2015: a year in review

2015 has been a busy year of the ISIF Asia program with awards, grants and capacity building activities been supported around the Asia Pacific region. Here is a summary of what we have done in 2015.

ISIF Asia Awards 2015

The Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF Asia) Awards seek to acknowledge the important contributions ICT innovators have made to their communities, by addressing social and development challenges using the Internet. The Awards recognize projects that have already been implemented, or are in the final stages of implementation, and have been successful in addressing their communities’ needs.

During 2015, 5 awards of AUD 3000 were given to very interesting projects from India, Indonesia and Pakistan covering very relevant issues were Internet technologies make a difference for community development, such as citizens participation to improve public infrastructure in India; bridging fractal algorithms with traditional batik design in Indonesia; supporting female doctors in Pakistan to access the workforce; mapping diseases in rural areas of Pakistan. 5 award winners were selected out of the 78 nominations received from 12 economies across the region.

1. Innovation on access provision: doctHERs – Pakistan, NAYA JEEVAN / http://www.docthers.com
2. Code for the common good: Batik Fractal – Indonesia, Piksel Indonesia Company / http://www.batikfractal.com
3. Innovation on learning and localization: Jaroka Mobile Based Tele-Healthcare – Pakistan, UM Healthcare Trust / http://www.umtrust.org
4. Rights: I Change My City – India, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy / http://www.ichangemycity.com
5. Community Choice Award: I Change My City – India, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy / http://www.ichangemycity.com

This year was particularly interesting to receive an application from China, for the very first time since the inception of the ISIF Asia program. 31 applications were accepted for the selection process and are publicly available for anyone interested to learn more about the ingenuity and practical approaches that originate from our region. 16 applications were selected as finalists for full review. When the final selection of the 4 award winners was completed, the process was opened for the community to cast their vote to select the Community Choice Award winner, selected with 426 valid votes. Besides the cash prize, the award winners were invited to attend the 10th Internet Governance Forum (Joao Pessoa, Brazil, 10-13 November 2015) were the awards ceremony took place. The full video of the awards proceedings is below:

 

Internet Governance Forum participation

As part of the Seed Alliance support, ISIF Asia led the development of a workshop proposal that was accepted by the MAG for inclusion in the official IGF program. A follow-up of the work conducted during the IGF in Bali and the IGF in Istanbul the workshop No. 219 “Addressing funding challenges for continuous innovation” to understand how funding for Internet innovation operates, how the Internet community respond to those challenges, as well as explore solutions together. In light of the publication of the new Sustainable Development Goals in August 2015, the workshop also explored the link between funding opportunities to achieve Goal #9 “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation” where 9c set the objective of “Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020”.  The workshop speakers were Jens Karberg (Sida), Laurent Elder (IDRC), Paul Wilson (APNIC) and Vint Cerf (Google). You can follow the workshop on the video below:

Capacity Building Fund

During 2015, ISIF recipients benefited from additional support through the Capacity building fund to promote the results of their ISIF supported projects at 9 international events that have raised their profile which open doors to negotiate additional support for their projects through a stronger and wider network of contacts, as follows:

1. 10th Internet Governance Forum. 10-13 November 2015. Joao Pessoa, Brazil
2. APNIC 40. 3 Sep 2015 to 10 Sep 2015. Jakarta, Indonesia
3. COHRED Forum 2015. 24 Aug 2015 to 27 Aug 2015. Manila, Philippines
4. WiSATS 2015. 6 Jul 2015 to 7 Jul 2015. Bradford, United Kingdom
5. APrIGF 2015. 30 Jun 2015 to 3 Jul 2015. Macau, Macau
6. RightsCon. 24 May 2015 to 25 May 2015. Manila, Philippines
7. ICTD 2015. 15 May 2015 to 18 May 2015. Singapore City, Singapore
8. AVPN 2015 Conference. 20 Apr 2015 to 23 Apr 2015. Singapore City, Singapore
9. APNIC 39.  24 Feb 2015 to 6 Mar 2015. Fukuoka, Japan

