Archive for category: Technology

Information and stories about technology news.

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Eliminating Poverty in India Through Volunteer “Techies”

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A group of “techies” are working to build a community of volunteers who will use technology to alleviate poverty throughout India.

Code for India is an initiative to eliminate poverty in India through technological advancements and solutions. The organization is aligned with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of Digital India.

Digital India aims to expand growth in electronic services, products, manufacturing and job opportunities. The program hopes to provide broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity and public Internet access.

Code for India is a nonprofit organization and was founded in Silicone Valley. It is one of the fastest growing tech communities in the world. The organization has helped build technology solutions for elections, city governance, women’s safety and education.

Code for India currently has more than 5,000 software engineers of Indian origin working in all different parts of the world. These engineers are donating their time free of cost to work on projects that will benefit those in poverty in India.

Karl Mehta is one of the engineers who helped start Code for India and make it into a successful organization. Mehta believes that technology can be leveraged to completely eliminate poverty in India.

Mehta said that Code for India is helping in the development of India from a digital standpoint towards a bigger goal of nation building. The techies who donate their time and talent do so out of the kindness of their hearts.

Code for India’s mission statement is, “to build scalable technology solutions for non-profits and social causes that will enable them to have a greater impact on society.”

One of Code for India’s most recent projects is ‘Skill Up India,’ which is a global open-source platform used to train millions of people across India to prepare them for the 21st century labor force needs. There are 350 million youth under the age of 35 in India, which provides a great asset to India’s workforce once they are properly trained.

Code for India is currently working on 37 projects and 25 non-government organizations.

Code for India will continue to work with Prime Minister Modi’s Digital India initiative to create successful tech programs, which will help to alleviate poverty throughout India.

– Jordan Connell

Sources: Code For India, YourStory 1, YourStory 2
Photo: Flickr

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Solar Backpacks for the Students of the Future

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Today more than 700 people are impoverished because of a lack of meeting basic needs and human rights. Innovative solutions provide different routes to solving the issue of global poverty.

Canadian student, Salima Visram, set out to revolutionize the way of life for those who live in deteriorated conditions with an ingenious solution that literally sheds light on the lives of students. Her invention: new solar backpacks equipped with a source of light that will charge all day and can be activated at night in order for students to study.

Instead of using toxic kerosene lamps, alternative technology allows for clean energy to be used. Not only is this a green solution, but also an economic one, as households can grab a backpack as their energy source instead of constantly replenishing their kerosene supply.

These solar backpacks have the potential to positively impact states that struggle with poverty, especially Kenya, where 92 percent of households utilize kerosene lamps.

The first to receive Visram’s backpacks were the residents of Kikambala village, where she raised enough money to produce 2,000 solar backpacks. Each backpack consists of a solar panel, battery pack and light.

This occurred in January after she raised money via crowdfunding site, Indiegogo. Since then, Visram has said she wishes to “expand the project to a hundred schools in the county within the next year and a half.”

Sticking to her own agenda, in September, Visram delivered 500 backpacks to the students of Kikambala Primary School, marking her business’ first official order. This is not the only milestone Visram wishes to achieve, however, as her goals go hand in hand with Masomo Bora—Kenya’s mission to provide education to all children.

Visram’s dream began as a public funding project on Indiegogo, but continues today in hopes of bringing as many students “into the light” as possible.

Fortunately, the costs of production are cheap, and in two months alone an additional $50,000 has been raised—more than doubling the initial capital of $40,000 required to manufacture the first 2,000 solar backpacks.

The backpacks are able to provide between seven and eight hours of light using only three to four hours of sunlight. As more and more solar backpacks become available, the hope is that the 4,000 deaths that occur daily due to kerosene-induced illness will be significantly reduced.

– Emilio Rivera

Sources: Indiegogo, IT News Africa, Compassion International
Photo: Conscious Living TV

Education in Sexual Health and Reproduction with SMS Text

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Access to sex education is not readily available in developing countries. Even more prevalent is the lack of access for younger people. Consequently, they do not receive information that could keep them safe.

Now, a new initiative is changing that.

Text messaging has remained a popular way for young people in Cambodia to communicate. According to a 2014 study conducted by BBC Media Action, 96 percent of Cambodian youth have access to a cellular device. Of that amount, 30 percent use text messaging.

OneWorld UK capitalized on this idea, launching a conversation about a previously considered taboo topic. Their “Smart Youth, Good Future” initiative prompts discussion about sexual health and reproduction through an SMS text messaging service.

