The INFO Project Blog

The subject of handheld computers’ role in getting infomation out to remote locations has been whirling around the HIFA2015 network (Health Information for All by 2015). I captured a few messages from this thread:

From: Adesina —
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 1:46 AM
To: HIFA2015
Subject: [hifa2015] Role of hand-held computers (PDAs) (3)

Dear All,

Just to contribute to this ongoing discussion especially to already valuable comments from Bill and Leela. It might be nice to look at the work of Tapan S. Parikh in using mobile phones for copying and transmitting documents in rural India. Here is a link to his website:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/tapan/cv.html

Meanwhile, an attempt is currently underway to stimulate discussion on
HIFA2015 on how these pervasive mobile technologies can be employed to support health workers’ clinical and educational activities in developing countries. The “ice-breaker” for the discussion will be posted on HIFA2015 soon and your contribution is highly solicited.

AED-SATELLIFE is piggy-backing on existing cellular phone networks to distribute information.

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On the Washington Metro this morning, on my way to get input on INFO’s blog from fellow members of the Health Information and Publications Network, I read a great new paper on Web 2.0 and International Development by Alberto Masetti-Zannini.

In discussing blogging’s potential for the political empowerment of global citizens, Zannini referred to Global Voices Online, a project of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. A nonprofit media project that aggregates, curates and amplifies blogger’s voices from low and middle income countries, the site, writes Zannini, is “arguably the most important online aggregator of blogs from the developing world.” Voices, he writes,

shine[s] light on places and people other media often ignore. Global Voices translates blogs from all over the world in Bangla, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian… [it] aims to call attention to the most interesting online conversations happening around the world, to facilitate the emergence of new citizens’ voices

According to Zannini, in a recent survey of NGOs using blogging as a tool, just 4% said they had accessed Global Voices Online.

Change that by listening in here.