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Additionally, a “Mentoring workshop on evaluation and research communications” was provided for 2014 grant recipient Operation ASHA for the project “Linking TB with technology” from 23 Mar 2015 to 26 Mar 2015 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where Sonal Zaveri and Vira Ramelan provided mentoring to Jacqueline Chen and Vin “Charlie” Samnang for the eDetection app project to provide training on U-FE and ResCom concepts, refine key evaluation questions and draft plans for communications strategy.

On top of these face-to-face opportunities, ISIF provided access to the JFDI.Asia pre-accelerator course from August to November 2015, providing 60 accounts for ISIF recipients to join in teams the course. JFDI was founded in Singapore in 2010 by Hugh Mason and Wong Meng Weng. The community has since helped thousands of people in Asia to engineer innovative businesses around their ideas. They can do this because innovation is evolving from an art into a science, and because we have built a community who share their expertise and experience turning ideas into reality. The 60 teams are all ISIF Asia funding winners seeking to accelerate their learning and thereby scale and grow the impact of their ideas.

Site visits

The site visits allowed ISIF Asia to gain a deeper understanding of: 1) the context in which the supported organization operates, partnerships with other organizations and relationships with project beneficiaries; 2) the problematic that the project addressed; 3) the solution proposed; 4) the results that the project achieved and 5) the challenges the organizations face for future development.  The site visits were documenting using photographs, videos, and blog articles. The visits were not only informative about the challenging contexts that these 2 projects operate but were also inspiring, as what can be achieved when talented and highly committed professionals, put their knowledge and effort to good use, for the benefit of disadvantaged communities. During 2015, ISIF Asia visited:

• iSolutions. Aug 2015. Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia.
• Access Health International. Mar 2015. Manila, The Philippines
• Operation ASHA. Mar 2015 to Mar 2015. Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2014 grants completed!

During 2015, we have seen the completion of most of the 2014 grant recipients. Projects addressed development problems and demonstrated the transformative role the Internet can have in emerging economies. This summary of 2014 grant recipients and their projects are examples of the kind of partnerships that ISIF encourages and supports.

• The Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society – PICISOC in collaboration with University of Auckland (Pacific Islands) worked to improving Internet Connectivity in Pacific Island countries with network coded TCP with deployments in several islands of the Pacific with very positive and encouraging measurements for future development.
• The Punjabi University, Patiala (India) completed their project to overcome the barriers that Sindhi Arabic and Devnagri scripts posed for researchers. They have completed the transliteration tables for both scripts and millions of words have being input into the database which is now on their final version.
• The Cook Islands Internet Action Group (Cook Islands) has released the Maori Database app, website and social media page that has raised attention from the local media and interest from the local government to preserve the language.
• CoralWatch, The University of Queensland (Australia/Indonesia) finalized their mobile app in Bahasa-Indonesia and English to improve citizen science monitoring of coral reefs in Indonesia
• The Internet Education and Research Laboratory, Asian Institute of Technology, in collaboration with the Mirror Foundation and the THNIC Foundation (Thailand) deployed Chiang-Rai MeshTV: An Educational Video-on-Demand (E-VoD) System for a Rural Hill-Tribe Village via a Community Wireless Mesh Network (CWMN). The Chiang-Rai community has now a fully operational mesh network that streams educational videos for learning development over a community wireless network, increasing their access to educational content fit for a low literacy context motivating families to support their kids to keep on their learning path.
• The Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations – ISITI-CoERI. (Malaysia) continued their research in and develop a game to digitalize and preserve Oro, a secret signage language of the nomadic Penans in the rainforest in Malaysia. Their efforts have allowed to document traditional knowledge from the elders and making it relevant for the younger generations.
• iSolutions (Micronesia) deployed the Chuuk State Solar Server Education Hub, through a scale-up grant, following the deployment of the PISCES project support in 2013 to connect schools to the Internet in Chuuk. The solar server education hub connects schools to educational content and share communications capabilities, lowering the cost by rationalizing the use of their limited broadband connections and using solar energy.
• Nazdeek, in collaboration with PAHJRA and ICAAD has introduced a different approach on how to improve maternal health in India. They are using SMS technologies liked to online mapping to increase accountability in delivery of maternal health services. Their approach allows Adivasi tea garden workers in Assam to understand their rights and how to claim the benefits they are entitled to.
• The ECHO app from eHomemakers in Malaysia received an award in 2012 for their work to support workingwomen in Malaysia to communicate and coordinate better when they work from home. In 2014 they received a scale-up grant replicate their experience in support to Homenet in Indonesia.
• The University of Engineering and Technology and Vietnam National University are working on better systems for monitoring and early warning of landslides in Vietnam.
• Operation ASHA successes in India, have inspired this scale-up grant to support the deployment of an application to monitor TB in Cambodia and support the work that healthworkers do to contain the spread of the disease and provide adequate follow-up for patients. They developed the eDetection app and improved diagnostics to reduce the spread of TB in Cambodia.
• BAPSI has completed training and testing the development of Morse code-based applications to provide deaf-blind people with the opportunity to use mobile phones to better communicate with those around them that do not know sign-language.

