result of malnourishment and a limited diet. The consequences of this deficiency include tissue damage, blindness, and a weakened immune system. For those millions of people affected by vitamin A deficiency, one cup of Golden Rice a day could provide half the amount needed for a healthy diet. “This product has the potential to reduce the suffering of women and children and save lives,” said Dr. Barry. IRRI is working with nonprofit organizations to ensure the super rice reaches those who need it most. Once it has passed food and safety regulations, we will begin to see the real impact of Golden Rice.
– Mary Penn
Source: IrishCentral
Photo: Forbes