Information and stories about technology news.

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Bangladesh Uses Mobiles to Protect Mothers

Bangladesh uses mobiles
“It’s time for the second tetanus toxoid vaccine. Just one more and your baby will be protected against tetanus. Go to your clinic now,” reads one mobile message from Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA).

Bangladesh is hard at work trying to meet Millennium Goals 4 and 5. In partnership with MAMA, the country has implemented a project to reduce mother and child deaths. Over 500,000 women already subscribe to the service. Named Aponjon, meaning “dear one,” the project sends over 350 free text and voice messages to expectant and new parents. The messages contain information about a range of pregnancy and childcare-related subjects, such as nutrition, vaccinations and when to go to the doctor. They can even be selected by topic, so mothers can request messages about preventing HIV transmission to their children, or post-partum family planning, if they require it. The messages are not just for mothers, either. There are some tailored for fathers and mothers-in-law, as well.

The goal of Aponjon is to reach mothers who do not have as much access to medical care. This is particularly relevant in rural areas, where Bangladesh’s dropping maternal mortality rate has made a smaller impact. While Bangladesh has reduced its maternal mortality rate by 66 percent, this change has been strongest in urban areas, under private medical care.

Aponjon allows women who cannot make it to clinic or who are nervous to talk to doctors, to understand how to take care of themselves and their babies. Since the adult female literacy rate is only 57.7 percent, messages are sent vocally as well as through SMS text.

The mobile company Telenor is also trying to expand health services, now that Bangladesh uses mobiles, to other countries as well. It currently offers a service where physicians answer health questions by phone at any time of day. It is also working on using video conferencing for doctor-patient interactions.

Bangladesh is also working to increase mothers’ health in other ways. Female education is increasing in the country, and currently more girls are educated than boys. Increased education leads people to seek more healthcare, as well as to have fewer children. There is also more education in medical-related fields. Also, the Bangladesh government, WHO, and the UN Population Fund introduced a program to train 3,000 midwives by 2015. Since only a third of Bangladeshi women have a skilled physician with them as they give birth, the program is designed to increase maternal health. Over 1,000 people have already completed the first stage of training.

All of these goals put Bangladesh well on the way to meeting and exceeding the Millennium Goals, in addition to creating a happier and healthier population for the country.

– Monica Roth

Sources: IRIN, Daily Star, MAMA, WHO, The Hindu, Htxt
Photo: MAMA

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A Look at Solar Cookers International

solar_cookers_international

Solar Cookers International aims to provide thermal cooking technologies to those who most need them. Over three billion people eat food cooked over an open fire, and burning organic matter instead of returning it to the land causes soil erosion and a decline in crop production.

Solar Cookers International has already distributed 155,000 units worldwide.  They teach individuals how to cook during sunny weather, at night and during severe weather. They also educate the users on how to use a water pasteurization indicator so that they may produce safe water to drink.  Moreover, Solar Cookers International has recently made it their goal to provide 20 percent of families with access to solar cooking technology by 2030.

Projects to distribute the cookers in Chad, Haiti, Kenya and Madagascar have been successfully implemented.  Solar Cookers International provided cookers in four refugee camps in Chad where many of the women have been teaching each other how to use the technology. Cookers were distributed in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake in an attempt to help preserve more of the forests.

Cookers were also distributed to refugee camps in Kenya and now provide food for over 15,000 families.  Cookers were distributed in Madagascar, also to help preserve the forests, and as a region that averages 330 sunny days per year, the cookers have become an extremely common means of cooking. Over 50,000 cookers are in use; as a result, deforestation has been reduced by around 65  percent.

Solar Cookers International operates on four basic principles: visibility, technology, training and conferences.  The goals are to “increase awareness about the life and earth saving power of solar cooking, to improve solar cooking designs, to promote and provide training in how to use solar cookers, and to expand [their] role in regional and international conferences on solar cooking and other fuel efficient cooking methods.”

Solar Cookers International’s ultimate goal, however, is to “change and save lives with solar cooking thermal technology.”

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: Solar Cookers International, SCInet Wiki
Photo: EPA

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How Mobile Banking is Changing Africa

mobile banking
More often than not, adopting a pre-existing idea is easier than creating a brand new one. The mobile phone is an example of this. In recent years, there has been an explosion in the adoption of mobile phones among people living throughout Africa. The impact of mobile phones includes paving a more secure form of mobile banking, and ultimately creating a shift in African culture.