“Youngsters using the service will be able to communicate on a level they are used to and comfortable with,” says Sanary Kaing, OneWorld’s project officer.

Before the service was launched, many young people felt uncomfortable talking about sex education. The absence of knowledge prevented people from educating themselves about ways to keep each other safe, resulting in pregnancy, STDs and unsafe abortions.

“Very few parents discuss sexual and reproductive health with their children, and teachers are also very hesitant to discuss issues related to sexuality, even though they are incorporated into the school curriculum,” says Jeffery Allen, global programme coordinator for OneWorld U.K., one of the three NGOs running the pioneering project.

Women, in particular, felt uncomfortable bringing up the topic.

“Many women do not feel safe or comfortable accessing sexual and reproductive health information and services at public health facilities because they are afraid of what family and community members will think or say about them,” Allen adds.

OneWorld not only relies on the fact that many teenagers have cell phones. It also owes its success to the projects anonymity.

“It is a great opportunity for teenagers to access accurate, non-judgmental and confidential information and counseling,” Allen says.

OneWorld hopes that the service will continue to spark conversations about sex. While it is still too early to assess the success of the program, Allen says that a similar project garners between 250 and 1,000 messages a day.

– Alyson Atondo

Sources: One World, IPS News, Medium
Photo: Flickr

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Project Loon Helps Internet Access Soar to New Heights

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Project Loon, a product of Google X, the semi-secret research and development facility run by Google, is an innovative operation providing inexpensive or free wi-fi to people living in remote rural areas around the world via a fleet of huge helium-filled balloons floating in the stratosphere.

According to Google, these balloons can deliver widespread economic and social benefits by bringing internet access to the 60 percent of the world’s population who don’t have it. A large portion of those 4.3 billion people live in rural or extremely remote areas where telecommunications companies haven’t found it worthwhile to build cell towers or other infrastructure.

Here’s how Project Loon will work: steered by wind and equipped with solar panels with enough power to charge the battery for use at night, each balloon will be able to power itself using entirely renewable energy sources.

Constructed out of a thin plastic similar to a heavyweight trash bag, the balloons float in the stratosphere, a layer of the earth’s atmosphere stretching about 32 miles above the surface. Flying twice as high as airplanes and operating above the weather, the balloons help mobile operators extend wireless networks into more sparsely populated and remote terrain.

With a lifespan currently lasting just over 100 days, each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area of about 50 miles in diameter using LTE wireless communications technology. LTE, short for long-term evolution, is the standard for wireless communications in high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals.

In order to use LTE, Project Loon partners with telecommunications companies to share cellular spectrum so that people will be able to access the internet directly from their phones or other LTE-enabled devices. The signal is then passed across the balloon network and back down to the global internet on Earth.

In Indonesia, Project Loon is teaming up with the country’s three largest wireless carriers in 2016 to test its high-altitude, wind propelled balloons. Their lofty goal is to deliver internet coverage across large pockets of the nation where 83 percent of the population currently is without internet access.

If successful, Project Loon’s collaboration with Indonesian mobile operators Indosat, Telkomel and XL Axiata would result in speeds fast enough to surf websites, stream videos or make purchases. It is estimated that 100 million people in Indonesia who are not currently connected to the internet will gain access through Project Loon.

“This is a way of changing the world,” says Mike Cassidy, Project Loon’s leader in an interview with MIT Technology Review. For just hundreds of dollars per day, the operation of one Loon balloon should be able to serve a few thousand connections at any time.

For a school principal in a rural area of northeastern Brazil, where Linoca Gayoso Castelo Branco School resides and internet service is nonexistent, she experienced the benefits of the balloons firsthand.

“It was just for some minutes, but it was wonderful,” says ­Silvana Pereira. That day’s lesson on Portugal was enhanced by Wikipedia and online maps. “They were so involved that the 45 minutes of a regular class wouldn’t be enough to satisfy their demand for knowledge,” says Pereira.

And that is just the beginning.

– Kara Buckley

Sources: Google 1, Google 2, Google 3, Technology Review 1, Technology Review 2, USA Today
Photo: Wikimedia

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Virtual Reality Films Provide Powerful Insights

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It is unlikely that the average American will experience poverty firsthand in Africa, South America or elsewhere. However, with the adoption of virtual reality (VR) technology, citizens across the globe can gain insight into what it is like to live in poverty, deal with life-threatening diseases or survive without basic necessities.

