March 2009 - change - Mailing Lists

IN 10 MINUTES!! CSE Colloquium, Kentaro Toyama
by Natalie Linnell 12 Mar '09

12 Mar '09

Kentaro Toyama (Microsoft Research India) Computer Science Research for Global Development Colloquium Thursday, March 12, 2009 3:30 pm, EEB-105 Abstract On the same planet where there are 1.4 billion Internet users, a far less fortunate 1.4 billion people survive below the World Banks definition of the poverty line. The same technology that has transformed our lives - the lives of the wealthiest people on the planet - also remains out of reach and irrelevant for the poorest. How do you design user interfaces for an illiterate migrant worker? Can you keep five rural schoolchildren from fighting over one PC? What value is technology to a farmer earning $1 a day? The young field of "information and communication technology for development" (ICT4D) asks these kinds of questions in the expectation that computing and communication technologies can contribute to the socio-economic development of the worlds poorest communities. In this talk, Ill introduce the Technology for Emerging Markets group TEM group<http://research.microsoft.com/research/tem> at Microsoft Research India, where an interdisciplinary team of researchers explo! res solutions in the context of agriculture, education, healthcare, microfinance, and other domains of development. There are several ongoing debates in ICT4D research, including questions about the role of computer science, project sustainability, and multidisciplinarity with academic integrity. Ill discuss these issues in the context of MultiPoint, one of our projects where a computer-science concept not only solves a challenge in the context of under-resourced schools, but opens the door to rich avenues for further research. I hope to show that while technology alone rarely supplies the answer to the deep problems of poverty, technologists can make a significant difference as long as we retain equal measures of skepticism about the brash claims of technology and optimism about its true potential. BIO: Kentaro Toyama is co-founder and assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India (MSR India), which opened in Bangalore in January, 2005. In addition to his responsibilities to MSR India overall, Kentaro leads the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, and is a co-founder of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD). Prior to MSR India, Kentaro spent seven years at MSR in Redmond (WA) and Cambridge (UK) working on computer vision, multimedia, and geographic information systems. In 2002, he took personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi University in Ghana. Kentaro earned his Ph.D. in computer science at Yale University and received a bachelors degree in physics from Harvard University. http://www.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/mvis/mvis?ID=803 _______________________________________________ change mailing list change(a)cs.washington.edu https://mailman.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change

1 0

Mobiles for Development
by Joyojeet Pal 11 Mar '09

11 Mar '09

Subject: [TIER] Phones for health - evaluation, book, links From: "Aman Bhandari" <amanbhandari(a)yahoo.com> Date: Wed, March 11, 2009 10:31 am To: tier(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There has been a rush of phones for health pieces recently along with a book release in April 2009. The first link is an important reminder that the evidence base still needs to be built up: Â 1. Phones for Health: Great Idea, But Where's the Evidence? http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2009/02/post_1.php Â 2. Closing the digital divide, Independent UK â€œPick any development problem â€“ poverty, health, education, governance, climate change â€“ and youâ€™ll find that information and communications technologies, including mobiles, are already an integral part of the solution, and that will be increasingly true,â€ says Richard Heeks, Professor of Development Informatics at the University of Manchester. Â "But the feedback from the developing world isnâ€™t all positive. Researchers in Tanzania found that almost half the people they spoke to sometimes sacrificed necessities such as food and clothes to keep their mobile phones running, and that less than 15 per cent thought the benefits of owning a mobile justified the costs." Â 3. BOOK - Mobile Health Solutions for Biomedical Applications, April 2009Â http://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Applications-Healthcare-Information-Inform… Â I have put up more links here: http://thdblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/mobile-phone-development-link-drop/ Â Aman Â _______________________________________________ TIER mailing list Website: http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu TIER(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tier

1 0

Today's seminar: Medical Records in Haiti
by Richard Anderson 11 Mar '09

11 Mar '09

CSE 590 F Wednesday, March 11, 4 pm, CSE 403. Implementing a PEPFAR-funded EMR in Haiti: iSanté Steve Wagner, UW Clinical Informatics Research Group Today, Steve Wagner will be talking about UW work in setting up a medical records system in Haiti. Medical Record systems are a very important area of work for resource constrained environments. This will be a very good opportunity to find out about another University of Washington project that is applying computing technology to address a global need.