Over the past decade, the use of mobile phones has increased in both developed and developing countries. According to the World Bank, mobile subscriptions have been increasing around the world every year – and African countries have made the biggest gains. In 2009, the US had 89 cellphones per 100 people, and 96 in 2013. Nigeria had 48 per 100 people in 2009, with 73 in 2013. South Africa had 91 cellphones per 100 people in 2009, and 147 in 2013. The greatest strides were made by African states.

According to The Economist, three phones exist for every four people, which describes the accessibility of these products. While mobile devices were initially created to function as telephones, Africans do not use them solely for communication. Just like people with iPhone’s in developed nation, Africans have access to a whole range of activities via their phones, including secure banking and e-payments.

According to Paul Edwards, the CEO of Emerging Markets Payments (EMP), only 15 to 20 percent of Africans have bank accounts. This number contrasts sharply with developed countries, where almost everyone has or is expected to manage a bank account as an adult.

Mobile banking has created a shift. Africa has a different banking culture than that of developed nations.

Furthermore, making e-payments and using mobile banking allows for less corruption. As all money transfers are electrically handled, transactions are instant and, therefore, significantly reduce the number of delays in payments.

Many Africans have used cash to fuel their informal sector jobs, but using less cash and more e-payments allows governments to track tax-able profits. Ultimately this creates a more regulated, tax-paying economy that will generate revenues for the state and further establish self-sufficiency.

The growing popularity of mobile phones displays a tangible shift in Africa’s culture. A public relations company named Portland conducted a survey of Twitter in Africa. They used devices that allowed for geo-location; by examining the hashtags in Tweets, they were able to look into the interests of Africans. Subjects ranged from Nelson Mandela’s death to football to public dissatisfaction with the government.

As Africans continue to use mobile phones for various purposes, the rest of the world will watch to see what this will mean for the development of Africa.

– Christina Cho

Sources: Foreign Policy, The Economist 1, The Economist 2, World Bank, Foreign Policy 2
Photo: CNN

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mDiabetes for a Healthy Ramadan

mDiabetes
As many Senegalese begin celebrating Ramadan, those with diabetes must be particularly careful fasting and feasting because it can trigger complications, and put their health at risk.

Every year during Ramadan in Senegal, there is a spike in those needing urgent hospitalization due to uncontrolled diabetes. To help solve this problem is mDiabetes, a free service that sends text messages to mobile phones before, during and after the month of Ramadan to give those with diabetes tips and tricks to fasting safely.

Text messages include advice such as,

“Drink one liter of water every morning before you begin fasting.”

“Take care to not overeat and watch out for foods high in sugar such as dates.”

“Ask your doctor to adapt the dose and timing of your diabetes medication before you fast.”

Simple texts like these will help the thousands of people living in Senegal with diabetes, which has increased in the past decade due to rapid urbanization. Obesity in young people has escalated drastically, putting them at risk for type 2 diabetes. It is estimated that four to six percent of the Senegalese population are living with diabetes, at least 400,000 people, yet only 60,000 have been diagnosed.

Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that many are unaware that they even have diabetes since they do not know the causes or symptoms. This is particularly common in rural areas where access to health services is limited.

mDiabetes is part of a campaign by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) called, “Be He@lthy Be Mobile.” Through the use of technology such as text messages and apps, they can “control, prevent, and manage non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.”

Similar programs have been implemented in other countries such as the mCessation program in Costa Rica for tobacco, mCervical cancer program in Zambia and others like mHypoertension and mWellness have been planned for the future.

Eighty-three percent of the Senegalese population have mobile telephones, and 40 percent of those have smart phones, capable of receiving pictures and videos. Utilizing this technology that is becoming increasingly more prevalent in the daily lives of those around the world, is effective way to educate thousands, at no cost to the public.

Thanks to mDiabetes, this Ramadan thousands of Senegalese will be able to fully practice their faith without risking their health.

— Kim Tierney

Sources: World Health Organization, Diabetes and Ramadan International Alliance
Photo: Hong Kiat

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UC Global Food Initiative

uc global food initiative
University of California is determined to downsize hunger and make the world a healthier place. UC will research what is causing world hunger, how it could be solved, and then it will put its findings to work.

It is estimated that by the year 2025, the world’s population will reach eight billion, and UC wants to nutritiously feed all of the eight billion people.

President Janet Napolitano announced the launch of the UC Global Food Initiative at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, CA on July 1, 2014. This program will be directed by Napolitano and the 10 UC chancellors.

