Category: Code for the common good

How Mobile Phones Can Illuminate Rural Cambodia

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Have you ever been to Cambodia? If so, have you noticed that everyone there has a mobile phone? Whether you are in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap or even in the countryside, you’ll find people talking on their cell phone all the time.

Mobile Technology for Development

As in other developing countries, mobile penetration is very high in Cambodia. More than two-thirds of the populationuses a cell phone on a regular basis, and there is a pretty good GSM coverage in most regions.

For the country, which is one of the poorest in Southeast Asia, this is very good news, as it may contribute to a sustainable development momentum. Mobile phones have proven to be a great technology to empower the Base of the Pyramid in other countries, and there are benefits that you may not even imagine. For instance, did you know that cell phones can help people have a better access to electricity, even in the most remote rural areas?

In India, Simpa Networks has developed a Pay-As-You-Go model to enable 60,000 off-grid households to buy solar home systems by 2015. In Cambodia, a project using mobile technology has recently been started by Kamworks, a social startup whose objective is to bring innovative solar energy solutions to the rural poor.

Electricity Situation in Rural Cambodia

The need for affordable and accessible energy is huge. Today, 10.5 million Cambodians live without grid electrical power. Experts say the situation is particularly critical in rural areas where nearly 70 percent of the households have no access to electricity. Why is it so?

In many regions, there is no grid power at all; and, where people could be connected, they often cannot afford it. Most villagers have no choice but use kerosene lamps or car battery-powered lights. In the longer run, unfortunately, these products are not only expensive, but they are also inefficient, dangerous, unhealthy, and polluting.

Solar Energy Solutions

When Kamworks was started in 2006, the idea was to offer sustainable alternatives to the rural people; and this is why the company’s founders opted for solar solutions. With an average of five hours of full sun each day, Cambodia is a perfect place for solar lanterns and home systems. In addition, since fuel price has increased over the years, solar technology has become more and more competitive as its price has fallen. Then economic benefits of solar have proven to be real and short-term as well as long-term.

Difficulties usually arise, though, when it’s time to pay for a solar system. While many villagers are willing to buy solar products, the majority cannot afford the high up-front investment. To solve this issue and enable its customers to have access to solar power, Kamworks has had to be creative over the years and develop various business models. In 2007, it started renting products, and this has turned out to be among the most effective solutions. Yet there is still a major problem: higher collection costs for the company, and sustaining such a model was difficult in the long run.

Today, the answer will come from cell phones and mobile payment technology. Customers renting Kamworks’ solar home systems will soon be able to pay for the rental fees through their mobiles. For the company, this will be easier to manage; and for the customers, as they won’t have to pay upfront for the product any longer. So they will be more likely to make the leap, and go solar for their electrical needs.

Access to Energy is the First Step to Development

Of course, you could wonder, “Why is it so important to have power?” Specialists agree that access to electricity is actually a key to sustainable development. To put it clearly – where there is no light, both economic and human development goals are harder to achieve.

In Cambodia, night falls at around 6 pm. Keeping the light on until late weighs on villagers’ financial resources, and ultimately it can have an impact on livelihood, education and even quality of life.

But imagine – if the Base of the Pyramid had an easy access to affordable electricity, it could transform their lives. Children would be able to study in better conditions after dark; businesses would operate longer hours; and farmers could even have access to modern tools to produce more. Last but not least – they would stop poisoning themselves with kerosene-induced indoor pollution.

No wonder the United Nations placed the question of sustainable energies on the global agenda for the coming decade and we should celebrate innovations like mobile payments for Kamworks solar systems.

Scaling Operation ASHA to Fight Tuberculosis in Cambodia

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According to the WHO, tuberculosis is the biggest infectious-disease killer, taking more lives than AIDS, cholera and other pandemics combined. There are 8 million new cases in the world each year and 1.8 million deaths, even though it is a fully curable disease with the right treatment.

In response, Dr. Shelly Batra and Sandeep Ahuja founded Operation ASHA in 2005 with a compelling vision: a tuberculosis-free India. Operation ASHA has grown to become the exclusive provider of tuberculosis (TB) treatment to nearly five million Indian citizens.

Operation ASHA uses eCompliance, a comprehensive low-cost technology solution for tracking and monitoring TB patients that is constantly being upgraded to suit the needs of the people.

Recently, their technology team launched a text free version of eCompliance to be used in zero literacy areas such as the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand in India, and transitioned eCompliance from netbooks to tablets for improved efficacy and cost-efficiency.

