Information and stories about technology news.

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What is Poverty Alleviation?

Poverty Alleviation
Poverty alleviation aims to improve the quality of life for those people currently living in poverty. Another term that is often used is poverty reduction.

 

Innovation Leads Poverty Alleviation

 

Rudy De Waele, CEO of Nyota Media, a growth agency for entrepreneurs and start-ups in Africa, recently gave a speech at the Mobile Innovations at the OCE Discovery event in Toronto, Canada. His speech, “How Mobile Technology is Transforming Africa” discussed the WOW Generation, mobile energy solutions and 3D printing, among other successful innovations happening on the continent of Africa. He spoke of how the WOW Generation is a new generation of young, talented and driven social entrepreneurs who are not only in it for the money, but who are taking into account a positive return to society as well. WOWers have already helped thousands by working with local entrepreneurs to solve local problems with low-tech solutions.

De Waele also covered a number of mobile energy solutions currently in effect. Angaza Design is a company based in Palo Alto that is currently working in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia. Using solar panels, Angaza Design has developed pay-as-you-go technology to provide energy that will charge mobile phones in rural areas.

Another project De Waele mentioned does not necessarily alleviate poverty, but does improve the daily lives of people living with a particularly harsh disease in Kenya. The Happy Feet project uses 3D printing to create customizable shoes in an attempt to solve the jigger problem. A jigger, also known as a sand flea, is a small insect that bites and feeds on humans, cats, dogs and domesticated livestock. Though a single bite is not likely to cause damage, complications can arise when a female jigger burrows into the foot of a person. Due to the pain, victims of the sand flea are unable to walk, which means they are also unable to work. In cases of serious infestation, it is possible to lose a nail, in the best case, or whole digits from the hands and feet in the worst case. The worst cases appear in places of poverty.

By creating and using new and inexpensive mobile technologies, there is potential for increased economic growth in developing countries. Not only is there growth, but the positive changes are impacting those living in the worst conditions. While 3D printed, customized shoes will certainly help with jiggers and their detrimental impact on those living in Kenya, projects like Angaza Design?s mobile phone charger will give independence to those living in poverty.

However, like most things, poverty alleviation is not a simple act. The United Nations Development Programme states that simple economic growth will not reduce or alleviate poverty, improve equality or produce jobs, unless said growth is inclusive of all individuals in the economy.

For example, a recent study by the African Economic Outlook showed that economic growth in Nigeria has not resulted in poverty alleviation or the creation of jobs. Despite policies for inclusive growth and employment generation, the report showed a 3 percent increase in unemployment between 2010 and 2011. The report explained that this was because the oil and gas sectors, the areas increasing economic growth, do not have much potential to create jobs.

Though Nigeria projects a 6.7 percent growth in 2013 and a 7.3 percent growth in 2014, there are potential problems. Security problems arising from religious conflicts in certain states, as well as the continued cost of flooding, all constitute potential drags on projected economic growth. The report also said that current reforms that have resulted in price and exchange rate stability should be increased by the Nigerian government to see continued progress in economic growth, a key component of poverty alleviation.

– Jordan Bradley

Sources: The Next Web, UNDP, Camps International
Photo: OxFam

Video Games Boosting Africa’s Economy?

video games
The video game industry is huge – worth about $78 billion in 2012 – the size of the movie and music industry combined. Yet almost all games are produced in the developed world. The limitations on producing games in the global south are manifold – technological, education, and financial. So how can game creators in these areas grow?

Even in relatively wealthy South Africa game consoles are years behind industry leaders. Support from game publishers outside their core territories is minimal. On top of that, hurdles to creating games on the current platforms are high: access to the specialized hardware and licenses provided by the console manufacturers are expensive and not given easily.

The most common platform for gaming in Africa and Asia is the mobile phone. In Africa, of the 650 million mobile phones, Nokia Series 40 and BlackBerry 7 are still the dominant platforms. Adam Oxford of htxt.co.za explains that, “Mxit and BiNu are really big social networks geared up for feature phones, with massive followings in South Africa and Nigeria. There are loads of games on both platforms.”

