Archive for category: Technology

Information and stories about technology news.

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Cell Phones in Africa Transform Banking

Cell Phones in AfricaIt is fair to say that cell phones have officially infiltrated Africa’s countries and completely transformed people’s methods of banking and agriculture. The increase of ease for both of these professions have factored into poverty reduction and the betterment of African lives. When it comes to banking, having access to cell phones in Africa is both useful and productive.

Cell Phones and Personal Finances

Cellular devices can easily be used to keep track of funds, to store funds in a safe location and to transfer funds. In 2007, Safaricom–Kenya’s largest mobile operator–and Vodafone developed a money transferring service called M-PESA. By 2012, M-PESA obtained 15 million Kenyan users–more than a third of the population. This newfound access to portable technology has also been extremely helpful in pulling people out of poverty-stricken situations.

For example, many users transfer their funds to individuals who are still trapped in severely impoverished rural areas. M-PESA provides a safer way to send someone money, so it cannot be stolen easily. The individuals who use M-PESA to store their funds also benefit. Their funds can be easily managed, which has caused an increasing amount of families to adopt this technology.

“One study found that in rural Kenyan households that adopted M-PESA, incomes increased by 5-30 percent,” according to The Economist. This proves that mobile phones help people climb the financial ladder to live better lives. There are also many African startup companies who have used M-PESA as a platform to initially pave their way in the business world.

Cell Phones and Agriculture

As previously stated, mobile phones have changed Africans’ way of agriculture as well. Farmers, the largest employers in Africa, now rely on their mobile phones for critical informational tips. “By serving as platforms for sharing weather information, market prices, and micro-insurance schemes, mobile phones are allowing Africa’s farmers to make better decisions, translating into higher-earning potentials,” according to CNN.

Farmers can figure out distant crop prices faster than ever before and effectively track the gestation of their cows. Therefore, the use of cell phones in Africa has allowed farmers to drastically improve their agricultural methods, which makes it easier to sustain their livelihood. The Borgen Project advocates for the world’s poor and knows how essential it is for developing countries to be able to sustain themselves. The use of cell phones in Africa have only helped in that regard, and it looks as if the technology is here to stay.

Cell Phones and Technological Advancements

Due to the technologically advanced world surrounding Africa, most Africans can enjoy the today’s “tech” nuances and pass over the dying technology of the past (such as landlines). In the year 2002, around one-in-10 Africans owned a mobile phone. In 2006, “There were 50 million new mobile subscribers… and in 2007 the total number of mobile subscriptions reached an estimated 200 million.” On average, that adds up to 20-plus active mobile phones for every 100 people.

The decline in cost and simplistic nature of mobile technology are the reasons why so many Africans have chosen to use portable tech. A report by the UNCTAD stated, “A decline in the cost of information and communication technology (ICT) has extended its use by the poor, who capitalize especially on information obtained by telephone to support livelihoods in agriculture and various small businesses.”

It is incredible to see how the proliferation of cell phones in Africa have so positively impacted the continent in such a short amount of time.

– Terry J. Halloran

Photo: Flickr

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Improving Literacy Rates in Developing Countries with Phone Data

Phone Data

Literacy is one of the most significant contributing factors to eradicating poverty. Telenor, a Norwegian research group, believes it has found a way to measure literacy rates in developing countries using mobile phone data.

Currently, an estimated 750 million people around the world are unable to read and write. Two-thirds of these people are women, according to MIT Technology Review. UNESCO studied the effects of illiteracy in South American communities and found that illiteracy correlates to higher unemployment rates, poor health, exploitation and human rights abuse.

In order to address the growing concern of widespread illiteracy in developing countries, Telenor, led by Pål Sundsøy, developed a machine-learning algorithm to figure out which communities have the highest rates of illiteracy.

Using mobile phone data, Telenor’s algorithm evaluates a variety of factors to predict literacy rates in developing countries including the location of calls, number of incoming versus outgoing text messages and the diversity of social contacts.