Cambodia Expansion

Thanks to a grant from Information Society Innovation Fund Asia (ISIF), Operation ASHA is replicating eCompliance in two provinces in Cambodia. The pilot has begun, and more than 140 patients are registered. But numbers do not tell the whole story. Watch this video to see the impact of technology on TB as told by a Operation ASHA patient in Cambodia:

In recognition of her success in scaling treatment of TB in India and Cambodia, Dr. Shelly Batra, President & Co-Founder of Operation ASHA, was selected by Schwab Foundation as Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2014.

Congratulations Dr. Batra, and keep up the good work!

Apply Now: ISIF Asia Awards

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The ISIF Asia Awards seek to acknowledge the important contributions ICT innovators have made with creative solutions to the social and economic development of the Asia Pacific region. The ISIF Asia Awards are granted to initiatives on the last stages of implementation or that have finalized activities already that are aligned with the funding categories and eligibility criteria.

Financial support for up to AUD 3,000 is allocated via a competitive process, plus a travel grant to attend the awards ceremony at a regional or global event chosen by the ISIF Asia secretariat. Innovation and a development focus should be an integral part of all award nominations.

Nominations for the 2014 ISIF Asia awards close 26 May 2014
Nominate your project now!
The funding categories are:

  • Innovation on access provision: Access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) is a prevalent issue in the Asia Pacific region, especially for services that require broadband connectivity. Innovative solutions offering low cost deployment, low power consumption and low maintenance that expanded fixed and mobile access to the internet through new forms of technical and organizational arrangements as well as improved the quality of access based on issues of accessibility, disability and linguistic diversity.
  • Innovation on learning and localization: Capacity building and localization efforts have been key to develop the skills needed to design, maintain, and manage ICT infrastructure and services in local languages, supporting local talent and creating job opportunities in rural or urban marginalized areas. Innovative, open, inclusive and sustainable approaches to learning and localization are key elements to guarantee the quality of access to knowledge needed to offer reliable services and applications.
  • Code for the common good: High mobile penetration in the AP region has been a catalyst in the development of mobile-based services, applications and software solutions. These solutions have been used to support timely and relevant information dissemination on a large scale using a range of network infrastructures through a variety of devices, even where literacy rates are lower. Mobile technologies have enabled communities to increase participation in political processes, coordinate efforts during emergency situations, receive extreme weather alerts, communicate with remote health services, and receive specialized patient referrals, among many other applications.
  • Rights: Strategic use of Internet tools and services to promote freedom of expression, freedom of association, privacy, security, consumers’ rights, gender equality, new forms of intellectual property in the digital environment, and a wider range of issues related to the Internet and human rights.

In addition to selecting a winner per category, a Community Choice Award will be granted to the best social media campaign (the project with the highest number of votes from the community).

What are you waiting for? Apply today!

How SMS Text Messages Improve the Reading Outcomes in Papua New Guinea

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The aim of the SMS Story research project was to determine if daily mobile phone text message stories and lesson plans would improve children’s reading in Papua New Guinea (PNG) elementary schools. The research was a controlled trial in which half of the teachers received text messages for twenty weeks and half did not.

The stories and lesson plans were designed to introduce children to reading English and followed an underlying phonics and key word based methodology. Teachers in the trial received a cartoon poster explaining how to use the daily text messages and received a total of 100 text message stories and 100 related text message lessons for two academic terms. They did not receive any in-service training.

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Baseline Start Point

Research was conducted in rural elementary schools in two provinces, Madang and Simbu, and has involved a baseline reading assessment, mid-point lesson and classroom observations and an end-point reading assessment. At baseline, there was no statistically significant difference between the active and control groups, with respect to school characteristics and children’s reading assessment results.

The baseline results showed that many children had limited or no reading (for example, half of the children could not read any high frequency English words). At the time of enrollment, all participating schools had very few reading books, if any, available in the classroom.

Experiment Results

On average, across both sets of schools, children’s reading did improve over the two terms with children at SMS Story schools improving significantly more. Random visits to active schools during the intervention period showed that most teachers were actively engaging with the content sent to them as text messages. This demonstrated that the SMS technology (using FrontlineSMS delivered over the Digicel mobile network) was effective in reaching teachers.

There was a large change in the reported use of teaching strategies promoted by SMS Story lesson plans and poster (for example, 42 teachers in active schools (n=51) against 12 teachers in control schools (n=51) reported “reading stories to the children every day”).