Although there are not many local game makers in the developing world, Africa has a handful scattered in countries such as Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Nana Kwabena Owusu of Ghana’s Leti Games thinks this shortage of talent is an education problem. “There are good creators, but retraining them to think in terms of game development, merging technical and creative thinking, is tough.” This is not a problem restricted to Africa – the education system in the U.K. has only just been restructured to encourage good programmers, and game design is still mostly learned though experience in studios.

By giving the opportunity of learning how to develop games and programs in Africa, a new market could be tapped. Even though the most common electronics in Africa are outdated in comparison to East Asian, American, and European products, there is still the opportunity for new developers to sell to American markets. Developing games on the Android and iPhone markets is an easy way to insert African developers into a market that has much potential to grow. This increase in developers in Africa could in turn boost the strength and diversity of many African nations’ economies.

– Matthew Jackoski

Sources: The Guardian, MCV
Photo: Wonder How To

Radical Islamism, Jihad, Anti-Terrorism and the Internet

islam_extreme-jihad
More than a year ago, Mohamed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origins, shot seven people in three different assaults. Among the victims, three were military personnel shot during two different attacks in a two day span in the French city of Montauban, one was a teacher, and three were children, killed after Merah’s attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Merah claimed to have an affiliation with Al-Qaeda, and was known by the French secret services for his extreme views and was considered a potential threat. Even though he had been under surveillance for some time, police forces were still unable to prevent Mohamed Merah’s attacks.

Since 9/11, radical Islam has become a major security concern for the U.S. and other countries. The World Wide Web and the ease of access to Islam extremists’ thoughts have played a major role in the spread of radical ideologies.

Recent discoveries at Merah’s older brother’s in-law’s house have shown that access to radical Islam propaganda is almost as easy as a simple click. In a hard disk belonging to Merah’s brother, a digital library composed of several thousands of texts was found. These texts are both a guide for newbie jihadist as well as a guide to salafi indoctrination.

The websites visited by the murderer show the role of the Web in the spread of the radicalization of Islam. The websites appear in the headlines of searches of key words such as “Sharia” and “Jihad.” They espouse a more radical Islam centered around a rigorous defense of the Jihad. Translated in many languages, these websites are capable of reaching a larger public and thereby pose a greater threat.

Internet surveillance has become a national security priority in countries all over the world. And even when sites are censored because they are deemed dangerous, they often reappear with a different name.

The Internet, by facilitating access to ideas worldwide, has been greatly beneficial to the public, who can now hope for more transparency and easier access to knowledge. Nevertheless, this facilitated access to ideas has also become the unfortunate tool of many terrorist groups, who use it for both recruitment, financial purposes and as a source for their propaganda.

To this day, no international standard has been established to regulate the content of the internet available to the public. Each country makes its own rules, and there is little to no regulation at an international level. The challenge now is to create an international standard in order to avoid abusive censorship and promote freedom of speech and the spread of ideas in a context of mutual respect.

– Lauren Yeh

Sources: Washington Institute, Islam Et Verite, The Independent, Huffington Post
Photo: AIM

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3 Technologies Improving Access to Clean Water

lifestraw_sanitize_water
The United Nations estimates that a minimum of 1.5 million children every year die of dehydration and disease caused from a lack of access to clean water. 783 million people around the world lack clean water, which represents 11% of the population. Technological innovations have recently been developed around the world focused on addressing this deadly issue.

One of these innovations, the mWater mobile app uses data to test the cleanliness of water. It tracks all of these measurements online, allowing officials to map areas with clean water and those with the most deadly levels of contamination. All of the information picked up by the app is stored in an online database, which is free and available to the public. Its measurement capabilities also allow users to determine immediately whether or not the water is safe to drink. By increasing access to information and using scientific measurements to track the problem areas of water sanitation, the mWater mobile app decreases the workloads of health organizations and governments looking for solutions to the clean water dilemma.

The Life Straw is also a new technology with great potential for saving the lives of millions. The Vestergaard Frandsen Company of Switzerland developed the Life Straw as a filtration system used to purify up to 700 liters of water, approximately a year’s supply of water for one person. The Life Straw is a pipe structure allows producers to make the product for under 5 USD. The pipe contains carbons to filter out parasites and a resin to kill bacteria. The straw is small enough to be worn around a person’s neck, making it convenient for transporting. Anyone can use the Life Straw simply by placing the tube in water and drinking through it, like a regular straw.