“Our goal is audacious, and it is far-reaching. It is our intent to do everything in our power to put the world on a pathway to feed itself in ways that are nutritious and sustainable,” said Napolitano during a press conference on July 1. Napolitano went on to explain that the issue of “food” does not just consist of what people eat, but it also has to deal with delivery systems, population growth, climate issues and policy. She went on to say that, every night, one billion people go to bed hungry, while half a billion people are suffering from obesity.

There is already so much research going on at the different UC labs. For example, at the Berkeley lab, researchers have developed a smart cookstove called the Darfur stove. This stove is able to address food security issues caused by misplaced people in Darfur. At the same time, the Darfur stove is able to decrease women’s exposure to violence while collecting firewood.

Napolitano went on to explain that the idea of this organization is not to come up with a solution to problems that have to deal with food but to provide information and examples for communities in California and around the world on how to provide food security and sustainable food.

Some of the smaller ways the initiative will address food issues is by incorporating these issues in undergraduate and graduate classes.

In addition to traditional research topics such as agriculture, health and the environment, the program will also research topics such as law, humanities, education and social science to help develop discussion about food issues.

– Priscilla Rodarte

Sources: Contra Costa Times, University of California Office of the President, University of California Office of the President, Cookstove Projects, University of California
Photo: UCR Today

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Genetically Engineered Bananas Could Save Lives

Genetically Engineered Bananas
Deficiency in Vitamin A causes preventable blindness and an increased chance of disease and death for children across the globe in developing countries. Approximately 250 million preschool-aged children are deficient in Vitamin A. Between 250,000 and 500,000 children become blind every year due to Vitamin A deficiencies and around half of these children die within a year after becoming blind.

Recently, scientists at Queensland University of Technology have been working on genetically engineering a banana that will help prevent deficiencies in Vitamin A.

Genetically modified foods are foods that do not occur naturally but, instead, are created by scientists altering their genetic material. Genetically modified foods have been used to increase food production by making plants larger or making them more resistant to disease. Genetically modified foods could be used to increase the amount of nutrients in food — such as with Vitamin A-concentrated bananas — decreasing food allergies or making foods easier to grow.

While recognizing the advantages to global health that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would offer, many are worried about the possible negative side effects. Critics have noted the lack of research about future health issues that may arise due to the consumption of genetically modified foods. More research over time would be necessary for scientists to weigh their advantages and disadvantages.

These genetically engineered bananas have an increased level of beta-carotene in them. Beta-carotene is then converted to Vitamin A by the body after being ingested.

In the past few years, similar research has been done to create “golden rice”— rice with increased levels of beta-carotene. Critics have also been skeptical about the risks involved with this project.

If the bananas are effective in increasing Vitamin A levels, the scientists will work to begin distributing these genetically engineered bananas in Uganda by 2020 to begin decreasing the rates of Vitamin A deficiency-related diseases, blindness and death.

– Lily Tyson

Sources: The Guardian, HealthLine, PHG Foundation, WHO
Photo: Carnarvon

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3 Ways Billboard Advertising Can Help Humanity

Not many people appreciate huge billboards blocking out landscapes and pushing companies’ products on such a large scale. Some companies are using innovative methods to change this perception of billboard advertising and clean the environment for their communities. This blend of environmentalism and economics allows companies to sell their brand while cleaning the air and water in their cities. These three types of billboards are doing just that:

1. River-Filtering Billboards

The Pasig River in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, has been devastatingly polluted for decades. A Japanese company has plans to clean up the river through the use of floating billboard advertising.

Shokubutsu Hana, a Japanese cosmetics brand, teamed up with the Pasig River Rehabilitation commission, Vetiver Farms and agency TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno to design an advertisement using a grass called vetiver. Vetiver has the ability to filter water that passes through its system, cleaning pollution out of 2,000 to 8,000 gallons of water per day. It can filter out nitrates, phosphates and heavy metals, all of which are found in the Pasig.

The billboard is planted to spell out “clean river soon,” an encouragement to the community that their river is being cleansed of pollution. This phrase also serves as a reminder to passersby to avoid throwing garbage in the water. With the success of this billboard, there are plans to create more floating advertisements along the river.

2. Water-Purifying Billboards

The fifth-largest city in the Western Hemisphere is Lima, Peru. It is also located in the middle of a coastal desert, and it sees approximately half an inch of precipitation per year, while also averaging 83 percent humidity. Poor families in Lima cannot afford the exorbitant price of water — a basic necessity to survive.