At the end-point reading assessment, there was a statistically significant difference between the results of the control and active groups, with the active group performing better than the control group across four of the five reading skills tested. This improvement is seen in both grade 1 and grade 2 and with girls and boys.

Children who did not receive the SMS Story were approximately twice as likely to be unable to read a single word of three sub – tests (decodable words, sight words and oral reading). In other words the intervention almost halved the number of children who could not read anything compared with the control schools.

Therefore, the text messages to teachers improved students’ reading ability in decoding, fluency, reading familiar high frequency words and reading phonetically correct nonsense words. The research did not find a statistically significant improvement in reading comprehension and generally children showed low reading comprehension skills in both grades and little progression between grade 1 and 2.

Other Results

The trial also found a strong negative impact on students’ reading caused by the absence of the classroom teacher to attend provincial trainer-directed training. Unsurprisingly the students of these teachers performed poorly on the final reading assessment. Importantly SMS Story does not require a teacher to be absent from a class for training.

Recommendations

As a control led trial, this intervention has a rigorous research base. The results demonstrate that appropriate use of mobile phone technology can have a positive impact upon educational outcomes in resource-constrained settings.

In PNG, it is recommended that the methodology of sending daily text messages to teachers be pursued further. In other countries, it is recommended that trials be undertaken as controlled trials so that statistically significant data can be generated.

SMS Story was funded by the Australian Government, through a research grant from the Economic and Public Sector Program. The project was designed and managed by Voluntary Services Overseas, in partnership with the Department of Education.

Apply Now for the UNICEF India’s Mobiles for Social and Behaviour Change Challenge

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Mobiles for Social and Behaviour Change is an initiative of UNICEF India and Digital Empowerment Foundation. The ‘MSBC: Call for Experiences, Case Studies and Practices’ seeks to identify mobile-based communication and applications initiatives that work with frontline workers, community members, women, and adolescent girls to resolve issues and challenges around health, education, child protection, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene, and women empowerment in general.

The mobile-based initiatives, experiences and practices should be intervening across three broad categories:

  • Information Dissemination
  • Monitoring & Tracking
  • Training and enhancing Interpersonal Communication

Shortlisted MSBC Practices will have the opportunity to be a part of the UNICEF-DEF Advocacy Team, network with Indian State NHR National Health Rural Mission, and be honored with Certificate of Participation duly signed by UNICEF India, DEF and Screening Committee Experts.

We invite you to submit your initiative(s) for ‘MSBC: Call for Experiences, Case Studies and Practices by 10 April, 2014 following these submission guidelines using this online application form

How Indonesians Use ICT and Social Media for Disaster Management

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Indonesia’s Internet penetration isn’t impressive – only 15% of its population is online. However, Indonesia is the fourth populous country, and 95.7 of its users who are online, are on social media (IPRA, 2013). 60 million Indonesians are on Facebook, trailing only the USA and India in total number of users, (Techiasia 2012, WeareSocial 2014). According to the social media agency, Semiocast, in 2013 Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta is also the Twitter capital of the world, with more than 2% of the world’s 10.6 billion tweets .

Indonesia also has the distinction of being at high risk of disaster. Sitting on the Ring of Fire, Indonesia has a history of seismic disaster and is ranked 12th in mortality risk based on the 2009 International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. For example, in 2010, Mount Merapi erupted in Yogyakarta, killing 353 people and since then both Mt. Sinabung and Mt. Kelud volcanos erupted.

The Mt. Sinabung volcano eruption left 16 people dead after four months of eruptions. Around Mt. Kelud, signs of eruption started recently and in February 2014 the government urged for evacuation. The Mt. Kelud eruption occurred on 13 February 2014, and the local government imposed a 10-kilometers exclusion zone to prohibit any activities until March, forcing the evacuation of 100.000 people.

Local government had planned early to alert local inhabitants of the potential for disaster. Prior to the eruption, in the coordination meeting, the vice of local police used several types of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to disseminate early warning regarding the potential of disaster (Surya Online, 2014) and it is interesting to see how the community has utilized their technology to help them in disaster management to avoid more victims and reduce the risks of the disaster.

A comprehensive disaster management consists of 4 phases: mitigation (prevention to reduce risk prior to the disaster occurs), preparation (action to make sure sufficient response and effective recovery), response (immediate action at time the disaster is occurring), and recovery (after disaster when the victims return to home) (Alexander 2001 cited in Coppola, 2007). According to Anggunia (2011), during the Mt. Merapi eruption case, web, online, and social media tools were used in emergency response.

