Category: Code for the common good

An Online Platform Promotes Fair Tourism in Rural Thailand

look-alike

Pai Somsak Boonkam was born in the rural village of Roiet, Northeastern Thailand. His parents were poor rice farmers who believed in education. When he was eight, they sent him to an uncle, so he could go to high school. He studied his way through the university and became an engineer.

Lack of Economic Opportunities in Rural Thailand

At 18 years old, he came back to his hometown, but found that all his friends had left the village too. Like in most rural areas of Thailand, there were no job opportunities in Roiet. Many of Boonkam’s friends had moved to the cities hoping for a better life.

Once there, they were faced with many difficulties. It was hard for them to adapt to urban life, and they would only get the low-paying jobs. Meanwhile, with no one to enliven it, the community’s culture was dying.

Boonkam wondered what he could do, but he had no idea. He went on with his own life, took a sabbatical and traveled to India, Laos and Myanmar. He then moved to the US, to pursue an MBA in sustainability. Finally, he came back to Thailand and was hired by the Mae Fah Luang Foundation. His job was to manage a rural homestay project in the Northern part of the country.

This is when he got the idea to use tourism as a development tool.

Tourism in Thailand

Since the 1960s, tourism has been the engine of the Thai economy. It now accounts for 20 percent of the country’s GDP. For years most tourists have been to Bangkok, the Southern beaches and the Islands. But more and more are now striving for an immersive experience of the local life. That’s why many travel agencies offer what they call “sustainability tours.”

For Boonkam, these are just marketing tools and have zero benefit for the locals. Villages on the tourist route have become like “zoos.” One day, while he was working in a village, a bus of tourists arrived. All they did was chase the villagers, to take their pictures, and none bothered to talk to them. Twenty minutes later, they were gone to the next spot…

For the villagers, this was a great annoyance, for which they hardly received anything. Hotel chains and tour operators get 70 percent of the income generated by tourism. Less than 10 percent goes to the communities and hill tribes who still live in poverty. No wonder some are tempted to sell their traditional treasures to the tourists.

Sustainability

Boonkam believes there is another way to travel. He also believes that tourism can sustain the development of the communities. That’s why in 2012, he quit his job to start Local Alike. He was 31 at the time, and his ambition was to make the Thai tourism industry more just. And to do so, he would work with the communities to create authentic tourist activities.

Each tour promoted by Local Alike is designed by the villagers themselves. They decide everything – from the concept to the pricing. Even the guides are local people. Boonkam and his team give some support, making sure that the tourists’ expectations are met.

What’s more, Local Alike connects the local communities with their clients. They promote each project on their website, where the tourists can do their bookings.

A Source of Hope for the Future

In three years, Local Alike has developed tourism projects in 15 communities across Thailand. And everyone is already reaping the benefits!

Travelers can now delve into the local communities’ real life. So far, 1,300 tourists have participated in a tour or an activity. For the communities, it means 20 percent of extra income every year. And more than 2,000 jobs have been created.

Moreover, a dedicated development fund is formed for every participating village. Local Alike gives five percent of its profits and the community gives five percent of its income. The money is then used to finance local projects.

And it’s paid off, like in Suan Pa, north of Thailand. This hill tribe village was the first one to work with Local Alike. It is a hidden gem, yet it had a bad reputation among tourists. The locals would not pay any attention to the waste. Boonkam spent time explaining to them how important cleanliness was for the tourists. Right after, the villagers gathered to clean the whole place and its beautiful surroundings.

Soon, trekkers came back, bringing hope of a brighter future.

DataKind Bangalore: Using Data to Improve Development

datakind banglaore

On the eve of the birthday of MK Gandhi- India’s founding father- two very different groups of technologists are buckled up onboard flights to the United States. One surrounds a man who has risen from poverty to the position of the country’s Prime Minister. Soon, their plane begins its descent into the sun-drenched hillsides around Silicon Valley. The second comprises a trio of young middle-class professionals who’ve applied for extended leave from their day jobs to visit New York.

Peering out at the towering skyline from their windows, they dwell on the upcoming Second Annual Summit of the movement that they helped launched globally a year ago. Despite these surface differences, the two groups find their eyes glazing over the same dreams: harnessing the power of technology and internet connectivity to build a better, brighter India.

Who are they? The first-as you must have guessed- is the retinue of Narendra Modi, spearheading his ambition for a Digital India. Less obvious, and the subject of this three-part series- is DataKind Bangalore, and their diverse initiatives for the improved governance and accountability.

DataKind Banga-what? Mouthful alert. So let’s review that- one word at a time.

DataKind is a global nonprofit that unites pro-bono data scientists with social sector organizations to address critical humanitarian problems within a project-based framework. Since its launch in New York City in 2011, DataKind’s volunteers have undertaken a range of exciting initiatives– from scraping website data on Indonesian agricultural prices and Mozambique’s microfinance, to exploring poverty levels through satellite imagery of electric lighting in Bangladesh and roof materials in Uganda, to identifying trends in the needs of the distressed by mining their SMS text in India, the US and the UK.

This breadth of impact and depth of expertise has only been possible through a vibrant worldwide community represented at DataKind’s Chapters in Dublin, San Francisco, Singapore, the UK and Washington DC, and of course, Bangalore.

Yes, Bangalore. The city Indians would like to call the Silicon Valley of the East. And what Silicon Valley itself would like to dislike as the Outsourcing Capital of the world. Except now, Bangalore is ‘insourcing’. DataKind’s local Chapter, founded in 2014 has been harnessing the country’s top tech talent to take on its own greatest challenges.