When evaluating the probability of illiteracy, geographic location is one of the most deciding factors. Sundsøy believes that the algorithm is able to identify slum areas where economic development is low and illiteracy is high by analyzing where calls are placed.

Additionally, a higher quantity of outgoing messages and a lower number of incoming messages may also hint at illiteracy. Telenor’s model takes this information into consideration since people do not typically send texts to contacts who they know can’t read.

The diversity of an individual’s social network is also a helpful indicator of literacy since those who are illiterate are more likely to concentrate their efforts on communicating with a few people. The relationship between the diversity of social contacts and illiteracy is also supported by a strong three-way correlation between economic well-being, illiteracy and diversity of social contacts.

By identifying which communities are at risk for low literacy rates, Telenor’s mobile phone data algorithm can make literacy programs more effective in developing countries.

The National Literacy Programme in Namibia (NLPN) states that their main challenge to boosting literacy rates is limited funding for the program. Implementing Telenor’s algorithm would make a significant impact on programs like NLPN that have finite resources by helping organizations to identify and allocate resources to communities that have a higher concentration of illiterate people.

While regional and gender disparities continue to persist in current illiteracy data, the development of powerful resources like Telenor’s algorithm will help raise literacy rates in developing countries and make it easier for literacy programs to target those who at a greater disadvantage.

– Daniela N. Sarabia

Photo: Pixabay

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Drones Now Delivering Lifesaving Vaccines

DroneDeploying unmanned drones in low and middle-income countries could save money and increase vaccination rates, according to new research conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

Many low- and middle-income countries struggle to deliver lifesaving vaccines to sick people who are fighting preventable diseases.

Bruce Y. Lee, director of operations at the International Vaccine Access Center at the Bloomberg School says “[We] make all these vaccines but they’re of no value if we don’t get them to the people who need them. So there is an urgent need to find new, cost-effective ways to do this.”

Currently, vaccines such as hepatitis B, tetanus, measles and rotavirus are typically transported by road through two to four storing sites before they reach clinics where the doses are finally administered to patients. The majority of vaccines require refrigeration until they are used or else they will spoil.

In addition, non-vaccine costs of routine immunization are expected to rise between 2010 and 2020, mostly derived from supply chain logistics.

In the meantime, unmanned drones have proliferated. They can traverse all land and topography, decrease labor costs and substitute the need for vehicle transportation. They have been heavily used for surveillance and in humanitarian aid delivery.

A study conducted at Johns Hopkins University found that utilizing drones to transport vaccines to their final destination could slightly increase the rate of immunization, immunizing 96 percent of the target population as compared to 94 percent using land-based transport. This simultaneously produced significant savings, eight cents for every dose administered (roughly 20 percent savings).

“Assuming the drones are reliable, are capable of making the necessary trips and have properly trained operators, they could be a less expensive means of transporting vaccines, especially in remote areas,” says Lee. He adds, “They could particularly be valuable for urgent orders.”

An initiative led by the United Parcel Service Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has raised $800,000 grant to support the launch of a zip line drone project in Rwanda that will commence later this year. The government of Rwanda will use zip line drones to make 150 life-saving blood deliveries per day to 21 transfusing facilities in western part of the country.

According to Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, “It is a totally different way to deliver vaccines to remote communities and we are extremely interested to learn if UAVs can provide a safe, effective way to make vaccines available for some of the hardest-to-reach children.”

The Rwanda drone network has been initially focused on delivering blood supplies, but plans to expand to include vaccines and treatments for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

In rural Virginia, Bhutan and Papua New Guinea, drones are currently being tested for medical supply deliveries. UNICEF is also testing their viability of use in Malawi and in Tanzania.

– Sarah Poff

Photo: Pixabay

Internet Traffic in Africa to Surge by 2020

Internet Traffic in AfricaAfrica will experience a boom in IP growth, with Internet traffic in Africa increasing six-fold by 2020, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.