In addition to mobile apps and filter pipes, the Stellenbosch University of South Africa Water Institute’s HOPE Project seeks to improve the availability of clean water to people all over the world. This group has created a water filter known simply as the ‘teabag.’ This filter stands out as a promising solution as it costs less than half of one cent to produce and also withstands multiple uses. One teabag can purify up to one liter of water.

The filter works by using carbon and nano filters to separate out bacteria and pollutants. The South African Bureau of Standards completed testing on the teabag filter and deemed it safe and effective. Stellenbosch University signed a deal with the corporation Aquacare in South Africa to begin manufacturing this helpful new project.

These exciting new developments in the world of water technology ignite hope for many.

– Allison Meade

Sources: The Hope Project, El Paso Inc., How Stuff Works
Photo: The Daily Aztec

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WoundCure Chip Assesses Chronic Wounds

Wound_Cure_Chip
Dr. Manuela Martins-Green and PhD candidate Sandeep Dhall have started a project to develop a diagnostic tool called a “gene chip.” The chip would provide accurate diagnostic tests for chronic “non-healing” wounds. The gene chip can predict how a patient’s chronic wound should be treated in order to increase the chance of healing. If the WoundCure chip project is successful, it could potentially treat millions of people who are affected with bed sores, skin ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers and other related chronic wounds.

Martins-Green and Dhall say that chronic wounds affect an average of 6.5M people and cost roughly $25 billion a year in the U.S. The WoundCure chip data could steer doctors toward effective treatment plans so that wounds can heal properly. Many times, the solution to chronic wounds is to amputate the affected limbs. Open sores are also more prone to infection, which can potentially spread throughout the body.

The WoundCure chip data will be an excellent tool that will allow doctors to quickly determine which wounds require aggressive treatment. The chip will identify which genes have been altered, thus providing quick diagnosis and proper treatment. In an interview with Dr. Martins-Green, she goes more in detail about how the chip works. She explains that, “If the expression of the gene is elevated, it will show red. If it’s not regulated, it will show green. If you use the chip with a wound, the prediction is that the more red the more serious the wound will be.”

The researchers behind this innovative tool are hopeful that it will be a positive impact on tens of millions of people affected by chronic wounds. For the WoundCure chip to actually happen, Martins-Green and Dhall will need to reach their funding target for this project. Those interested in learning more and supporting their research can visit their crowd funding page.

– Daphne Jeon

Sources: Microryza, Motherboard
Photo: Motherboard

Phones Increasing Contraceptive Care in India

India_Women_Cellphone_Access_Contraceptives
In India, a country with a constantly growing population currently at 1.3 billion, the use of contraceptives is rare and often considered socially unacceptable. While the contraceptive prevalence rate is at 56 percent, 38 percent use female sterilization, leaving a very small amount of women who are using reversible birth control methods. It’s no wonder, when the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India has been using the same family welfare program since 1952, that they are showing no signs of modern innovation.

Even with the use of sterilization, too many women in India are left completely unprotected. Childbirth kills approximately 67,000 women in India every year, and 1 in 13 children dies before the age of five. 42.5 percent of children under the age of five are underweight, and 20 percent of the total population is undernourished. India is unable to support so many unplanned births, making contraception more important than ever.

That’s where Project Vikalp comes in. One of the nine winners of the Millennium Alliance Awards (co-funded by USAID), the project, which is run by the U-Respect Foundation, is a family planning-health care model that will educate the public and help women obtain contraceptives throughout India.

The secret is in the use of cell phones, which are becoming more and more attainable in India, even for the nation’s poorest. If a couple wants contraceptive counseling in India, it is hard to find. Most health workers claim that they are too busy to discuss family planning, and if they do, they usually suggest sterilization. India’s government has been trying to push the norm toward reversible contraceptives, but sterilization is still by far the most used method.

If the couple is unmarried it is nearly impossible to receive counseling. Most couples don’t even try to find counseling because of the barriers, and because they are intimidated by the social norms.