Within just a year of operations, their tally of volunteers hit a staggering 700. So could India’s bemoaned Brain-Drain be quietly rebounding into a Brain Gain? Perhaps part of the pro-bono participants’ passion pertains to how Bangalore’s is the only Chapter situated in a developing country.

dkblrPAN

Of course, all members of DataKind’s international network confront the ‘wicked’ problems that bedevil poverty alleviation. But when you experience this wickedness first-hand, when it’s cackling in your face on a daily basis, you’re far more inclined to land an algorithmic slap on its cheek.

One of the most stinging issues- possibly one that brought Modi into power- was a lack of transparency and accountability and an almost resigned acceptance of corruption and inefficiency.  And as the trio in New York soon realized at DataKind HQ, governance had unintentionally become a Chapter theme of sorts. 4 of all their 6 nonprofit partners thus far had resolved to support public bodies with data-driven decision making, or at least to build societal consensus on the need thereof.

As another interesting insight at the Global Summit, the Bangalore trio noted that even in developed nations like the UK, the supply of well-trained data scientists still fell short of demands from the private and public sectors. What did this portend for India?

In parallel and on the opposite coast, Modi had been pitching to several CEOs to invest in his country’s IT infrastructure. This tied in with the 17-point Digital India vision he announced 3 months ago, which concludes with ‘I dream of an India where every Netizen is an Empowered Citizen’. But as former Microsoft researcher, Kentaro Toyama elaborates in his book ‘The Geek Heresy’– mere provision of internet and mobile technologies, without investing first in human capacity to handle them (and the resulting information deluge) would ring hollow. An empty promise.

Volunteers at DataKind Bangalore have been fortunate to belong to the narrow segment of digital elite equipped with the industry knowledge and cognitive capabilities to leverage these tools. And it turns out that 6 of the 17 points in Modi’s mandate could be linked to issues of Good Governance. So if there is any measure of evaluating just how truly efficacious the ICT4D mandate could prove for India, and particularly in transparency and accountability, DataKind Bangalore and its projects with local NGOs provide an exciting testing ground.

Likewise, this current Chapter theme of Governance will form the focus of this series, though future extensions may explore outstanding DataKind Bangalore projects in other areas such as education, agriculture and microfinance. The remainder of this entry outlines the workings of DataKind’s typical project cycle, and sets the stage for more detailed explorations that will follow in the coming weeks.

Given this backdrop of the non-profit and technologist landscape, how does possessing data lead to any sustainable change? The answer: it doesn’t. Not per se, at least. Then again, DataKind Bangalore isn’t a group of number crunchers alone. Think of it rather, as an innovation and strategy hub. Likewise, its leaders follow a system.

First, a rigorous scoping and outreach process helps determine which organizations hold sufficient management capacity and clearly defined data science problems for the collaboration to prove worthwhile.

Secondly, doors are opened to volunteers from not only the IT industry but a variety of fields including economics, design, journalism, anthropology, and business development. This diversity enriches the ideation process, while also providing many participants with their first on-the-job taste of programming and statistics.

Thirdly, through a defined sequence of community events, the nonprofit’s challenge is hacked and hewed much like Michelangelo sculpting David out of a block of marble. Project Accelerator Nights (evening brainstorming sessions that lead to problem formulation) and DataJams (sessions of data cleaning and exploratory analysis) then culminate in DataDives (weekend hackathons on clearly defined challenges).

dk1

If partners believe that the resulting proposition would boost social impact, a specially selected DataCorps project then fully integrates it into the host organization over a six-month period.

For every David, there’s a Goliath lurking out there somewhere. And the world we inhabit today teems not only with Big, but Giant Data. This isn’t just the statistics computed to furnish in a Non-Profit’s annual reports or the World Bank’s tables, or even decade-end census figures. Neither is it the information gleaned from large-scale randomized controlled trials on policy effectiveness.

Sure, all of that is pretty and polished. But to (grossly) twist a John Legend classic, quantitative analysts today have to learn to love data with it ‘all its curves and edges, all its perfect imperfections’. And this could either pop up mercilessly in real time (through the spread of social media, mobile devices and sensor devices) or turn musty over years in impregnable government PDFs.

So no matter what fancy statistical technique DataKind may have planned, the first step of problem solving remains the same. All available data- whether from partners or scraped off the net- must be tamed and standardized into a format suitable for computers to perform their magic on. Once this foundation is laid, applications of data science to governance could be classified broadly into two use cases. We will explore each with a pair of Datakind Bangalore partners.

The first centres on the executive wing of public administration- specifically interface with citizens at the municipal ward level. Hell hath no fury like a Smartphone owner scorned. Naturally, public officials often feel overwhelmed and understaffed to deal with the volume and variety of their complaints. As a first remedy, duplicates must be cleared, i.e. if many citizens are lodging new entries for the same issue. These must then be allocated to the appropriate authority for resolution.

For example, ISIF 2015 award winner (and coincidentally one of DataKind Bangalore’s inaugural partners), Janaagraha has leveraged its ‘I Change My City’ online platform and mobile app to empower over 2 million Bangalore citizens to lodge over 36,000 complaints on daily hassles such as potholes, garbage left in the open, streetlights, etc (see below).

With some practice on previous years’ data, a computer can soon begin to predict where and when they are likely to emerge, and calculate the probability that they will be resolved. Machine Learning, Mamma Mia! The next entry in this series will explore the mechanics of such an analysis both for the established Janaagraha initiative as well as the newly commenced e-Governments Foundation project in the neighbouring metropolis of Chennai.