Cisco’s forecast, which covers 2015 to 2020, has predicted that Africa’s IP traffic will grow at a rate of 41 percent, the fastest annual rate in the world. Fixed broadband speed is also expected to increase more than twofold, and average mobile connection speed will reach five megabits of data per second.

The projected rise in Internet traffic is partly a result of the spread of mobile personal devices across the continent.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center in 2015, cellphone ownership has surged in sub-Saharan Africa. Cellphones in South Africa and Nigeria have become as common as they are in the United States. People rely on their mobile phones for a variety of internet services, including browsing the web, mobile online banking and accessing social networking sites and political news.

Internet use through cellphones will likely continue to rise as 77 percent of networked devices in Africa in 2020 will be mobile-connected, according to Cisco’s forecast.

Advancements in the Internet of Things, which allow everyday devices to connect to the Internet, have also helped promote traffic growth.

Cisco said that applications, such as digital health monitors and energy smart meters, and machine-to-machine services are “creating new network requirements and incremental traffic increases.” Machine-to-machine modules will account for 22 percent of all network devices in Africa by 2020.

Yet, according to Mark Walker, the International Data Corporation’s associate vice president for Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa lag behind in technological capability and cannot afford Internet of Things applications.

In order for Cisco’s predictions to prove correct, less developed countries must continue to address affordability issues and develop infrastructure that will allow for greater use of the Internet, Walker told ITWeb Africa.

An increase in IP traffic will put the continent a step closer to achieving the United Nations’ goal of connecting more people in underdeveloped countries to the Internet by 2020. With more Internet availability, people who live in poverty can take advantage of enormous economic and social opportunities that the web offers.

Farmers in rural areas can use the Internet to plan for unpredictable weather and determine what type of crops to grow based on the prices of goods and commodities. People can also rely on the Internet for mobile banking, to educate children and to stay informed about news.

The increase in Internet traffic in Africa will also help the continent become more technologically advanced. Several countries, including South Africa, will rely on the increased Internet connectivity to complete a digital migration journey that involves the transition from broadcasting with analogue cables to more efficient digital television signals.

– Sam Turken

Photo: AKON

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Poverty Stoplight Puts Poverty in the Spotlight

Poverty StoplightFundación Paraguaya has developed a tool to help families self-assess their poverty level and develop a personalized plan to improve their status.

Named the Poverty Stoplight, the initiative uses technology and various methodologies to create a custom poverty elimination plan, breaking down an overwhelming situation into smaller, more manageable problems and putting families in charge of their situation.

First, families take an online visual survey to determine their level of poverty. They are assessed on six different groups of poverty indicators: Income and Employment, Health and Environment, Housing and Infrastructure, Education and Culture, Organization and Participation and Interiority and Motivational.

Through a technology software developed by Hewlet Packard, each family receives 50 poverty indicators of red, yellow or green (red = extreme poverty, yellow = poverty, green = not living in poverty). For instance, fetching water from a contaminated river is an extreme poverty/red indicator, while having a water faucet in the house is a green/non-poverty indicator.

Trained members under Fundación Paraguaya work with each family based on their strengths and weaknesses in each category. The mentors make families aware of the tools they have within themselves that can be used to build a life out of poverty.

The Poverty Stoplight technology also provides information on neighbors who are not living in poverty and may be able to help them build homes and businesses.

The goal is to disrupt the typical cycles families in poverty go through, improving their status for their children and future generations.

The Paraguayan Government has been using the technology to refocus social workers on the main problems contributing to poverty.

A Google map overlay of Poverty Stoplight families highlights main poverty contributors, such as lack of proper vaccinations, clean water or proper sanitation. This overview allows social workers to provide the proper help to families in need and give them a jump start towards a better life.

Poverty Stoplight has had much success in helping impoverished families build a better life. In its first three years of operation, they have been able to help the welfare of around 18,000 families (92,000 people).