In a change from traditional advocacy campaigns, the United Nations collaborated with VR Director and Pioneer Chris Milk to release two virtual reality films in 2015.

The first, “Clouds Over Sidra,” follows a 12-year-old Syrian refugee through her day at a bustling camp of 84,000 in Jordan. The film captures a 360-degree view, a navigable window into the young refugee’s world.

“Waves of Grace,” the second VR film for the UN Millennium Campaign, is narrated by a Liberian Ebola survivor confronting a still fragile community. Scenes of life, illness and death with unimaginable detail document the scale and impact of the Ebola crisis in a country with more than 10,000 cases.

Gabo Arora, co-creator of “Waves of Grace” and senior advisor for the UN Millennium Campaign, thinks incorporating VR experiences into the campaign against Ebola “will promote greater understanding of the socio-economic impact of the disease and empathy for those who continue to overcome it.”

Strong responses to the films upon release indicate the powerful emotions virtual reality films inspire. In addition to spotlighting an issue, VR conveys an experience many viewers react to with increased empathy and compassion.

Organizations utilizing virtual reality films noted a higher contribution rate after individuals viewed the film and an increase in monthly contributions. The films demonstrate the potential of VR to immerse viewers and ignite empathy. In turn, this drives fundraising and advocacy.

In March of 2015, the Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria added a screening of “Clouds Over Sidra” in the hope of increasing support for displaced Syrians. The conference raised $3.8 billion in funds, $1.5 billion more than projected. Other organizations have also turned to VR to convey refugee experiences.

The Clinton Global Initiative also released the short VR film “Inside Impact: East Africa” following President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton’s trip to visit CGI sponsored programs in East Africa.

The featured programs, called commitment sites by the organization, include rural solar power use, malaria prevention education and supplying hearing aids to people in need.

According to The Clinton Foundation, when speaking at CGI’s annual meeting, President Clinton emphasized the effectiveness of the VR experience. “I think that the film will give people the opportunity to understand the difference CGI members can make in a whole different way,” he says.

In November 2015, the New York Times debuted NYT VR, a virtual reality application for storytelling. The inaugural story, titled “The Displaced,” follows three children displaced from their homes in Lebanon, South Sudan and Ukraine.

According to the New York Times, Editor of the New York Times Magazine Jake Silverstein echoes Arora about VR’s potential for impact and says, “This new filmmaking technology enables an uncanny feeling of connection with people whose lives are far from our own.”

Although still an expensive medium for storytelling, VR offers an intensified and comprehensive experience. Viewers see the multi-faceted world of poverty and the solutions that they can support.

– Cara Kuhlman

Sources: The Clinton Foundation, Fast Company, The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, UN Millennium Campaign, Vrse.works, The Wall Street Journal
Photo: Flickr 

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Millennials are Essential to Ending Extreme Poverty

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By the end of the year, the Millennial generation is projected to outgrow the Baby Boomer generation in the U.S., being predicted to grow to 75.3 million. Their large numbers will become crucial to helping end extreme poverty by 2030.

Since 1980, the world has made the unprecedented progress regarding extreme poverty–cutting extreme poverty in half from 43 percent in 1990 to fewer than 20 percent today.

Even with this upward progression, over 1 billion people worldwide suffer from extreme poverty, living on less than $1.25 per day. To make steps toward ending extreme poverty by 2030, 188 countries agreed to the UN’s goals at the World Bank Meetings in 2013.

If Millennials around the world connect themselves through social media and other events, this goal will become possible. As the first generation to have full access to technology at a young age, Millennials can spark a conversation and voice their concerns via social media.

While social media is beneficial in the fight to eradicate extreme poverty, events and festivals are taking place around the country to get the generation involved in the project.

On April 10, 2014, Global Citizen partnered with the World Bank Youth Network to host End Poverty 2030: Millennials take on the challenge in Washington, D.C. The event focused on the important role Millennials play in the fight to stop extreme poverty, even featuring a short film created by award-winning film writer and director Richard Curtis.

Over 1,000 people, including Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, attended the event while thousands more watched the event online. During the event, Ki-moon had a few encouraging words for the generation.

“I know that your generation can break this vicious cycle of extreme poverty, and I count on your strong engagement,” Ki-moon said.

More awareness for extreme poverty can be found at the Global Citizens Festival on Sept. 26 in Central Park. The music festival will include superstars Pearl Jam, Beyoncé, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran, with more to be announced on the festival’s website.