The second approach turns to the judiciary and public finances by visualizing data over time or in specific areas. This allows for identifying trends to take action (for public officials themselves) or demand good governance (for citizens and activists). For example, a brief mapping exercise with the Bangalore Police helped them deduce the location of organized gangs (mostly around open public spaces) and then snatch up and enchain some unassuming chain-snatchers. But more importantly, such visualization converts endless and inscrutable reams of data into a clear and visually engaging narrative.  The final installments of this series will compare applications of data cleaning and visualization to two freshly minted DataKind Bangalore partnerships.

First, DAKSH and its Rule of Law project aim to throw light on another category of the overwhelmed government employee- judges at the District, State and National levels. By mapping and quantifying India’s notoriously high case pendency across courts, DAKSH aims to foster informed public debate and develop sustainable solutions.

Second, Centre for Budget and Government Accountability from New Delhi is striving to develop a detailed data Portal on Union and State budgets in India since 2005 and expose any discrepancies between funded allocated and those actually spent. With both partners, DataKind will help discipline and visualize unruly giant data for a simplified user experience that provides not only intelligible insights but impetus for informed action.

So there we have it- common citizens in the world’s largest democracy harnessing internet technologies for improved transparency and accountability.  The world has changed dramatically since back when Gandhi overthrew a colonial regime through the power of a clear national message and transforming the culture of community movements. It remains to be seen whether embedding technology and data-driven decision-making within organizations can help create a similar impact on the dramatically different challenges of the present day.

Two groups who believe in this potential- Prime Minister Modi and DataKind Bangalore- may have now caught the flight back to India to achieve their mission. But now it’s time for you to fasten your seatbelts. Stay tuned as we embark on new adventures with two fascinating methodologies applied to pioneering and passionate partners in the Silicon Valley of the East. No matter how long the seed needs to take root, and whether this experiment fails or succeeds- it’s definitely a journey you don’t want to miss.

Abhishek Pandit is a Strategy Consultant at ChaseFuture

Can ICTs Improve the Indian Rural Health System?

india-nurse

Despite real progress since 1990, India has not achieved universal health coverage yet.

For instance, the country still has the highest infant death rate in the world. In 2013, 1.3 million children under the age of five died. For many, this was due to preventable causes like birth complications, pneumonia or diarrhea. Tragically, the majority of fatalities occurred in poor rural households.

A shortage of skilled medical staff in rural India

In India, most of the medical facilities are in the cities, where only 27 percent of the population lives. Approximately 716 million people are currently living in rural areas and they only have access to deplorable health centers. Most of the time, they have to travel a long way to get there. When they arrive, nothing assures them that they will find a practitioner to treat them. Rural India is indeed facing a 64 percent shortage of health professionals.

Aware of the situation, successive Indian governments have been working on this issue. In particular, they have hired women as health workers in remote villages. Today, they are the backbone of the public health system in the countryside. However, most of them are semi-literate and have an insufficient basic training.

A lofty young couple to tackle the Indian rural healthcare issue

They took the leap in 2013 and their dream seemed impossible to achieve. After all, Abhinav and Shrutika Girdhar had no healthcare experience. All they had were years of frustration with the rural medical system.

Shrukita grew up in Mumbai, but her grandparents live in a village of 2,000 people. Whenever they get sick, they have no choice but consult the local health workers. They are only two and they have poor medical skills. Often they cannot cure treatable problems, and often times, this leads to the patient’s death.

Such a situation worried Shrukita, so she opened up to her husband. As the son of two doctors and an entrepreneur at heart, Abhinav was willing to take action. Together they agreed they would focus on improving the training of health workers.

That’s how they left their well-paid jobs and started Bodhi Health Education.

An accessible, personalized training program for health workers

bodhi

In India, road conditions are usually poor, so it was unrealistic to organize the training sessions in the villages. On the other hand, mobile coverage is good and there are over 900 million cell phone users. Plus, Shrukita being an IT engineer, they opted for an e-learning solution that could easily be delivered through Android-based devices.

That way, they would tackle the challenge of training uneducated people. Most health workers have limited formal education and it is hard for them to learn medical topics. That’s why the Girdhars and their team of medical specialists developed an adapted curriculum. They made sure to explain every concept and procedures using pictures and videos. Additionally, they deliver the lessons in Hindi and India’s regional languages. That way, the learning is simple, interactive, and engaging.

Furthermore, the Bodhi curriculum relies on a personalized educational approach. After a lesson, the learner has to answer practical questions; after a module, she must then take a quiz exam. The results are sent to the trainers who can assess the learning process. It allows them to tailor the program to the health worker’s pace and progress.

Reluctant medical authorities

At first, Shrutika and Abhinav had to overcome resistance to e-learning. The medical authorities were doubtful about using technology to train community health workers. Despite this rebuff, the young entrepreneurs persisted. In less than two years, they developed 100 training modules. The Bodhi curriculum now covers topics like maternal and child care, immunization as well as tuberculosis.

Besides, the Girdhars introduced their program to health workers, who all showed great interest. They found it easy to use and were happy for the opportunity to increase their skills and knowledge. They knew it could help them better treat people, but also earn more money.

In view of these results, the Indian medical authorities agreed to give it a try. Bodhi Health Education could develop partnerships with the government, private hospitals and healthcare companies. These organizations provided tablets, computers and smartphones to upload the Bodhi curriculum. Over 1,000 community health workers could at last access the training.

Towards a better healthcare for the ‘bottom of the pyramid’?

For Shrutika and Abhinav, this is only the beginning. In the next five years, they aim to train more than 60,000 rural health workers. They also want to go international and promote their solution in Asia and Africa.

And of course, they will focus on the regions with the worst health indicators to achieve a major impact!

