April 2010 - change - Mailing Lists

Microfinance (MFI) student interest groups here at UW?
by Rosalyn Mahashin 22 Apr '10

22 Apr '10

Change folks, Are you aware of any MFI or finance student interest groups here at UW (or even elsewhere)? If you could contact me, it would be much appreciated. Thanks, Rosalyn -- Rosalyn Mahashin University of Washington MPA '11 Evans School of Public Affairs Google Voice: (206) 651-5875 Twitter: @rozmaha

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Charles Johnston on SeeYourImpact
by Eleanor O'Rourke 21 Apr '10

21 Apr '10

This Thursday at Change, Charles Johnston will be discussing his work with SeeYourImpact, a non-profit organization that aims to match donors with charities that allow donors to receive tangible feedback about their impact. The following diagram provides an overview of the SeeYourImpact giving model: What: Charles Johnston on SeeYourImpact When: Thursday, April 22 at Noon Where: UW, Paul Allen Center, Room 203

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Fwd: Reminder: Deadline for DL-International Development Workshop
by Tapan Parikh 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Javed Mostafa <jm(a)unc.edu> Date: Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 12:18 PM Subject: Reminder: Deadline for DL-International Development Workshop To: Xiangyu Fan <xyfan(a)email.unc.edu>, tparikh(a)gmail.com Call for Papers: Digital Libraries for International Development (JCDL/ICADL 2010) Can be found here: http://miksa.ils.unc.edu/dldev/ Important Dates: ****************************************************************************** Full Research Paper Submission Deadline April 20, 2010 (11:59 PM Samoa Time) Research Paper Initial Notification (Scope Fit) April 25, 2010 ****************************************************************************** JCDL Early Registration Deadline April 30, 2010 Research Paper Final Notification May 10, 2010 Camera-ready Paper Deadline May 15, 2010 Position Paper Submission Deadline Rolling. Submission encouraged as soon as possible; notification within a week. Final deadline is June 6 - to allow printing time. Workshop June 25, 2010

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Announcing ACM DEV 2010: The First Annual Symposium on Computing for Development
by Eleanor O'Rourke 19 Apr '10