This year in order to buy a ticket, potential buyers are encouraged to complete the Eight Global Steps before entering their name into a raffle system. Some of these steps include tweeting the UN’s Global Goals or signing a petition to bring awareness to the Global Food Security Act.

Since the festival’s inception in 2011, $1.3 billion has been raised to support extreme poverty.

As festivals and events continue to be organized and geared towards Millennials, there is hope to end extreme poverty by 2030.

– Alexandra Korman

Sources: Forbes, Global Citizen, Pew Research
Photo: Huffington Post

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The Virtual Care Clinic Introduces Hologram House Calls

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The Virtual Care Clinic, recently announced by the University of Southern California, is a pioneer in the field of virtual health care that promises easily accessible and personalized health care across the globe.

The two main components of this virtual clinic are hologram house calls, which stream video to individuals and an app that assesses someone’s needs based off of archived data as well as the information the patient provides.

The ninth annual University of Southern California’s Body Computing Conference was heralded by the announcement of hologram house calls, a prime feature to the previously announced Virtual Care Clinic which is currently under development.

The house call consists of a hologram or video beamed across the globe to wherever a patient in need resides, giving an incredible advantage for doctors to assess a patient with a little more contextualization.

This feature is important because it allows for a quick diagnosis and also allows doctors to further understand the situation of health care recipients, most of whom live in poverty.

The hologram house call is an essential extremity of the Virtual Care Clinic because this alone provides easily accessible care not just domestically but abroad, which is really an amazing feat.

Just by using the hologram house call anybody may speak to a trained medical physician in seconds and be given a diagnosis in minutes; the potential for giving health care guidance shrinks from providing establishments to providing a device that will stream the video.

Also, the house call operates with wearable or injectable technology that logs data in order to provide an almost complete examination; with these technologies working together, it is as if one were visiting a real doctor who would give him or her a precise consultation.

Along with the hologram house call, a second part of the virtual care clinic is less data intensive and focuses more on providing consistent, non-personnel type of aid.

With the app, all one must do is insert his or her age, medical condition and history of diseases that run in the family to be given accurate and helpful information on what kind of treatment to seek and when to seek it.

The potential for this technology is overwhelming considering that the mobile tech industry is ever-growing in places where development is occurring faster every day. Conceivably, the Virtual Care Clinic would provide consistent and affordable health care with the ultimate utility of being completely mobile.

– Emilio Rivera

Sources: University of Southern California, Co.Design, Popular Science
Photo: Wikipedia

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Smartphones Affect Education Gaps in Rural Pakistan

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Throughout rural Pakistan, many teachers don’t have access to quality educational training for a variety of reasons, including cost, distance and family commitments.

Online distance learning could easily fill-in these educational gaps, but limited Internet coverage has proven to be a stumbling block for educators and students alike.

Developments in Literacy (DIL), a nonprofit founded by Pakistani-Americans in order to bring quality education to disadvantaged children in underdeveloped regions, has created a revolutionary solution to end this problem.

Funded by USAID, DIL created a mobile distance learning program known as mLearning. The parameters of the program were straightforward. Teachers were each given a smartphone with video lessons loaded onto them, giving teachers unlimited access to the material.

Once a month, teachers would meet at one of the 23 WiFi hubs DIL established throughout the nations to download more training videos. The 8- to 10-minute videos cover a variety of techniques to engage and inspire students to love learning, especially math and English.

Although the program’s focus is on bettering the understanding of school subjects and the teaching ability of rural educators, the end-game is to inspire children to stay in school. The goal is to have smartphones affect education gaps in rural Pakistan.

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The average number of years that Pakistani children stay in school is only eight years, with most dropping out before age 16. This low level of academic participation has capped the Pakistani literacy rate at 57 percent, with only 45 percent literacy for women.

Because of this, mLearning is aimed at improving the education and opportunities of poor children and at-risk rural girls through better teacher training and learning resources.

During the course of the initial mLearning program, 200 teachers were given smartphones and completed the program from January 2013 to November 2014. Currently, more than 5,000 children benefit from being taught by teachers who have participated in mLearning.

Since the end of mLearning, the educational aid videos have been shared with 40 schools not affiliated with DIL, and countless teachers have shared the videos personally from their smartphones.

That’s the real brilliance behind mLearning using smartphones as its method of delivery. Since DIL owns the majority of the content, teachers are able to share the videos freely.

mLearning’s results thus far have been impressive. Across the board, teachers reported a 30 percent increase in their English skills and a 40 percent increase in their comprehension of mathematics. As the mLearning videos continue to be spread around, DIL is looking to expand the program.