Here are several examples of how the local community used ICT and social media, by taking the story from the recent Mount Kelud eruption in East Java and surroundings, as disaster management tools.

Mitigation and Preparation

In mitigation and preparation, the related government institutions utilized a web portal JalinMerapi.net, which integrates old and new communication technologies, to support coordination between officials and the local community. For example the Geology agency updated the mountain activity status to help local government decide about evacuation needs. Using ICT, the vice police of Kediri district, near Mt. Kelud, disseminated evacuation orders via text message, allowing farmers to evacuate their livestock to safe places (Surya Online, 2014). In social media, the official Twitter account of National Geology Agency or BadanGeologi, National Disaster Management Body (BNPB) posted early warning on Twitter and Facebook.

Posted on February 5th, the BNPB official Twitter account announced that due to the status of the mountain activity, it was escalating its status to Caution (level 2 of 4: status, normal, caution, alert, and watch out), and BNPB coordinated this message with the three affected districts’ disaster management agencies. Five days later, it raised the mountain activity status to Alert level.

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Response

During the response stage, people used social media for posting latest situation in the area of Mount Kelud eruption. Two hours after the eruption, “Mount Kelud erupts… hopefully no casualties”, said Efa on her Twitter account, who lives 35 km from Mt. Kelud, joining multiple users who shared news and information via social media, especially people who live or have family within the area of disaster. Twitter was full of tweets that talked about the event. At least 10 tweets every second were published, most of them were meant to pray for the areas affected by the eruption (Tempo, 2014). The sand and ash rain were the hottest topics on Facebook in the region.

Social media was also used by people from abroad, especially those who intended to travel near to the eruption, to ask about airport openings and the situation caused by volcanic ash. This widespread information allowed people around the world knew the latest situation in the vulnerable areas. Some people and independent organisations spontaneously opened disaster aid programs and posted and promoted them through social media.

The hashtags #PrayforKelud and #Kelud became trending topics of the week on Twitter. People used them to spread information, raising awareness of when the next disaster might happen. People in other part of the nation also used social media to help friends and families around the areas of disaster. For example, they posted how to anticipate and deal with the volcanic ashe This kind of information was very useful.

In addition, social media helped enhance people’s solidaritiy, awakening empathy to help each other. A face book user said, “Social media helps communication process in managing the disasters, particularly person-to-person interaction which is then going to the broader audiences. This can encourage more people to have empathy and help the victims.”

Recovery

In the recovery stage, this leds to a rise in funds and aid from people across the nation, including spreading information about fundraising events. Twitter was used to manage aid distribution. For instance, users told people about when and where victims were allowed to return home, so aid could be distributed to other evacuation places. “Please note, for friends who want to bring aid, that refugees in Batu city – Pujon already back home yesterday”, said @NgalasAdventure. “Aid can be distributed directly to Selorejo – Ngantang – Pare or districts in Kediri: Kepung district, etc”, said his next tweet.

Even a week after eruption, there were still over 1,000 tweets mentioning #PrayforKelud and #Kelud per day. Most of them shared information of victims returning home, because the status of the mountain already changed into Alert status on 20th February 2014. Other people used Twitter and Facebook to inform others on the things victims needed, such as @RYMovement who said “RYM for Humanity: victims around eruption area need more shovels, hoes, tarpaulins and carpentry tools to clean houses.”

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However, this kind initiative mostly comes from grassroots community activity. There was lack of formal organization in managing disaster communications using social media. But the good news is that people organized themselves based on trust, with less government intervention through social media.

After the disaster, the trend shifted. Twitter became an official channel for Indonesian’s president to give his after disaster testimony through his official personal twitter account @SBYudhoyono :

“After speaking with evacuees in three regencies and two municipalities, I can say that I am satisfied with the disaster relief operation. Thank you.” (@SBYudhoyono in Jakarta Post, 2014)

Contributors

Sofiarti Dyah Anggunia works as Database Analyst at West Kalimantan Provincial Government, Indonesia. She holds an M.Sc in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) from The University of Manchester.

Larastri Kumaralalita is currently member of e-government laboratory in University of Indonesia. She gained MSc. of Management and Information Systems at Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester, and Bachelor in Computer Science, majoring in Information Systems, at Computer Science Faculty, University of Indonesia.