The University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) has developed a new billboard that pulls moisture from the atmosphere and converts it into drinkable water — all to advertise for the school. Although it requires electricity to run, the billboard is far easier than the unclean wells that many Lima citizens currently use. It has the capacity to produce 9,450 liters in three months, which is enough to sustain hundreds of families. The idea was the brainchild of advertising agency Mayo DraftFCB, with the hope that the billboard would draw students into engineering at UTEC, while also providing a service to the many people in need.

3. Air-purifying Billboards

In addition to the lack of water, the air quality in the city of Lima, Peru is the poorest in South America. A recent increase in construction has created a toxic atmosphere for many of the city’s residents. The pollutants near these sites cause disease, and possibly even cancer. Again partnering with Mayo DraftFCB, UTEC has developed an air-purifying billboard to alleviate the air pollution caused by growing construction.

The billboard purifies the air as much as 1,200 trees, creating a safe place to breathe within a radius of five city blocks. The billboard dissolves pollutants into water before releasing clean air back into the street. That waste water can then be recycled back into the system, and all of this happens while using only about 2,500 watts of electricity per hour.

UTEC is not the first brand to purify the air with a billboard. Back in Manila, in 2011, Coca-Cola created a billboard that actually contained plants, in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature. It is made up of 3,600 Fukien tea plants, which combined removed almost 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year. The plants grow as the background, forming a silhouetted Coca-Cola bottle. Even the pots the tea plants grow in are recycled from old Coca-Cola bottles. All the plants are watered through trickle irrigation, which drips water down the billboard.

Both billboards provide a healthy environment for citizens who pass through the pollutant-free area.

— Monica Roth

Sources: Fast Company, Visual News, Time, FCB Mayo, Gizmag, Triple Pundit
Photo: Shaw Contract Group

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Father Invents Bionic Pancreas for Diabetic Son

bionic_pancreas
Type 1 diabetes diagnoses break the hearts of parents to almost half a million children worldwide each year. Once caught, the implications of a lifestyle change are immediate and lifelong, and worried parents will continuously contemplate their child’s safety and future.

Such was the case for Ed Damiano, who was told that his infant son David was a Type 1 diabetic at only 11 months old. From that moment on, Ed and his wife, Toby Milgrome, became 24-hour human monitors of their son’s blood sugar levels. Diabetes is a condition that does not sleep. As a matter of fact, sleep is one of the most dangerous events of a diabetic’s life since blood sugar levels can surge, which can result in death.

Ed has gone as far as to make it a habit to check his son’s levels in the middle of the night while he sleeps, even now that he is 15 years old. He has also displayed another significant response to address his son’s disease – developing a “bionic pancreas.”

Ed is part of a team of scientists at Boston University who are now pushing the bionic pancreas into its first long-term testing period with volunteer diabetics after recent approval. Previously, 20 adults and 32 adolescents monitored in hotel rooms for five days were hooked up to the devices with almost full dietary freedom. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the participants were healthier than when administering levels themselves.

Traditionally, diabetics test blood sugar levels several times a day with a portable device that uses small blood samples. If blood sugar is too low, the diabetic takes a glucagon hormone injection; if blood sugar is high, they take an insulin injection to lower it. A diabetic’s pancreas does not produce these hormones naturally, making sugar toxic to their blood.

The new bionic pancreas automatically checks blood sugar levels regularly. It is secured to the patient’s abdomen with tiny tubes inserted under the patient’s skin. The device decides when to make glucagon or insulin increases without any manual operation. Levels can be read real-time with the use of an app on an Apple gadget.

Study participants such as Ariana Coster, a 23-year-old diabetic, expressed how great the feeling of neglect can be – even simply eating a cookie without having to check blood sugar levels. For David and his parents, they are just relieved that the device is likely to be ready by the time he goes off to college in a couple of years.

“My whole life I’ve just known – just had this knowledge that my dad is going to have this bionic pancreas out when I go to college,” says David. “I’m confident in him. He works really hard – really hard.”

— Edward Heinrich

Sources: Time, NPR, USA Today
Photo: Public Broadcasting

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Clean Water From a Box

clean water
As of 2005, one in six people are without access to clean water. Perhaps they spend a huge fraction of their income to gain access to a truck that distributes clean water to them, which, ultimately, might not even be clean. They might simply drink available water that holds dangerous bacteria, or that is laced with chemicals. Slightly less than 1 billion people wake up knowing that their first demand of the day is to find any source of water at all.

It isn’t as if water purification hasn’t been perfected in a number of other contexts. Drug companies purify water in huge quantities to produce medicine. The U.S. Navy found methods by which drinking water could be desalinated.