– Claire Colby

Sources: USAID, World Factbook
Photo: USAID
Photo: The Hindu.Com

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Mobile Phone App Helps With Dengue Fever Prediction

Dengue Fever PredictionThe ability to determine where and when epidemics will break out may soon be available at the touch of your fingertips.

In Pakistan, dengue fever was largely endemic in the southern city of Karachi; however, in recent years it has been appearing in a previously unaffected area — northeast Pakistan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that dengue fever is transmitted by the infectious bite of a mosquito, and currently there is no vaccine or specific medication for this illness, which usually results in a range of symptoms including “mild fever, to incapacitating high fever, with severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pain and rash.”

A recent article by SciDev describes the possibilities of a mobile phone app which can effectively predict epidemics by tracking the patterns of people.

“As the transmission of the virus that causes dengue fever is partly driven by human travel, analyzing how people move across the country allows researchers to predict when and where epidemics may break out,” SciDev says.

Telenor, a Norwegian mobile provider that operates in Pakistan, teamed up with researchers to track the call records from close to 40 million subscriber SIM cards within the last seven months of 2013.

Mathematical data pertaining to traveling patterns could be tracked and was later published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This information combined with clinical and climate data helped serve as a “model retroactively to predict the likely location and timing of epidemics across the country.”

This newfound data provided encouraging results that would enable researchers to “effectively target interventions, surveillance and clinical response” for where and when to expect dengue epidemics.

“The travel model predicted the geographic spread and timing of outbreaks in 2013 in both recently epidemic and emerging locations, the paper says. For example, it showed good overlap with the actual pattern of the first dengue cases in the northeastern cities of Lahore and Mingora,” says SciDev.

Predictive models may be the solution for mapping and creating early warning systems for diseases such as dengue. With such success regarding Dengue Fever prediction in Pakistan, it is possible for other Asian countries to adopt the same technology for other diseases, such as measles, malaria and influenza.

Soon, the very touch of a button may be able to save thousands from experiencing the disease via dengue fever prediction.

– Nikki Schaffer

Sources: WHO, SciDev, PNAS
Photo: Pixabay

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Kio Kits: A Modern Education Solution

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On a continent where electricity, let alone an internet connection or data coverage, is never a given, bringing technology to the classroom has proven to be a challenge in rural and poor urban regions of Africa.

A BRCK Initiative

But, the African software developers, engineers and technologists of the Kenyan company BRCK have recently rolled out an educational pilot program of tablets, specifically designed to combat connectivity problems.

The program, BRCK Education, comes from the creators of the original BRCK. A router and modem system boasting a built-in global SIM card, internal storage, surge protection, more than 8 hours of battery life, adaptable charging for solar panels, car battery and computer or wall outlet, BRCK grants access to the Cloud from anywhere.

BRCK Education’s pilot Kio Kit, which holds 40 tough Kio tablets, a set of headphones for each student, an original BRCK and wireless charging docks for the Kio, is designed to be a “holistic education technology solution that turns every classroom into a digital classroom,” according to BRCK.

Inside the Kio

The Kio Kits, which look like rugged, plastic suitcases, are not solely made for transporting and recharging the water and drop resistant Kio. The case houses an offline “micro-Cloud” server.

When the case is turned on, the micro-Cloud is activated, giving children and teachers access to the preloaded interactive content saved on the server, without the expense of having to connect to the internet.

Kio, meaning “window” in Swahili, kits are designed to give African school children the same quality education that their technologically more connected peers already enjoy.

The preloaded content is updated remotely, currently by four Kenyan education content companies and the international curriculum giant Pearson. This ensures that all children using the Kio are receiving the most up-to-date information.

But Pearson isn’t the only big-name backing the Kio Kits. Intel, Mozilla, and the African companies JP, e-limu and eKitabu are all getting in on helping the Kio Kits become a success.

Hope For Expansion

The pilot program is currently being run in schools in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The African Wildlife Fund has also purchased Kio Kits to distribute to schools in Ethiopia, Congo and others.

If the pilot program goes well, BRCK is already designed to be used throughout the globe, making it a viable option for other developing nations.

The BRCK Education team hopes to positively change the lives of children who have little or no access to technology through the Kio Kits, in Africa and beyond.

The BRCK team is confident that their system will succeed in changing education for the better. As they claim on their website, “If it works in Africa it will work anywhere.”

– Claire Colby

Sources: BRCK 1, BRCK 2, Forbes, htxt.Africa
Photo: Potentash