19 Apr '10

Hi all, I am happy to announce the First ACM Annual Symposium on Computing for Development (DEV 2010). ACM DEV 2010 will be co-located with ICTD 2010 and the focus of the symposium will be on new computing innovations for development. The scope of DEV 2010 is broad covering a wide range of research areas within computer science with a direct focus on development. ACM DEV 2010 aims to bring together all CS researchers with an interest in computing for development. The deadline for paper submissions is July 10th, 2010. I strongly encourage you to submit your best works here. The conference website is: http://dev2010.news.cs.nyu.edu Attached is the Call for Papers for ACM DEV 2010. Kindly help us also spread the word. Looking forward to a great conference and building a great community! Best regards, Tapan Parikh and Lakshmi Subramanian DEV 2010 PC co-chairs Call for Papers DEV 2010 provides an international forum for research in the design and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social and economic development. In particular, we focus on emerging contexts where conventional computing solutions are often inappropriate due to various contextual factors - including, but not limited to, cost, language, literacy, and the availability of power and bandwidth. Focusing on innovative technical solutions to these unique application, infrastructure and user challenges, DEV fosters exchange between computer scientists, engineers, and other scholars and practitioners interested in the use of ICTs for development. DEV provides a high-quality, single-track forum for presenting results and discussing new ideas. We expect paper contributions from different existing sub-areas of Computer Science and Engineering with a direct relevance to development. Papers should describe original and previously unpublished research. Three metrics will be applied to judge papers: (a) Relevance of the problem for development; (b) Novelty of the technical solution; (c) Evaluation of the solution, making a case for development-focused impact. All ACM DEV paper submissions should either provide or directly motivate a novel technical solution that has direct implications for development. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Networks/Systems/Security/Architecture * Low-cost wireless connectivity * Intermittent networks and systems * Power-efficient systems * Low-cost computing devices * Mobile systems and applications * Security challenges in developing regions HCI/Applications * User interfaces for low-literacy populations * Multi-lingual computing * User-interfaces for low-cost devices * Participatory methods and user-centered design * Accessibility to disabled populations in developing regions * Design and evaluation of applications for health, microfinance, education, agriculture, entertainment AI/NLP/Data Mining/Speech/Vision * Machine learning techniques for large-scale data analysis in development contexts * Adapting content and applications to local languages and education levels * Understanding social relationships and information flows in disadvantaged societies * Speech interfaces and speech recognition for low-resource languages * Development of new AI-centric tools/solutions for development * Computer vision challenges in development We also welcome papers outside of these topics that address the DEV focus on computing innovations supporting social and economic development. Important Dates Registration Deadline July 3, 2010 Submission Deadline July 10, 2010 Paper Acceptance September 5, 2010 Final Version October 5, 2010 Conference December 17-18, 2010 General Chair Andrew Dearden, Sheffield Hallam University PC Chairs Tapan Parikh, UC Berkeley Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, NYU Steering Committee Saman Amarasinghe, MIT Gaetano Borriello, University of Washington Eric Brewer, UC Berkeley Deborah Estrin, UCLA Margaret Martonosi, Princeton Roni Rosenfeld, CMU Kentaro Toyama, UC Berkeley Program Committee Muneeb Ali, Princeton, USA Saman Amarasinghe, MIT, USA Richard Anderson, Univ of Washington, USA Ravin Balakrishnan, Univ of Toronto, Canada Simone Barbosa, PUC - Rio, Brazil Etienne Barnard, University of Pretoria, South Africa Michael Best, Georgia Tech, USA Gaetano Borriello, Univ of Washington, USA Eric Brewer, UC Berkeley, USA John Canny, UC Berkeley, USA Ed Cutrell, MSR India, India James Davis, UC Santa Cruz, USA Andrew Dearden, Sheffield Hallam University, UK Nathan Eagle, MIT & Santa Fe Institute, USA Deborah Estrin, UCLA, USA Neil Ferguson, Imperial College, UK Beki Grinter, Georgia Tech, USA Eric Horovitz, MSR Redmond, USA Ravi Jain, Google, USA Matt Jones, Swansea, UK Matthew Kam, CMU, USA Srinivasan Keshav, University of Waterloo, Canada Zhengjie Liu, Dalian Maritime University, China Gary Marsden, Univ of Cape Town, South Africa Vanessa Frias Martinez, Telefonica Research, Spain Margaret Martonosi, Princeton, USA Srini Narayanan, UC Berkeley, USA Bonnie Nardi, UC Irvine, USA Tapan Parikh, UC Berkeley, USA Balaji Prabhakar, Stanford, USA John Quinn, Makerere University, Uganda Nitendra Rajput, IBM Research India, India Bhaskaran Raman, IIT-Bombay, India Roni Rosenfeld, CMU, USA Umar Saif, LUMS, Pakistan Lakshmi Subramanian, NYU, USA Bill Thies, MSR India, India Kentaro Toyama, UC Berkeley, USA Terry Winograd, Stanford, USA

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CFP: Digital Libraries for International Development
by Tapan Parikh 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

Link: http://miksa.ils.unc.edu/dldev/iui.html Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Australia (25th June). In Conjunction with Joint JCDL/ICADL 2010 A somewhat oversimplified view of global development divides the world into three large segments: roughly a billion people living in highly developed economies such as the US, Europe, and Japan; roughly four billion people living in developing economies (half of those in China and India alone), and a bottom billion living in abject poverty with little hope for development. Unsurprisingly, the highly developed economies are the focus of much of our research. Access to information is a critical enabler for the rest of the world as well, of course, but often under very different conditions. Let us consider one of the popular modern modalities of communication to elaborate on this point. Well over half the population has regular access to a networked digital device, but for more than 80% of those people the device is not a networked PC but rather a cell phone with no graphical display capabilities. On the user-end, we know that educational attainment varies markedly between the developed and developing world, and this factor has important consequences for both needs and opportunities associated with identifying effective means of information access. In this workshop, we will take a broad approach in defining the various applications of digital libraries, with an equally broad view of developmental goals (for example, educational, health, and economical impacts would all receive attention). A key goal for the workshop is to bring together researchers who have thought deeply about the use of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) with those who have thought deeply about the design and evaluation of digital libraries in an effort to spark new work in this important intersection.