RSVP now: Tech for Good Fast Pitch by USAID Cambodia

USAID

Want to know how you can get involved in using technology to impact Cambodia?

USAID’s Cambodia Development Innovations invites you to the first pitch presentation event. The concept is simple – presenters get 4 minutes to talk and “pitch” their idea. After pitching their idea, presenters and participants network with each other to find areas of collaboration.

In this first event, up to 10 speakers will present their ideas on how to use technology for social good. Presenters will outline their idea and what they need to progress their idea. Perhaps you have something they need – a product, a service, or even a similar idea?

Presenters include:

  • Marie Stopes International Cambodia, Nicky Jurgens, Head of Team Programme Development to pitch about “Improving uptake of long-term family planning methods”.
  • Fourth Sector Innovations CEO, Byungho Lee to pitch about using mobile devices to improve math education in Cambodia.
  • FHI360, Sophat Phal, Innovation Prevention Advisor to pitch about “Application for MARPs”
  • Learning Institute, Eileen McCormick, M&E and Resource Mobilization Officer to pitch about “Develop Research Forum App”
  • CEDAC, Lak Youssey, Project Monitoring and Eveluation Officer to pitch about “Improve Information Access among Farmers”
  • World Education Cambodia, Run Ul, Project Manager to pitch about “Khmer Automated Assessment”

Be sure to RSVP today to join your peers in celebrating great new ideas in using technology for good.

Tech for Good Fast Pitch
Himawari Hotel
Sisowath Quay Khan Doun Penh
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Cambodia
Monday, February 24, 2014 from 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM (ICT)

Better ICT Interventions with Participatory Action Research in Software Development

Software methodologies invariably originate from the West (developed nations of North America and Europe) and are tailored towards the development of products and services for urban users in their urban settings. Given the origin and the target markets, the context and cultural elements of urban developers and users are “infused” in the methodology and design.

The challenge is identifying and employing methodologies which allow development of relevant software for rural communities. The methodologies should not only encompass the technological aspects but also the complexities of the rural users, the contexts as well as addressing the needs of the target audience. As shown in projects involving target users, the acceptance and usage of technology would be greatly improved particularly if the community is involved in the process.

PRISMA

 

Participatory Action Research in Software Development

Given the inappropriate methodologies, we propose using Participatory Action Research amalgamated with a software development methodology. We believe community participation in rural projects is important, and more so in the development of technologies such as software which are to be used by indigenous communities. In this paper, the amalgamated methodology mooted is called Participatory Action Research In Software Methodology Augmentation (PRISMA).

PAR has also been used successfully in numerous rural development projects such as in IDRC and in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak’s (UNIMAS) eBario Project and its replications. As such, PAR provides the collaborative process of research and action targeted towards positive social transformation. PAR established a two-way communication, which allows the researchers to be involved with the community and vice-versa; the researchers and community are actively involved in the development activities, to seek information, ideas, and generate knowledge to guide.

In PAR projects involving ICT development, we believe there are two goals. One is of course to develop the technologies or software (technology element), while the other is to learn and understand as much as possible from the implementation or deployment (knowledge element). With sufficient evidence from replications, best practices may then be developed which would be of use to other similar projects.

Given the high costs of projects in rural areas, there is a need to maximize outputs and learnings from rural projects. Researchers also have to keep in mind, PAR is appropriate as it has a research component that seeks to engender positive change; and that participation “requires the equal and collaborative involvement of the “community of research interest”.

As shown above, PRISMA comprises two parts, a social change process (dotted circle) and software development process (solid line circle). The software development process encompass the formal and “hard (technological) aspects” which includes the formal components of software development, tools and techniques to carry out the requirements analysis, design, implementation, and testing.

More important is the “soft (humanistic) aspects” which encompass the change the community wants, the reasons they want it, as well as the roles for people inside the indistinct world of political and social systems, multiple disciplines, environments and multiple stakeholders. The soft aspects tend to be fuzzy, and will be outlined in detail.

If we fail to address these non-technical factors, the user requirements may be affected, resulting in poor system design, un-usable user interfaces, over budget and delays in the project. The overlap between the social change and the software development involves merging of processes of both the hard and soft aspects.

PRISMA is a work in progress. PRISMA augments the conventional Software Development Life Cycle employed to develop software for rural communities.

Excerpt from Participatory Action Research in Software Development: Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems Case Study by Siang-Ting Siew, Alvin W. Yeo, and Tariq Zaman.