But both of these methods lack the level of portability needed to address the issue of water deprivation in impoverished regions. Methods like chlorine tablets exist, along with reverse osmosis plants. Yet problems of portability persist. It’s possible only some pollutants get purified, and others remain. Sometimes parts are too expensive to replace or are difficult to find.

The struggle with water purification for those in poverty has obviously been a long one, but it looks like the end might be in sight. It comes in the form of a plain-looking box, no larger than a mini refrigerator. Behind its design is a unique story, and its benefits have been a long time coming.

Dean Kamen has been working on what he calls the Slingshot for over 10 years. The inventor of the Segway, Kamen came to the project when Baxter International asked for his help. They had built a device to perform a procedure called peritoneal dialysis, which uses sterile saline to filter a patient’s blood. Kamen’s job was to refine and improve the machine.

It required huge amounts of purified water, or what amounted to multiple gallons a day for each patient. Kamen and his team turned to a simple scientific principle to solve their problem: they recycled the energy used when water evaporates. Now, Kamen has a device that he says can “take any input water, whether it’s got bioburden, organics, inorganics, chrome and… make pure water come out.” Kamen explains that the Slingshot could provide perfectly clean water using less power than a typical hairdryer.

Kamen’s last challenge is getting the Slingshot where it needs to go. Alongside Coca-Cola in October of 2012, Kamen announced plans with the company to bring the Slingshot to remote regions of Africa and Latin America. The partnership had already sent 15 of the machines to Ghana in 2011. Also involved in the process were the Inter-American Development Bank and Africare.

But Kamen has even bigger plans. His next project will work to reach even more people in need of clean water with his energy-efficient Stirling generator, solving the lack of electricity that could inhibit the use of the Slingshot. In the near future, Kamen has made it quite possible that millions of people will no longer face water insecurity.

— Rachel Davis

Sources: Popular Science, HowStuffWorks, Coca-Cola
Photo: Business Week

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Gold-Mining in Zimbabwe: Poverty Alleviation

gold-mining

Artisanal gold-mining is nothing new to Zimbabwe; in fact, it’s a practice that is centuries old. What is especially interesting about the practice today, though, is how innovative Zimbabweans are using mining as a means of supporting their families in difficult economic times.

The correlation between economic strain and accelerated entry into the mining sector is strong. Zimbabwe has undergone a decade and a half of economic turmoil that began in 2000 with the collapse of its agricultural economy when the government forced out large farms only to replace them with much smaller ones run by inexperienced staff.

As a result, swaths of the population were forced to seek alternative employment, such as small-scale mining. By 2018, it is estimated that so many Zimbabweans will have adopted artisanal gold-mining that Zimbabwe’s gold output will double.

As an industry, gold-mining has the power to support thousands of hard-working Zimbabweans. According to the South African Institute of International Affairs, which in May 2014 published a comprehensive policy briefing on the topic, “artisanal gold-mining has emerged as one of the few means of poverty alleviation for poverty-stricken people in mineral-rich communities.”

Despite this, however, the government of Zimbabwe has yet to support the industry – in fact, it has criminalized small-scale mining altogether.

Government opposition to mining is a result of concerns that mining leads to environmental degradation and political instability. To some extent, these concerns are legitimate – mining relies not only on the use of dangerous chemicals but can also lead to water pollution and landscape erosion, as well as result in community tensions when workers of differing ethnicities and ideologies flood into mining towns.

Traditionally, Zimbabwe has enforced the criminalization of artisanal mining, arresting those who are caught engaging in the practice. However, because artisanal miners move between gold mines very quickly, law enforcement alone has not managed to end non-commercial mining in Zimbabwe.

The government of Zimbabwe would be smart to regulate rather than criminalize artisanal mining, as it benefits the country as a whole. Increased gold output over the past several years has earned Zimbabwe a reputation for being mineral-rich, and in turn, has led to increased international investment.

Mining gives individuals who would otherwise face unemployment an income, allowing them to participate in local economies, perhaps put down roots and in some cases, even undertake their own entrepreneurial ventures.

Lacking the violence with which it is often associated, supporting mining would be a no-brainer for Zimbabwe. Regulation (including environmental regulation) as a means of “formalizing” the mining industry could be incredibly effective in reducing its social costs and in turn, make the industry even more productive. Zimbabweans have found a way to ward off poverty – their government should listen.

— Elise L. Riley

Sources: Eldris, Info Please
Photo: The Zimbabwe Mail