Why Leadership Is Important for ICT Initiatives

e-sava

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based projects are being implemented on a large scale in developing countries. It is believed that ICT opens doors to various opportunities, which can be used by people for their development. In this article, I focus on the implementation and monitoring aspect of ICT enabled initiative and the role of leadership in the project’s successful roll-out.

The content of this article is based on my research study on eSeva, an ICT initiative, implemented in the ‘Eluru’ district of Andhra Pradesh state of India. The objective of eSeva project is to provide vital information to citizens in rural areas at a click of a button. The project considers ‘information’ a crucial entity towards bringing a change in people’s life. The project was initiated by Mr Sanjay Jaju, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official.

It was during his tenure as District Collector, the number of services provided through the telecentres was greatest i.e. around twenty services. ‘Grievance redressal’ was the most sought service by the rural citizens. Citizens used this service for accountability of government officials.

There was resistance towards adoption of eSeva services by the government employees, especially towards grievance redressal service. However, all the services of the initiative were personally monitored by Mr. Jaju, and he used to make sure that all the registered grievances were addressed on time. There were mechanisms in place for government officials who were insensitive towards complaints registered by people. Due to a greater number of services, the project was financially sustainable during the early days.

Heydays of the project came to halt when Mr. Jaju was transferred to some other district. The District Collectors, who joined later, did not take much interest in the project due to their varied priorities. ‘Grievance redressal’ was the first service which got hammered. Grievances were registered at the centres, but no action was taken on them by the government authorities.

Consequently, citizens stopped using the service. Mr Jaju introduced services like issuance of ration card, voter ID, etc., but a change in the administration lead to removal of most services. At present there are only 3-4 active services in the centres, which include utility bill payments, issuance of caste certificates and information services. Therefore, changes in leadership created havoc for the initiative.

Not only most services stopped due to changes in leadership, but also some decisions of the authorities indirectly affected the financial sustainability of the project. For example, Joint Collector (JC) of the ‘Eluru’ district passed an order which made it mandatory for the Village Revenue Officer and Revenue Inspector to distribute caste and income certificates in villagers personally. Through this order, the role of telecentres in the issuance of certificates was eliminated.

‘Caste/Income Certificate’ service is one of the main revenue generation services for the centres. eSeva centres act as the front end to receive applications for caste or income certificates, and also deliver the certificates to people once ready. The entrepreneurs are wary of the consequences of such orders, as it would directly affect their business. However, district administration maintains that the order was passed in the good will of the district administration.

Hence, from the above discussion, it is apparent that interest of district authorities and government officials proved to be the one of the major reasons for a reduction in the number of services in eSeva centres. Gradually, sustainability of the telecentres is at stake and entrepreneurs are struggling to keep their centres running profitably. Leadership can bring a positive change, however, it is also necessary that the change is sustained. A new idea or an innovation from a leader is highly welcome. However, future considerations on the sustainability of that idea or innovation should be made, should there be a leadership change.

Gaurav Mishra is an Assistant Professor at Development Management Institute (DMI) – Patna

Can ICTs Help to Eradicate Tuberculosis in India?

tb

A mother of three, aged 30, living in rural India, she was infected with tuberculosis (TB) in 2012. Her name is Anita.

In the 1950s the world considered that tuberculosis was eradicated. Unfortunately, a half-century later, the epidemic has reappeared. Every year, nine million people fall sick with TB worldwide and 1.5 million die from it. In 2003, the United Nations had to declare the disease a global emergency, again.

No 1 public health issue in India

With three million patients, India accounts for 31 percent of the global TB burden.

In India, tuberculosis is not only deadly; it also means deep misery for the patients. Too often they face discrimination from their family, friends, employers, neighbors, school authorities, etc. When doctors diagnosed Anita with TB, her husband left her. Sick and illiterate, she had to support herself and her children. Of course, it was even more difficult for her to adhere to her treatment schedule.

That was a shame because tuberculosis is actually curable. But it requires a tedious and long term regimen. In order to cure, every patient has to take up to 75 medication doses over six months or more. They also have to go regularly to a health center so they can take their treatment under observation. After two months of treatment, the symptoms of tuberculosis usually wane off. However, the patients are not fully cured yet.

Too often, though, people get tired with the drugs’ side effects and the commute to the health centers. And since medical records are not digitized, doctors lose track. They don’t follow up as they should. As a result, 60 percent of the patients fail following their regimen. What’s worse, they stop their treatment. This is what happened to Anita.

A man-made phenomenon

After a few months, Anita relapsed, but it was too late. Her disease had morphed into a multiple drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). MDR-TB affects three million people worldwide, and it kills 80 percent of the patients.

There is a treatment that is even more difficult to follow. It lasts for two years and includes six months of daily, painful injections. Moreover, the drugs are toxic. They cause many side effects like nausea, thyroid disturbance, and even psychological problems.

Anita suffered these side effects, which brought in unbearable pain. At some point, she was so desperate that she tried to commit suicide. Only the thought of her children stopped her. Also, she was lucky because Operation ASHA (OpASHA) was taking care of her.

A local, meticulous approach

OpASHA is one of the world’s largest nonprofits in tuberculosis treatment and prevention. Dr. Shelly Batra and Sandeep Ahuja started it in 2006.

Back in the 1990s, Dr. Batra started offering free treatments and surgeries to disadvantaged patients. As she needed antiseptics, fluids, anesthetics, she asked her friends and relatives for donations. From 1998 onward, her most regular contributor was Sandeep Ahuja, a government official. In 2006, they teamed up to fight tuberculosis in urban slums and rural-poor communities. This is how Operation ASHA started (”Asha” means “hope”).