USAID has been a big contributor to the program, providing $500,000 in funding alongside other donors (who donated a total of $1 million). “This replicable project illustrates how relatively small amounts of foreign assistance can generate promising, tangible steps toward reducing poverty,” notes USAID.

Based upon a family’s motivation and the skills they have, a plan can be constructed to not only reduce their level of poverty but to eliminate the poverty cycle altogether. The customization of the project and effectiveness of the technology is what makes Poverty Stoplight as promising as it is.

– Casey Marx

Photo: Pixabay

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3 Charity Apps You Should Know About

Charity appsIn addition to advocacy and mobilizing governments to make a difference, donating to charities can have a major impact in the fight against global poverty and hunger. Here are three charity apps that are making a difference on a global scale:

  1. Share The Meal: Share The Meal is the world’s first charity app against global hunger. By donating only 50 cents you can feed one child in hunger for an entire day. Since its founding in 2014, Share The Meal has donated more than 7 million meals to children suffering from hunger. Share The Meal funds are distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. Currently, Share The Meal funds are being used to feed Syrian refugee children in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley where 40 percent of the 360,000 Syrian refugees living in the Bekaa Valley are under the age of 12, according to data compiled by the UNHCR.
  2. Donate A Photo: Taking a picture can do more than just capture a moment, it can help people across the world. For every photo you share through the Donate a Photo charity app, Johnson & Johnson donates $1 to a cause of your choice. So far, over 1.3 million photos have been donated through the app. Causes vary from helping a newborn in Ethiopia survive through UNICEF, to giving a girl in Guatemala school supplies via Girl Up. Sharing photos not only helps to raise money but also spreads awareness. Sharing one photo per day is equivalent to donating $365 in a year.
  3. Charity Miles: Charity Miles allows you to raise money for every mile that you walk, run, or bike. The app uses your phone’s GPS and accelerometer to calculate the distance you traveled. Walkers and runners earn up to 25 cents per mile and bikers earn up to 10 cents per mile, according to Charity Miles’ Terms of Service. There are more than 30 different charities to earn donations on behalf, including The World Food Programme, Pencils of Promise, Girl Up and Every Mother Counts. Charity Miles’ goal is to raise $1 billion for charities by the end of 2016.

If you are looking for ways to donate funds, in addition to empowering others and spreading the word on poverty reduction, these three charity apps put the opportunity to make an impact directly at your fingertips.

– Kristyn Rohrer

Photo: Pixabay

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How Laptops Are Helping Cooperatives in Rwanda

Rwanda_Laptop

In today’s world, laptops are often taken for granted. To the members of farming cooperatives in Rwanda however, they are vital tools that are helping them better manage their business.

According to the National Cooperatives Confederation of Rwanda (NCCR), there are about 7,500 cooperatives in the country with a total of three million members as of 2016.

Despite their small scale, cooperatives have produced some successes. Smallholder farmers in Muko sector, located in the northern Rwandan district of Musanze, are one example.

A few years ago, with the help of ActionAid Rwanda and Faith Victory Association, individual farmers, and households that were working separately, came together to form cooperatives and savings groups.

Now, farmers in the district reported that they have tighter, improved food security. A maize milling factory, which cost 35 million Rwandan francs (Rwf) of NGO money to build and churns out 1.2 metric tons of maize flour each day, has generated a total profit of Rwf3.2 million, or about $4,000, for the cooperatives in the sector. Moreover, the savings groups have allowed families to construct houses and single mothers to pay for their children’s education.

Cooperatives demonstrate enormous poverty-reduction potential, but many suffer from mismanagement and a lack of engagement from members, who only contact managers occasionally.

According to Médiatrice Kibukayire, the head of a Kacyiru, Gasabo District-based ceramics cooperative, the problem is that everything is done by pen and paper. Among other things, this makes it harder for cooperatives to keep track of financial records and reach out to members for their input.