1 0

ask kentaro a question
by Yaw Anokwa 11 Mar '09

11 Mar '09

hey all, kentaro toyama is presenting at colloquium this thursday at 3.30 in eeb 105 on 'computer science research for global development'. see http://www.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/mvis/mvis?ID=803 for details. kentaro has agreed to answer any questions we submit to him about the field and his work. i'm sure some of the questions will be addressed during the talk, but for the ones that aren't, the answers will be blogged on http://change.washington.edu. i am aware some of you can just ask kentaro yourselves, but for those who can't or wish to stay anonymous, i think this is a great opportunity to ask some of the big questions at the intersection of computer science and global development. email the questions to uwchange(a)gmail.com or tweet to @uwchange. either way, make sure to be at the talk on thursday at 3.30 in eeb 105. yaw

1 0

thursday weekly meeting
by Yaw Anokwa 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

hello all, just a reminder that change holds a weekly meeting to discuss ictd at uw. the meetings will always be on thursdays from 12-1 and everyone is welcome. please put this weekly meeting on your schedule or subscribe to our calendar at http://change.washington.edu/about/events/ this week, we are discussing the items on the agenda below. * agenda * - introductions - feedback on new site, poster session and msr talks - feedback on upcoming starbus pilot - ideas for "big picture" speakers - open issues see you on thu, mar 12 at 12:00 pm in the paul allen center (cse) rm 303. yaw ps. steve wagner of uw will be presenting his medical records system work tomorrow in 590f. for those interested in global health, this talk is a must see. http://change.washington.edu/about/events/ has details.

1 0

Your Account with Amazon.co.uk
by Amazon.co.uk 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

1 0

building web 2.0 support for global health
by Yaw Anokwa 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

this may be a timely opportunity for those interested in how web 2.0 can drive global health. pat is a clinician working at partners in health in rwanda. i worked with him a few years ago and he is an all around good guy. send him an email if you are interested. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Pat Lee <patlee.pih(a)gmail.com> I am writing to ask if you might know someone who would be willing to donate technical expertise to an exciting new network that I am helping to establish. It’s called Economic Governance for Health (EG4Health), and it aims to harness the voice and public health mandate of the global health community in support of existing efforts to reform the global economic system in favor of equitable, climate-friendly and pro-health development. We’ve got a website that is approaching readiness for launch that you are welcome to check out: www.eg4health.org. But in a nutshell, EG4Health’s core ideas are: • The global economy is critically important to health, especially in developing countries • If we hope to achieve global health equity, we must first restore democracy and fair play to global economic governance • The surest path to a genuinely democratic system is through a genuinely democratic process, free from the undue influence of wealth and power • The voice of the global health community can and should help to inform, stimulate, and shape these critical reforms A friend who helped lead the Doctors for Obama campaign offered us some helpful tips on this kind of web-based grass roots mobilization. She said the most important person on the team was their IT wizard and that the effort to ‘go viral’ and reach tens of thousands of people would rise and fall on this person. At the moment, we’re all working on a voluntary basis though we plan to seek funding soon. We’re borrowing some time from a web designer who helped put together Oxfam’s site, but he’s only available intermittently. We’ll need better IT support than this, which is why I thought to reach out to you. Do you know anyone who, out of the pure goodness of their heart and belief in the importance of these structural issues, might be willing to give some of their time and expertise to this effort?

1 0

Seminar on Wednesday - Medical Records in Haiti
by Richard Anderson 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

CSE 590 F Wednesday, March 11, 4 pm, CSE 403. Steve Wagner will speak on on-going work on developing an electronic medical record system for Haiti. Implementing a PEPFAR-funded EMR in Haiti: iSanté Bill Lober's CIRG (Clinical Informatics Research Group) has been building and implementing an EMR (iSanté) for use with HIV+ patients in Haiti since the spring of 2005. Steve Wagner will discuss the environment, architecture, features, and history of the project to date. He recently traveled to Haiti, where he installed the EMR in four clinics; he has the pictures and a video to prove it! Steve Wagner has 20+ years of experience in database and content management. At one point he consulted with most of the top 10 drug companies in the world regarding a "systems approach" to getting their drugs approved by the FDA as much as six months sooner. He completed the UW program in Health Information Administration in 2004 and joined CIRG in 2005.