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Call for Papers : Disability and Information Technology in Underserved Populations
by Yaw Anokwa 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Call for Papers : Disability and Information Technology in Underserved Populations Call for Papers: Special Issue of the *Journal of Information Technology for Development* Disability and Information Technology in Underserved Populations http://change.washington.edu/it4d_callforpapers/ Recent developments in technology have influenced perceptions of disability in two important ways. First, improvements in and increased availability of assistive technologies have impacted socioeconomic participation of people with disabilities. Second, with the increasing ubiquity of personal computers, mobile phones, and the Internet, there has been a growing interest in issues of accessibility, i.e. information technology such as devices and networks that are accessible to individuals with disabilities, or that work compatibly with standard assistive technology. However, most research on assistive technologies as well as on issues of accessibility of off-the-shelf consumer technology has been conducted in the context of wealthy societies with good public infrastructure. Much less attention has been paid to designing and producing appropriate and affordable technologies for underserved populations in low-resource areas in both industrialized and developing societies. A small and growing body of work has focused on designing new low-cost technologies, identifying implementation issues, and evaluating socioeconomic development outcomes within underserved populations. As shown in wealthier population groups, accessible information technologies have the potential to mitigate some of the structural barriers faced by people with disabilities in education, employment, health and civic engagement. These opportunities for increased participation not only impact the socioeconomic status of those with disabilities but also further the cause of an equitable and accessible public sphere. Potential socioeconomic development outcomes are particularly important in the context of poverty and exclusion in underserved communities where public support systems for persons with disabilities are weak or non-existent. The aim of this special issue is to provide a forum for research and practice on the design, development, and role of information technology in the context of disabilities in underserved communities, and the impact this has on social and economic development. Topics may include but are not limited to: - Design, development, and implementation of low-cost, accessible IT for underserved populations - Impact of accessible IT on poverty among people with disabilities - IT as a vehicle for decreasing inequities in education and employment for people with disabilities in underserved communities - Facilitators and barriers to the use of IT by people with disabilities in underserved communities - National and international policies and standards issues related to accessible IT - Multi-agency coordination, advocacy, and information sharing related to accessible IT in underserved populations Deadline for submissions of papers: June 18, 2010 Notification of initial acceptances: July 31, 2010 Deadline for revised papers: September 15, 2010 Notification of final acceptances: October 31, 2010 Deadline for final versions: December 1, 2010 Tentative Publication Date: March 2011 Authors are invited to submit original research papers or views from practice using the journal submission and reviewing Web site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/itd. *Important Note: *The submission must be anonymous — the uploaded document may not contain any author information. During the submission process, authors must select “Special Issue – Technology and Disability” when they submit their manuscripts to ensure it gets to the right reviewers. Authors must simultaneously email an electronic copy of their paper to all three special edition editors, email addresses below. Authors must refer to the submission guidelines to review the dimensions and types of submissions first at: http://itd.ist.unomaha.edu/submissionguide.htm Joyojeet Pal, NYU-Poly, joyojeetATpoly.edu Becky Matter, University of Washington, bmatterATuw.edu H. Roland Weistroffer, Virginia Commonwealth University, hrweistrATvcu.edu

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help a cool ngo build a web presence
by Yaw Anokwa 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

margaret is a former uw alum (and track star) who did some work with partners in health and the clinton foundation in rwanda. she's launched a project which advances education of girls in rwanda by providing both mentorship and financial support to girls for whom secondary education is otherwise not possible. she needs some help building a web presence and i can guarantee that she is a blast to work with! if interested, her email is below... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Margaret Butler <margaretjabutler(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 16:59 Subject: Website question! I have a question/request. I figured you would know some student or person who would be able to build a website for my little organization - Komera (http://is.gd/bsYZl) We don't have much money and need someone who can build something on wordpress so we can edit it as we go along. We have the complete design, pictures and content all set but need someone to actually build the site. I figure there might be some student out there who would be willing to do it!!

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Health Info Systems Specialist for Thailand
by Yaw Anokwa 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