Batra and Ahuja decided to take TB care at the doorstep of their patients. In the slums they have used corner shops, health clinics or religious places. They have also sent health workers to villages to give medicine to the patients. That way, people don’t have to go to far away hospitals to get their treatment.

Operation ASHA also developed a portable identification device called eCompliance. It allows them to identify each patient by their fingerprint and significantly improve their follow-up.

Every time Anita took her medication, she had to give her fingerprints. And her health worker had to do it as well. This generated irrevocable evidence that the medicine had been taken in the right conditions. If Anita missed a dose, eCompliance would send an SMS alert to her, her health worker and his supervisor. Her counselor had to meet her within 48 hours and deliver her treatment.

Towards the end of tuberculosis?

how-ecompliance-works

After two years of treatment, Anita recovered and is now completely cured.

Luckily, she is not alone! eCompliance has been implemented in India, Cambodia, Uganda, Dominican Republic and Kenya. Everywhere it has reduced the default rate by 12 times. Today, 98.5 percent of the organization’s patients finish their TB treatment. As fewer and fewer die from the disease or develop its drug resistant form, Operation ASHA is giving hope to millions of people worldwide!

And this is a good news.

ISIF Asia Award Winners for 2015 announced and Community Choice Award open

The Awards recognize initiatives from organizations that have already been implemented, or are in the final stages of implementation, and have been successful in addressing their communities’ needs.

During the 2015 call for nominations, four award winners were selected out of the 78 nominations received across four categories, covering 12 economies in the Asia Pacific. Proposals from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand were assessed by the Selection Committee.

The commitment and continuous support from the Selection Committee to choose the best projects is key to provide legitimacy to this award. We thank Phet Sayo (IDRC), Gaurab Raj Upadhaya (APNIC EC), Rajnesh Singh (Internet Society), Edmon Chung (Dot Asia Organization), George Michaelson (APNIC staff), and David Rowe (ROWETEL, former ISIF Asia grant recipient) for their time, their comments and their eye for detail.

Each winner has received a cash prize of AUD 3,000 to support their work and a travel grant for a project representative to participate at the 10th Internet Governance Forum (Joao Pessoa, Brazil – November 2015) to participate at the awards ceremony, showcase their project, make new professional contacts, and participate in discussions about the future of the Internet.

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.

53% for nominations came from private sector and social enterprises, 24% from non-profits, 13% from the academic sector and 10% from government agencies.

The category that received more applications was Innovation on learning and localization with 38%, followed by Code for the common good with 28%, Rights 24% and Innovation on access provision 9%.

86% of the nominated projects are lead by men, only 14% lead by women.

One winner was awarded for each category, three from non-profits and one from private sector and three projects will be represented by women at the Awards Ceremony.

One of the four award winners will receive the Community Choice Award, an additional AUD 1000 for the project with more online votes from the community. The online vote opened on 9 September until 9 November. The winner of the Community Choice Award will be announced at the Awards ceremony. Cast your vote and support the winners!

DocHers  Batik Fractal  Jaroka  I change my city

Awards winners were selected in four categories, as follows:

  • Innovation on access provision: doctHERs – Pakistan, NAYA JEEVAN. doctHERs is a novel healthcare marketplace that connects home-restricted female doctors to millions of underserved patients in real-time while leveraging technology. doctHERs circumvents socio-cultural barriers that restrict women to their homes, while correcting two market failures: access to quality healthcare and women’s inclusion in the workforce. doctHERs leapfrogs traditional market approaches to healthcare delivery and drives innovative, sytems change.
  • Code for the common good: Batik Fractal – Indonesia, Piksel Indonesia Company. Piksel Indonesia is creative social enterprise founded in 2007 and registered as legal entity in 2009. Piksel Indonesia is the creator of Batik Fractal and jBatik Software. Through a yearlong research about batik and science, we then developed a modeling software application to create batik design generatively and presented the innovation in 10th Generative Art International Conference in Milan Italy. In 2008, this innovation funded by Business Innovation Fund SENADA USAID and created jBatik v.1 and focus to empower batik artisans in Bandung. Since that time, Piksel Indonesia is working to empower batik and craft artisans in all Indonesia especially in Java and Bali. Currently, we have trained around 1400 artisans to use jBatik software. The training was firstly organized by the local government in each rural area and villages where batik artisans usually live. As an innovation, the use of the software into traditional art needs intensive training and continued the effort. Through several training levels in mastering the use of jBatik software, the artisans can incorporate technology to develop their traditional craft work. The artisans are not only now have access to affordable technology and use the technology to develop their batik, but also have been proven to contribute to increase productivity, bring more sales and increase their profit which lead to improved income.
  • Innovation on learning and localization: Jaroka Mobile Based Tele-Healthcare – Pakistan, UM Healthcare Trust. We aim to devise newer and effective ways for bringing a rapid change in healthcare domain for rural communities. We have launched Jaroka to lower the cost of delivering care dramatically by leveraging ICT to deliver the scarcest resource, medical expertise, remotely. Jaroka Tele-Healthcare model utilizes internet and mobile platform to extend tele-healthcare services in rural Pakistan. This includes voice, Short Text Messaging (SMS),Multimedia Messaging (MMS),GPRS/Edge and VSAT to quickly and efficiently extend medical advice to Rural Health Workers (RHWs) in the field by connecting them to our network of specialists in cities and abroad. This model also includes Pakistan’s First Health Map through which the latest and live healthcare information is shared with relevant stakeholder across Pakistan to improve the healthcare in Pakistan.Through this project over 130,000 has been provided treated at hospitals and in fields.
  • Rights: I Change My City – India, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. Ichangemycity.com is a hyper-local social change network that has created communities of citizens in Bengaluru, keen on solving city centric problems and has resolved around 10,000 complaints by connecting them to various government agencies. The site has tried to help solve issues ranging from garbage collection, poor street lighting, potholes and security related issue in the suburbs. It has also provided citizens with useful information on how much funds have been allocated to wards and constituencies and how the same has been uitilised. The unique power of ichangemycity.com is that it networks people locally to address issues of common concerns. It connects people on-line to bring them together off-line for civic engagement on the ground. The multiplicity of various government departments and the paperwork involved acts as a deterrent for many individuals to connect with civic agencies. Ichangemycity.com tries to address this problem by being a seamless bridge between government and citizens. Ichangemycity.com works on the 4C mantra- Complaint, Community, Connect, and Content.