1 0

UW CSE Colloq / 3-12-09 / Toyama / Microsoft Research India / Computer Science Research for Global Development
by Sunil Garg 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

> Ponder technology's role in a global world - Thursday! > > Computer Science and Engineering > UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON > COLLOQUIUM > > SPEAKER: Kentaro Toyama, Microsoft Research India > > TITLE: Computer Science Research for Global Development > > DATE: Thursday, March 12, 2009 > TIME: 3:30 pm > PLACE: EEB-105 > HOST: Richard Anderson > > ABSTRACT: > > On the same planet where there are 1.4 billion Internet users, a far > less fortunate 1.4 billion people survive below the World Bank's > definition of the poverty line. The same technology that has > transformed our lives - the lives of the wealthiest people on the > planet - also remains out of reach and irrelevant for the poorest. > How do you design user interfaces for an illiterate migrant worker? > Can you keep five rural schoolchildren from fighting over one PC? > What value is technology to a farmer earning $1 a day? The young > field of "information and communication technology for > development" (ICT4D) asks these kinds of questions in the > expectation that computing and communication technologies can > contribute to the socio-economic development of the world's poorest > communities. In this talk, I'll introduce the Technology for > Emerging Markets group http://research.microsoft.com/research/tem at > Microsoft Research India, where an interdisciplinary team of > researchers explores solutio! > ns in the context of agriculture, education, healthcare, > microfinance, and other domains of development. > > There are several ongoing debates in ICT4D research, including > questions about the role of computer science, project > sustainability, and multidisciplinarity with academic integrity. > I'll discuss these issues in the context of MultiPoint, one of our > projects where a computer-science concept not only solves a > challenge in the context of under-resourced schools, but opens the > door to rich avenues for further research. I hope to show that while > technology alone rarely supplies the answer to the deep problems of > poverty, technologists can make a significant difference as long as > we retain equal measures of skepticism about the brash claims of > technology and optimism about its true potential. > > BIO: > Kentaro Toyama is co-founder and assistant managing director of > Microsoft Research India (MSR India), which opened in Bangalore in > January, 2005. In addition to his responsibilities to MSR India > overall, Kentaro leads the Technology for Emerging Markets research > group, and is a co-founder of the IEEE/ACM International Conference > on Information and Communication Technologies and Development > (ICTD). Prior to MSR India, Kentaro spent seven years at MSR in > Redmond (WA) and Cambridge (UK) working on computer vision, > multimedia, and geographic information systems. In 2002, he took > personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi > University in Ghana. Kentaro earned his Ph.D. in computer science at > Yale University and received a bachelor's degree in physics from > Harvard University. > > Refreshments to be served in room prior to talk. > > *NOTE* This lecture will be broadcast live via the Internet. See http://www.cs.washington.edu/news/colloq.info.html > for more information. > > Email: talk-info(a)cs.washington.edu > Info: http://www.cs.washington.edu/ > (206) 543-1695 > > The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal > opportunity and reasonable accomodation in its services, programs, > activities, education and employment for individuals with > disabilities. To request disability accommodation, contact the > Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance of the event > at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-3885/FAX, or access(a)u.washington.edu > .

1 0

job opening: mobile health software development in Tanzania
by neal lesh 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

Hi everybody. D-tree International is seeking to hire a full time person to live in Tanzania and work on software development and field implementation of point-of-care phone-based applications to support health deliver at the facility and community level. Is a very exciting time for D-tree which has just opened its first office in Dar es Salaam, and quickly expanding its projects and partnerships. Please see the attached blurb for more details and please inquire further if interested. Take care, neal

1 0