2015 supported projects are well under way!

The selection for the 2015 grant recipients was also completed and 4 projects have received support. Their progress reports are starting to flow in, and they will reach completion during the first semester of 2016.

1. Development of mobile phone based telemedicine system with interfaced diagnostic equipment for essential healthcare in rural areas of Low Resource Countries. Department of Biomedical Physics and Technology. University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
2. Deployment of a Community based Hybrid Wireless Network Using TV White Space and Wi-Fi Spectrum in Remote Valleys around Manaslu Himalaya. E-Networking Research and Development. Nepal
3. Improved Carrier Access in Rural Emergencies (ICARE). Innovadors Lab Pvt Ltd and School of Computer and Information Science, IGNOU. India
4. A Peering Strategy for the Pacific Islands. Network Startup Resource Center and Telco2. Pacific Islands

The Discovery Asia blog

44 new articles have been published this year, to highlight the talent, skills and commitment that the Asia Pacific region has to offer, continues to raise attention to the vibrant community we serve, their needs and their innovative approaches to solve development problems using the Internet for the benefit of their communities. We encourage you to share your stories. It has been a busy year, and we look forward for new challenges during 2016! We look forward to complete 100 articles soon!

Seed Alliance end of a 3 year cycle

The three years grants from IDRC and Sida that made the collaboration with FIRE and FRIDA programs possible has come to a close during the 10th IGF in Brazil, where the Seed Alliance website was launched. The website provides a comprehensive view of the work that IDRC and Sida’s funds have made possible supporting 116 projects from 57 economies. It has allocated around US$ 2.2 million of funding in Grants and Awards throughout Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, helping to strengthen and promote the Information Society within these regions through 102 opportunities for networking, outreach, evaluation and/or capacity building. The website will be officially launched in February 2016, but we invite you all to explore it!

New funding confirmed for project implementation and more grants in 2016! 

After a successful external evaluation process commissioned by IDRC and a new proposal negotiation as part of the Seed Alliance activities, ISIF Asia has received renewed funding commitment from IDRC for 2016 and 2017. A new call for grants will open early in 2016 to which APNIC has renewed its commitment as well. In addition, the Internet Society has decided to increase their funding contribution to ISIF Asia and fund a full grant, more details about this will be shared earlier in 2016.

The selection process for the 2015 round is currently under way, with 60K AUD to contribute towards research in our region. And finally, APNIC has renewed the funding for the Internet Operations Research Grants 2016.

We thank all our partners and sponsors for their renewed support!