Event Participation: APrIGF 2015

head-slider

The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) 2015 was held from 30 June to 3 July at Macau University of Science & Technology, Macao, hosted by HNET.Asia and Macau High Technology Industry Chamber. Gathering 150 regional delegates including 30 youth participants, the APrIGF 2015 continued the objective of advancing Internet governance development and engaging the next generation of Internet leaders, see http://2015.rigf.asia/. The recordings of each session are available to be downloaded at http://2015.rigf.asia/archives/. One aspect to highlight about the overall program was that there were more workshops that discussed Human Rights and Gender compared to last year.

Four ISIF Asia funding recipients participated at the conference thanks to the support from partners and sponsors. Bishakha Datta from Point of View (India), Nica Dumlao from Foundation for Media Alternatives (Philippines), Jonathan Brewer from Telco2/Network Startup Resource Center (New Zealand), and Ulrich Speidel from University of Auckland (New Zealand) shared their views and experiences as part of the program of the event.

Bishakha Datta (Point of View, India) represented the Civil Society groups at the Opening Plenary. PoV contributes to amplify the voices of women and remove barriers to free speech and expression.

Picture 2 all-filipina delegation
Nica and her colleagues from the Filipinas delegation actively involved in IG discussions

Nica Dumlao (Foundation for Media Alternatives, Philippines) is FMA’s Internet Rights Coordinator, working on the intersection of technology and human rights in the Philippines. Nica has been very active on Internet Governance both globally and regionally, contributing her experience at two global IGFs and two APrIGFs. FMA organized two sessions: 1) “Gender and Internet Exchange (gigX)” a gender pre-event workshop in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and 2) “Human Rights & Governance in ASEAN Cyberspace”. She was also part of the panelists of three sessions of the main program: “Threats in Expression in Asia”, “Bridging Gender Digital Divide”, and “Localizing Internet Governance”. In these sessions, they shared the experience in working on issues around digital rights, privacy, and women’s rights in the Philippines. In addition, they realized how the other panelists and participants look at issues of Internet rights and governance in the region. “The APrIGF provided a space for us Filipinos to have meaningful exchange with other stakeholders in the region and to plan for further collaboration”, Nica reported.

Jonathan Brewer (Telco2/NSRC, New Zealand) attended several sessions and also had a presentation in the session entitled “Broadband Infrastructure and Services for the Next Billion Users”. In his words, Jon left the sessions “enriched with new information, viewpoints, and concerns”. Some of the highlights for the sessions he attended were as follows:

  • In the session “Universal Acceptance: Been there, done that”, discussing Internationalized Domain Names, it was highlighted that one of the main challenges for developing applications is the support for multiple languages.”
  • “Net Neutrality in the Asia-Pacific” discussed a range of separate but inter-related topics including Network Neutrality, Peering, Sending Party Pays, and Zero Rating.
  • “Smart Cities in Asia and the Deployment of Big Data: Privacy and Security Challenges” provided an overview of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and how their increased use in cities could have significant impacts on privacy and security for residents of these cities.
IMG_1156
Prof. Ang Peng Hwa from NTU in Singapore, presenting during one of the APrIGF sessions in Macau

Ulrich Speidel (University of Auckland, New Zealand) shared about his experiences during the implementation improve Internet user experience in Pacific Island countries with network coded TCP. Ulrich is a firm believer that network coding may help improved goodput in places where TCP faces difficulties coping with high latencies across bottlenecks in the presence of a large number of TCP senders and the APrIGF was a great place to share about this exciting developments, funded by ISIF Asia, along with other partners. He was also one of the speakers of “Broadband Infrastructure and Services for the Next Billion Users”. He attended several sessions and highlighted the following: “Broadband and Infrastructure Services for the Next Billion Users”, “Information Security and Privacy in the IoT Era”, and “Smart Cities in Asia and Development of Big Data”.

Surprisingly, although both are based in New Zealand and both work on Internet infrastructure issues, Jon and Ulrich did not have collaborated in the past, and thanks to the opportunity to attend the APrIGF 2015, they visited Auckland together and commissioned a new RIPE Atlas probe as part of deployment of network coding equipment on Aitutaki in the Cook Islands.

The APrIGF has taken the challenge to produce for the first time an “Outcomes Document”, which aims to identify the key issues and priorities within the Asia Pacific region that were discussed at the conference. The final document will serve as an input to feed into the wider global IGF discussions and also other relevant forums on Internet governance discussions. The document was open for comments at http://comment.rigf.asia to reflect the community views and encourage participation and engagement in Internet Governance issues. The Finalized Outcomes Document is expected to be further developed and finalized by August 14, 2015.

ISIF Asia and the business of scale: 60 teams on JFDI.Asia pre-accelerator course!