Project Vikalp is using cell phones to reach couples using a three tiered approach. First couples can reach the project through a toll-free helpline. Then, they can receive contraceptives and support from local health care providers and consultants associated with the project. Couples can use their phones to record when they have started using, switched, or stopped using contraceptives to help planners know when they should tweak the program’s methods.

Through this project, couples don’t have to feel intimidated when searching out contraceptives, and they are affordable for everyone. The project hopes to fill the gaps of knowledge in rural communities and change attitudes about contraceptives so that they are more widely accepted in the region.

– Emma McKay

Sources: Devex, Millennium Alliance

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Why Are Clean Cookstoves So Important?

clean_cookstoves_borgen_project_opt
Half of the world’s population relies on wood stoves to cook their food. These stoves are cheap, provide warm meals and heat homes throughout the world. However, wood stoves come with a number of negative consequences that affect global health and the global environment. Each year, four million people are killed from the household air pollution that results from cooking with wood stoves. Additionally, roughly 800,000 metric tons of soot is generated from these stoves each year, releasing 18% of the world’s greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Because of the negative medical and ecological effects of the use of wood stoves, researchers at the University of Nottingham in England have created a greener and healthier stove. The SCORE stove is a new device that still uses wood as its fuel, but is nearly twice as efficient as traditional wood stoves. The new stove uses roughly four and a half pounds of wood a day, about half the amount needed in a conventional stove. The developers of the SCORE stove point out that less time spent on collecting wood can translate into “extra time for other income-generating activities.”

Advanced features in the design of the SCORE stove allow it to act as more than just a stove. Developers of the device have utilized the heat generated from cooking to use the stove as a source of power. The high-tech stove “takes excess heat produced during cooking and converts it into sound waves, which then generate electricity.” Currently, the stove produces up to 36 watts of power, enough to charge efficient LED lights or to power a mobile phone. In the future, developers of the SCORE stove hope that their invention will generate enough power to fully charge a laptop.

The most direct benefit of the SCORE stove could be its ability to eliminate dangerous smoke fumes from burning wood. In many cold areas of the world, wood stoves are used indoors to cook food and warm homes. With poor ventilation, the stove’s off-gasses become a health problem. Inhalation of smoke can lead to conditions such as “pneumonia and lunch cancer, which disproportionately affect women and children.” The SCORE stove helps mitigate this problem by helping to eliminate the dangerous smoke fumes that are produced by traditional stoves, making cooking safer in developing areas.

Developers of the new device recognize that although the SCORE stove is more expensive than a traditional wood stove, it is more durable and provides many more benefits. The SCORE stove’s ecological, medical, and economic advantages could result in a cleaner environment, improved global health, and increased economic production.

– Jordan Kline 

Sources: Trust, Score
Photo: Food Tank

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How is NASA Related to Development?

How is NASA Related to Development?
A recent event held by the Society for International Development in Washington, DC highlighted the SEVIR program, a joint venture of NASA and USAID. Started in 2004 the program provides essential geospatial and earth-based observations to developing countries in Central America, Africa and the Himalayas. This information is used to monitor environmental impacts and natural disaster damages.

Science experts help convert the raw data into a usable form that governments and non-governmental organizations can use. USAID provides the developmental expertise to assist in directing this information to useful topics and applicable to issues confronting developing nations. SERVIR provides information in the following areas of interest for developing nations: water, weather, biodiversity, climate, disasters, ecosystems, and air and health quality.

USAID also assists the host governments to build technological capacity. The program’s goal is for host governments to assume responsibility for the scientific data and application. In order to support this self-sustaining aspect, the program implementers work closely with the host nations.

NASA and USAID signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2011 that expanded SERVIR’s programs to include food security, climate change, and environmental and energy management.

NASA and USAID also partner with the State Department and Nike on LAUNCH, a program encouraging technology innovation in the private and public sectors to help create a better world. In April the LAUNCH partners held a conference focusing on sustainable material development. Under this call for technological innovation, individuals or teams may submit project ideas. Those selected will participate in a creative immersion project with funding opportunities.

Previous recipients of LAUNCH support include projects for clean water, renewable energy, and biodegradable vaccination needles, and future projects supported by NASA and USAID feature the promotion of education in the sciences.

The SID Washington event focused on SERVIR’s projects in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region. The Himalayan regional node, launched in 2010, provides satellite imagery of rural, mountain areas previously unavailable. Countries served by the Himalayan regional node include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.