Indeed, in 2014, Augustin Katabarwa, the Chairman of the NCCR, stated that the biggest challenge facing cooperatives is gaps in technology.

This is why Africa Smart Initiative-Distribution (ASI-D) launched a new project called SMART Cooperative on June 14, 2016.

The initiative will enable laptops to be made locally in the Rwandan capital of Kigali by Positivo-BGH, a Latin American multinational tech company, and distributed to cooperatives in Rwanda.

According to Alleluya Iradukunda, ASI-D’s Chief Technology Officer, the software that comes with the devices will help managers coordinate with members, create websites to market their products and streamline their operations.

The initiative is not without difficulties, among which are equipment costs. While the base price of the laptop is Rwf230,000 (around $295) this rises to Rwf530,000 if a solar kit and an internet connection need to be installed. More IT education and training are also required to equip managers with the skills needed to run their cooperatives with the new software.

These problems, however, do not discount the benefits of improved technology for cooperatives in Rwanda. More initiatives like SMART Cooperative can help reduce the digital divide within the country and alleviate poverty in the process.

– Philip Katz

Photo: Flickr

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Internet Access: Reducing Global Poverty

Reducing_Global Poverty

In a speech to the United Nations in September 2015, Mark Zuckerberg stated, “When communities are connected, we can lift them out of poverty.” During his talk, the Facebook CEO and founder asserted that increased Internet access can aid in reducing global poverty.

According to the World Bank’s 2016 World Development Report, 60 percent of the world’s population do not have access to the Internet. In the United States alone, 60 million people do not have Internet access at home. However, for the rest of the world’s population, technological advancement has provided enormous levels of wealth and development.

A recent report by Price Waterhouse Cooper’s consulting and strategy firm, Strategy&, states that giving internet to the world could bring extraordinary results. If the 4.1 billion people without Internet were given access, 500 million people could be brought out of poverty.

For those in poverty, the Internet provides a multitude of opportunities, including jobs, access to global current affairs and education. In 1998, the World Hospitals and Health Services Journal released an article discussing the advantages of Internet access, arguing that “Access to information is an essential condition to development.” Almost twenty years on, researchers and institutions are still looking to the Internet as a technique for reducing global poverty.

In developing and impoverished areas, most individuals cannot afford the cost of the Internet. According to the World Economic Forum, only 20.7 percent of Africa’s population use the Internet, compared to 77.6 percent of Europe’s population.

The Head of Africa for the World Economic Forum, Elsie Kanza, discussed the way in which technological advancement could help bring “vast improvements in the way the region governs, feeds, lives, educates, trades and interacts with itself.”

On a recent “Intersections” podcast, the Brookings Institute recently discussed the issue of poverty and internet access. Laurence Chandy, a fellow at the Brookings Institute, stated, “Digital technology is changing what it means to be poor because it’s bringing poor people out of the margins.”

With projects such as Internet.org and Project Loon, tech giants such as Google and Facebook have begun to tackle the goal of creating widespread internet access for reducing global poverty.

– Isabella Farr

Photo: Flickr

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The Poverty Stoplight: A Technological Aid Revolution

Poverty_Aid

In Paraguay, where the poverty rate is 35 percent, the challenges of providing strategic and meaningful aid seem overwhelming. However, the Poverty Stoplight, a newly developed technology to help families self-assess poverty in their lives, is transforming communities.

In the words of Martin Burt, founder of Fundación Paraguaya and creator of the Poverty Stoplight, the technology “enables poor people to self-diagnose their own level of poverty in 30 minutes using a smartphone or tablet.” The app works through a survey that utilizes images as well as a color-coded system to identify extreme poverty with red, poverty with yellow, or no poverty with green. Families complete the survey by examining their poverty level in a number of different areas: Income and Employment, Health and Environment, Housing and Infrastructure, Education and Culture, Organization and Participation and Interiority and Motivation.