“Talent is universal, opportunity is not” said Megan Smith, US Chief Technology Officer and former Google.org vice-president. ISIF Asia is about giving opportunities to those that have the talent, the ideas and the strength to make them happen. But as the path for each one of the ISIF supported projects is different, as their context and the challenges they faced, the opportunities we seek to provide are thought to open new ones, to get out of the comfort zone and try something different, to see if “that” is what it takes for a great idea, to be a reality, that is shared and valued by communities around the Asia Pacific. Is not all about the market, or about been the “next big thing” on the Internet, is about making sure that ideas supported have a better chance to have a positive impact in the real world. It can be a more progressive policy move, an Internet-powered social movement, content or services that fill in a gap, a need. And we want to be there to help them to “get there”!

ISIF Asia former and current funding recipients have fascinating stories to tell about what they have done and what they dream to do, like the ones below:

  • Amakomaya is an Android application developed for rural pregnant women of Nepal. The application provides localized information relating to the prenatal, natal and postnatal periods of pregnancy.
  • Cook Islands Maori Database is an online resource for Maori Words, their English translations with example usage in a sentence in both English and Maori, that offers a platform on which other applications can be built to preserve the language and promote its use. The team developed an android and IOS application, as well as teaching and learning resources for both teachers and student to facilitate integration of the tools into Maori lessons.
  • Sinar’s main objective is to improve governance and encourage greater citizen involvement in the public affairs of the nation by making the Malaysian Government more open, transparent and accountable. They have developed a suite of applications for citizens to get involved.
  • BAPSI has developed solutions to help deaf-blind people access mobile phones as the solutions available for the blind (voice recognition), are of no use for the deaf and vice versa (voice to text conversions).

So, we are very excited to share the good news that thanks to the support from our donors, IDRC and Sida, and in collaboration with JFDI.Asia, it was announced that 60 ISIF Asia supported teams will join the JFDI Discover pre-accelerator program where they will learn to apply the powerful startup tools and techniques taught through the 21-day JFDI Discover pre-accelerator program. The aim is to give them confidence and evidence to answer the key questions that angel investors, accelerators, and government agencies are certain to ask them, such as: “Who is your customer?”, “What problem are you solving for them?” and “Has this team got what it takes to succeed?”. JFDI CEO Hugh Mason said, “Achieving positive impact with a startup is not easy in many parts of Asia. Alongside the impact, we want to help these teams to think about how they can become commercially sustainable to ensure that their good work continues long into the future. There is a lot to learn and share and we have every confidence that long-term collaborations and friendships will grow from this program, creating wealth for the 56 Asia-Pacific economies ISIF Asia covers and beyond.”

We had the opportunity to visit JFDI.Asia a few months ago, as ISIF Asia participated at the ICTD conference. We were invited to attend their Open House and we saw how this is really a “community of people who practice, finance and teach innovation” as they described them selves. We are very happy to have found a partner that believes that “innovation need not be a mystery and entrepreneurship should not be painful or lonely. Both can be learned, working with peers and guided by mentors”. We hope this is the first step to a closer collaboration in the future. As not all ISIF supported projects are start-ups, this course will be offered as a first step to find out if the path of entrepreneurship is one that suits them. More information about the platform is here http://www.jfdi.asia/discover.Once they have completed the pre-accelerator course, they can consider to enroll in the accelerator boot camp http://www.jfdi.asia/accelerate, which is a 100 days commitment. Check the video below for an introduction!

 

Improving Healthcare Coverage in the Philippines with ACCESS Health International

cht_household_visit-0

ACCESS Health International is a nonprofit think tank and advisory group with health programs in both low and high-income countries. It recently developed the e-AKaP project for targeting high maternal and child mortality rates in the Philippines, and addresses the health issues through a new delivery and training system for community health teams (CHTs).

Health goals in the Philippines

The Philippines has struggled to attain the decreased maternal and child mortality rates outlined by its Millennium Development Goals. The government’s solution has been to use CHTs as the main tool for expanding healthcare coverage for Filipino citizens. Over 100,000 CHTs, comprised of midwives, nurses, and volunteers, have been deployed to develop individual household health goals in each community and to target poor and vulnerable populations.

However, CHTs have faced setbacks because of the slow process of aggregating data, high cost of forms and materials, and an inefficient reporting system. Similarly, mothers in the Philippines do not have high access to healthcare information, which could mitigate health risks for both mothers and children.

The e-AKap solution

e-AKaP targets two root causes of MMR and children mortality in the Philippines:

  1. low training and skills for CHTs
  2. low access to healthcare information for mothers

ACCESS Health International’s solution draws on both innovation and technology. The e-AKaP project provides and trains CHTs to use mobile tablets to access the Filipino web and the application iCHT. iCHT provides access to forms and aggregates and processes health data, cutting down on time-consuming paperwork and providing quick access to information for CHTs.

The tablets provided to the CHTs are 7-inch tablet PCs with cloud-based admin panels so that health information could be easily accessed. The forms in the iCHT app are a replica of paper forms previously used by CHTs, so users are accustomed to the format.

iCHT also allows the user to create profiles, health plans, and progress charts for individual households. CHTs can track health progress and provide health information quickly for the households they visit. They can also address health issues for mothers and children on the spot.

The app also allows CHTs to report health information quickly to city and government health offices in the Philippines, which then use the information to track progress towards countrywide health goals.

e-AKaP outcomes

So far, 130 CHTs have been trained and provided with tablets, and ACCESS Health International has presented the app at the Philippine mHealth Forum in April 2014. Because each individual CHT is responsible for about 50 families, ACCESS estimates that its project covers around 5,000 families in the Philippines. A study by the University of the Philippines Economic Foundation found that the iCHT app reduced spending costs associated with paper forms and also reduced time spent on related activities.