– Callie D. Coleman
Sources: NASA, SIDW, Nike Inc.
Photo: Engadget

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Peanuts and Feed the Future Empower Women in Zambia

Peanuts and Feed the Future Empower Women in ZambiaMany think of them as a fun salty snack for baseball games or a key ingredient in the classic PB&J, but for a large group of women in the eastern province of Zambia where nearly 85 percent of the labor force works in agriculture, peanuts are a way of survival and the means to a better life. Peanuts are the number one crop grown in this area by women. To improve the efficiency of the production and sale of this crop would mean a huge increase in their quality of life.

One project by President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative is working to teach female peanut farmers how to double their yield of peanuts, and increase their product market by producing a variety of different peanut products, like peanut oil and peanut butter. The initiative is partnering with the Zambian Government Agricultural Research Institute to train the women to become certified to grow higher quality hybrid seed varieties. Selling these seeds will bring in a much higher profit than the seeds the women were originally producing.

In order to help the women create different peanut products, Feed the Future provided a grant to the Katete Women’s Development Association, an organization that empowers women to grow crops like peanuts, for peanut oil expeller, which will help the women enter into the market of peanut processing. The new presser will help the women’s work to remain sustainable even after their donors have left. As long as they have the expeller, they can work themselves to turn their peanuts into profitable peanut products.

Not only will the higher quality peanut crop and new processing technologies help the women increase their quality of life, but they will be working in a business usually reserved for men. In most other countries, men are primarily in charge of producing and marketing the product, giving them all of the opportunities for further success. Feed the Future’s work is giving women the same opportunities and breaking the social boundaries of agricultural work in Africa.

– Emma McKay

Sources: USAID, CIA World Factbook
Photo: Flickr

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How Build Change is Building Life-Saving Houses

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In 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the country of Haiti, claiming tens of thousands of lives and costing $7.8 billion in damages. Build Change, a non-profit international organization, is fortifying impoverished nations to prevent another disaster of this scale.

Working in Haiti, China, and Indonesia, Build Change provides earthquake-resilient house designs to be implemented by local homeowners and carpenters. Instead of proposing revolutionary design choices, Build Change analyzes the architecture of affected areas and makes specific modifications to improve stability. This allows local workers to quickly learn the new designs and eventually become able to build safer housing without outside help.

After an impoverished country endures an earthquake, houses built as replacements can either be culturally inappropriate or suffer from the same instability that caused the original houses to collapse. By intervening after a time of disaster, Build Change enables home owners to be involved in the building of secure housing. This in turn sparks the creation of new jobs for local workers. In a country like Haiti, with 70% of the population either unemployed or underemployed, this is a huge boom for the economy.

With 18,701 houses built, success stories have been numerous. Haitian Mirlande Joseph recounts her experience working with Build Change after her house was leveled by the devastating earthquake. Although they could not offer her financial support, they were able to walk her through the process of building a new house by engineering the design and providing onsite training of the workers tasked with the physical labor. Although this required more monetary investment than Joseph anticipated, the experience was so positive that she considered taking up construction as a profession.

Build Change was founded in 2004 by Dr. Elizabeth Hausler, who started the organization in response to the tragic number of lives lost following earthquakes. Hausler realized the insurmountable amounts of damage could be avoided if those in poverty had access to better housing. Finding immediate solutions to this issue helps prevent millions of dollars in repairs that would be spent following a national disaster. To Hausler, it’s imperative to provide these designs to those in struggling countries, regardless of whether their respective economies have fully recovered or not.

This sentiment is encapsulated in the Build Change site’s timeline: “Earthquakes don’t kill people… poorly built buildings do.”

In 2011, Hausler received the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT reward for sustainability in recognition of the work model utilized by Build Change. By winning the award, Hausler hopes to inspire governments and building agencies to create affordable building codes that are sustainable and efficient. She hopes more young inventors will take time to work with the locals of struggling countries to conceive practical and economic solutions with their products and methods.

– Timothy Monbleau

Source: BBC News, Build Change, Economic Impact of Haiti Earthquake, MIT Press Release
Photo: Build Change Universal Giving