Planet Care/Global Health Access Program Opening: Health Information Systems Coordinator. Full-time in Mae Sot, Thailand. Planet Care/Global Health Access Program is a small, non-profit organization working to improve the well-being of communities in crisis, through the provision of health and public health services, capacity building, and resource enhancement. Their work currently focuses on Burma. Projects include malaria control, reproductive health, tuberculosis, trauma and landmine injury management, and population-based surveys on health and human rights. For more information please visit www.ghap.org. Seeking a Health Information Systems Coordinator to work in field office. Key responsibilities include: · Set the vision for health information systems (HIS) and public health training and HIS-related technical support for GHAP's partners · Develop and maintain training curricula and handbooks, conduct training, and provide focused one-on-one training to build the capacity of local staff on: o Health information systems o Public health and basic epidemiology and biostatistics o Monitoring and evaluation o Designing databases in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access o Designing data collection forms o Writing program indicators o Managing data entry and cleaning and validating data o Calculating program indicators using program data o Interpreting indicators to track progress towards program goals and objectives · Build the capacity of local staff to conduct training on the topics above themselves · Facilitate standardization of health information systems among GHAP's partners · Assist with implementation of cross-sectional surveys focused on morbidity, mortality, and human rights, including: o Assisting with design survey instruments o Assisting with design of sampling frames and sampling methodology o Conducting sample size calculations o Training of surveyors o Debriefing of surveyors o Cleaning and analyzing cross-sectional survey data in Stata o Summarizing of survey results in written internal reports · Interface and coordinate with community-based organizations, NGOs, donors, and other agencies · Supervise GHAP fellows and local staff working on HIS, public health training, or surveys · Assist with writing grant proposals, narrative and financial reports for HIS-related grants · Be prepared to work on unexpected tasks that arise as needed and remain open to evolving nature of projects and responsibilities Dates and work week: The position will begin on or around June 1, 2010 and continuing for a minimum of two years, longer preferred. Required Qualifications: · Relevant academic qualifications (MPH or related field) · Very strong computer skills, including a working knowledge of Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, and Stata · Experience designing databases, cleaning and validating data · Experience designing survey instruments · Knowledge of internationally used public health indicators · Experience with capacity building · Training and/or teaching experience · Fluency in written and spoken English · Willing to travel within Thailand up to 25% of the time Preferred Qualifications: · Working knowledge of Visual Basic and SQL · Knowledge of sampling methods and sample size calculations · Proficiency in Burmese, Karen, and/or Thai · Knowledge of Burma · Knowledge of delivering health care to displaced persons in conflict zones Success Factors: · A high level of patience in teaching complex concepts to people with limited English skills · Ability to quickly and independently find solutions to problems that arise · Ability to manage and complete numerous simultaneous tasks with a high degree of organization and limited resources · Ability to establish priorities in a time sensitive environment and meet deadlines with strong attention to detail and quality · Ability to navigate complex interpersonal situations and relationships · Have or be prepared to quickly develop a strong understanding of the local cultural and political context and be able to work successfully within these contexts Application Process: Candidates should send a CV and covering email explaining why they are interested in this position and why they are a good candidate to info(a)ghap.org by April 30, 2010. Only short listed candidates will be contacted. Compensation: Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications. In addition, one round trip airfare to Bangkok per year, evacuation and health insurance, and visa-related expenditures will be provided.

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Fwd: GHDonline Health IT expert panel - April 19-30, 2010
by Yaw Anokwa 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rosenthal, Anat <Anat_Rosenthal(a)hms.harvard.edu> Date: Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 14:30 Subject: GHDonline Health IT expert panel - April 19-30, 2010 To: "change-owner(a)change.washington.edu" <change-owner(a)change.washington.edu> GHDonline.org is pleased to announce its first Health IT Expert Panel, “Health IT for Disaster Relief and Rebuilding: Lessons from post-earthquake Haiti.” April 19-30, 2010 www.ghdonline.org/tech/ Join the members and moderators of the Health IT online community in discussing innovations and lessons learned with expert panelists: Josh Nesbit, FrontlineSMS:Medic Eduardo Jezierski, InSTEDD John Brooks, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders To participate please join the Health IT community on GHDonline.org at www.ghdonline.org/tech/ and set your notifications to “per post” or “digest” to join the conversation by email. Launched by the Global Health Delivery Project in July 2008, GHDonline.org is a web-based collaboration platform where more than 2,600 professionals and students from 950+ organizations across 124 countries share proven practices, connect with colleagues, and find resources they need to improve health outcomes in resource-limited settings. Members exchange practical tools and advice in one or several public communities, each guided by a team of experts and focused on a specific issue in health care delivery. ***** Anat Rosenthal, PhD Research Fellow Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and Global Health Delivery Project Harvard Medical School 641 Huntington Ave. Boston MA 02115 (617) 432 7304 The Global Health Delivery Project globalhealthdelivery.org | ghdonline.org | twitter.com/ghdonline

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Change Forum - Post questions for next week!
by Eleanor O'Rourke 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

Hi Everyone, This is a reminder to post your questions for our panel discussion next week to the new Change Forum. The panel will consist of Change members with experience working in developing countries, and they will be answering questions about their experiences and whether they've found that ICT projects are having any impact on development. Posting questions is a great way to let panel members know what you are most interested in hearing about. Post your questions as comments under the heading "Are ICTD Projects Really Helping?". Check it out at: URL: uwchange.posterous.com Password: uwchange (you should only need to enter this once) See you all next Thursday, at 12pm in PAC 203

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