The project has been successful at providing CHTs with the tools to balance their heavy obligations and providing mothers and children with quick and reliable health information. Each family covered by the e-AKaP project now has a specific health plan to mitigate and prevent health risks. CHTs are given the means to target health goals and track their progress through this innovative technology.

Furthermore, e-AKaP provides the government with reliable information to target health goals and create policy that reflects the current situation in the country.

Grace Harter is a recent SAIS graduate

An Integrated ICT Approach to Solve Agriculture Challenges in Bangladesh

mpower_ag

In last two and a half years mPower Social Enterprises Ltd has been working with Dhaka Ahsania Mission and Care Bangladesh to implement an USAID awarded five years ‘Ag Extension Project’ which aims to strengthen the agriculture extension system of Bangladesh.

Being a technical partner of this project, mPower is focusing on some of the key challenges in the present agricultural eco-system and trying to develop some integrated ICT based solution to cater these challenges.

Challenges in present Ag Ecosystem of Bangladesh

  1. Limited access to extension agent: One of the primary challenges of the agricultural ecosystem in Bangladesh is the absence or limited presence of expert consultation in rural vicinities. Although there are almost 14 000 government field extension officers, each extension agent has to assist more than 2 000 farm families in his area. Given the working hours, the logistical constrains, the geographical context and the available resources, it’s a mammoth task for each extension agent to provide adequate support to all the assigned farmers. As a result, farmers are forced to take advice from people who are not experts and are prone to be misled or exploited, which hampers the overall productivity of the country and negatively affects farmers’ livelihoods. In addition, female farmers are often left out of the traditional extension system: because of gender barriers, many times female farmers do not interact with male extension agent.

  2. The challenge of keeping up-to-date the Knowledge base of extension agents: Like many other domains, agricultural knowledge becomes outdated quite qulckly and it is often hard to regularly train extension agents working in the field with up-to-date information. Moreover, currently there is no specific mechanism in place to regularly train extension agents after a certain interval in a proper learning environment. In addition, in the field extension agents are not equipped with any sort of tool or materials that can be used to improve their service delivery.

  3. Decision-makers have limited tools to collect real time information from the field when taking timely decisions: Extension agents in the field collect and prepare a massive amount of ground level data, such as crop statistics and visit log, which is vital for managers and decision makers in order to plan future activities. Currently data collection is done through a traditional paper-based system, and therefore aggregating all the data collected requires a big amount of staff time. Hence, when it comes to management level, which is far from the ground, it often takes more than fifteen days to elaborate data from the fields, and this means that decision makers have very little time to send out meaningful and effective instructions in emergency situations such as floods and other natural hazards.

To solve these three specific issue, mPower has developed in integrated ICT approach which includes a big amount of mobile and web apps, multimedia content for mobile phones, and even community radio programs.

To solve the very first issue, the lack of extension agents, mPower has developed a community based, infomediary driven approach.

In each of the farmer group, the community selects an ‘ICT Leader’, a member of their community who owns a smartphone. These ICT leaders are trained by the project and they are provided with a mobile application named ‘Farmer Query System’.

When farmers in the community face a particular agriculture challenge, through this app the ICT Leaders send the details of this problem to a call center where expert agriculturists respond to the query through a phone call, becoming a virtual extension agent. Currently the infomediary are not paid by the project and not given any phones. The social incentive of using this system to solve other farmer’s problem actually motivates them to do this work.

Though, we are also trying out various revenue models so to give as well a financial incentive to the infomediary. Moreover, female farmers are also more prone to get reliable and certified agricultural information as the person who is sending the query on her behalf is community member himself.

Agriculture Knowledge Bank, an online repository of agricultural content which can also be accessed through mobile app, has been developed in collaboration with various government research institutes and extension department of Bangladesh in order to solve the challenge of updating the extension agent with most recent knowledge.

Many research agencies in Bangladesh produce a lot of content which is stored in their own website. Existing rural telecenters, innovative farmers or extension agent who tries to use ICT or mobile web to extract information from web, often face a hard time because for a single piece of information they often have to roam through multiple government websites. Hence this knowledge portal, which is also linked with learning tools and powers the various diagnostic tool, aids extension agents to learn more about each of the topics with updated information.

To automate the reporting and data collection process of extension department which is challenge three, mPower, in collaboration with extension department of Bangladesh, has developed three mobile application which automate their scheduling process, statistics collection and problem tracking, with the positive result of eliminating a lot of paperwork.

This data are being automatically aggregated in real time, and managers sitting remotely can see the view in a web dashboard and can give timely and meaningful forward instructions.

Results and Learning

  • Up to these point, so far 93 users are using these applications and so far 4 970 agro advisory service are being provided.
  • Farmers are in general very receptive to the recommendations they have been getting from this ICT based system. So far 96.4% of farmers responded that they are happy with the recommendations received, and they have applied practices . To find out adoption and impact more, mPower is working with a team of researchers from iCHASS,
  • So far 10.04% female farmers got agro recommendation through this systems which is a vast number, considering in traditional system the number is very poor
  • Some of the e-Administrative application which are targeted to government extension agent are yet to show significant impact as it’s tough to train field extension officers with a new ICT based tool and replace the old paper based method
  • Finding out female infomediary seems to be a challenge due to gender barrier and project is working with INGENAES to develop a strategy to tackle this issue
  • Involving community people increases ‘trust’ of the recommendation
  • Apart from social value, to find out sustainability some revenue based model is required for the infomediary

Thank you for taking some time to read through this blog post. Please feel free to share and circulate this message. We look forward to hear your feedback and comments!

Sadman Sadek currently working with mPower Social Enterprises Ltd. as Technical Coordinator in Bangladesh