These six categories encompass 50 different indicators of poverty in Paraguay and therefore provide a multidimensional understanding of the circumstances faced by families in disadvantaged areas. Once they receive their results, families work with local community support to come up with a plan for improvement in red or yellow areas.

The international community also recognized the Poverty Stoplight for its efficacy in supporting gender equality. Many of the aid plans for families in impoverished communities include microfinance efforts to provide opportunities for women as well as training to reduce sexual harassment. Thanks to the technology of the Stoplight, many Paraguayan women are lifting their families out of poverty as owners of their own micro-franchises.

The color-coding mechanism of the Poverty Stoplight works beyond helping families describe their living situation by creating maps of countries, regions, even neighborhoods, that reflect the level of poverty in any given category. These maps help struggling families to identify others who face the same challenges or those who may have already overcome them, providing an opportunity for support and mentorship.

The Poverty Stoplight maps also allow governments and aid organizations to more fully understand the problems in these areas so that strategic plans can better support those who need it. By encouraging people to think of themselves “less as beneficiaries [of aid] and more as empowered agents of change,” the Poverty Stoplight is a respectful, insightful, and exciting tool for change.

In 2014, with only $1.5 million in donations and funds, the Poverty Stoplight helped improve the welfare of 18,000 Paraguayan families, an estimated 92,000 people. The low-cost nature of the technology, as well as it’s comprehensive strategies for assessing poverty in any given community, make it incredibly versatile.

As this revolutionary tool continues to eliminate poverty in Paraguay, it is migrating to other regions around the world. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in 18 different countries have already integrated this new technology into their support initiatives, demonstrating the name Poverty Stoplight is quickly making for itself as a means of revolutionizing our modern strategies for identifying and alleviating poverty.

– Kathleen Kelso

Photo: Flickr

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CyberSmart Africa: Technology for African Classrooms

CyberSmart Africa

90 million children in Africa go to schools that lack electricity. CyberSmart Africa harnesses technology in Sub-Saharan African classrooms in order to educate the world’s poor.

CyberSmart Africa, founded by Jim Teicher in 2007, is a social enterprise that provides educational technology specifically designed to meet the needs of schools in developing nations. In 2016, 12,500 students will have access to this technology.

In 2006 Jim Teicher visited Senegal, a country on Africa’s West Coast, and was concerned by the unequal distribution of technology across communities. There was a discrepancy between accessibility of technology in cities and youth in schools.

This observation led to the creation of CyberSmart Africa in 2007. The technology works exclusively in classrooms that have poor physical infrastructure, including those with little or no electricity. In addition to addressing the U.N. Sustainable Development goals, this digital learning platform reaches 250 students in Africa per day. It operates on less than $1.00/student/month.

Most schools in developing nations lack electricity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, three out of four primary schools do not have electricity. According to the World Bank, educational technology is expensive and it is difficult to train teachers in highly technical equipment.

The CyberSmart device uses solar technology, an energy-efficient projector, an interactive whiteboard, speakers, cooling fans and a dust filtration system. Teachers can easily adapt to the simplified technology with the help of directions received through SMS mobile text as well as through video tutorials.

Michael Trucano, a World Bank Senior Education and Technology Specialist, wrote a blog post commenting on CyberSmart Africa’s initiatives. Noting that there are not enough computers for the amount of students in schools, Trucano commends this technology as it allows for an entire classroom to access information at one time, increasing student engagement.

Senegalese schools have had great successes with this technology. CyberSmart Africa has allowed for students to create videos, with the support of parents and the community and post them on the Internet. These videos are meant to bring traditional storytelling of everyday Senegalese life into a digital realm.

Some of CyberSmart Africa’s partners include USAID, Senegalese Ministry of Education, Earth Institute at Columbia University and the United Nations Development Programme.

– Kimber Kraus

Photo: Flickr