- change - Mailing Lists

change logo
by Yaw Anokwa 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

hey all, i get a fair number of requests for the change logo so i've put a link to high resolution versions (jpg, png, pdf) at http://change.washington.edu/participate/. yaw

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CommCare and Dimagi Awarded USAID Innovation Ventures Grant
by Yaw Anokwa 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

CommCare <http://commcare.cs.washington.edu/> is a mobile tool designed by UW-CSE graduate student Brian DeRenzi<http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bderenzi/>to help strengthen and monitor community health programs. The project was recently awarded one of eight development innovation ventures grants from USAID. The grant will support the continued effort by Dimagi <http://www.dimagi.com/commcare/> to adapt the CommCare platform for wide-scale use within the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) program in India. Read more at http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2010/pr101008.html. Congrats to the entire CommCare team!

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Part-time oppty for PHP programmer
by Ed Lazowska 19 Oct '10

19 Oct '10

Paul Javid is an excellent undergraduate alum of ours who worked with Tapan Parikh and me on developing world activities, then went to b-school at Berkeley -- not because he wanted to be a businessperson, but because he wanted to learn how to create sustainable initiatives in the developing world. He's looking for part-time PHP programmers. Hi All, I'm a '06 UW-CSE grad, and I'm looking for a passionate computer science student to help me out with some work that I'm involved in. This is a paid opportunity at fair market price. There are two projects we need help with: 1) I have been building a micro-donation site for monafoundation.org -- similar to vitanna.org or kiva.org, but with tight integration with facebook connect. We need your help cleaning up the codebase, and working on a couple new features with facebook. 2) The other project is a site that we are building that pulls information from facebook's social graph and provides useful information back to our users. In both cases, I am looking for a proficient PHP programmer preferably familiar with Facebook's api who is available part time and is capable of working independently. This is a great opportunity for a student to work a couple large-scale projects, with a great team, and put some great experience on their resume. We will pay fair, and are willing to work with you to define a fair rate. Please contact me at paul.javid(a)gmail.com Thanks for your help. Cheers, Paul

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Ken Pawlak and Fredrik Winsnes on Mobile Applications for Developing Markets
by Eleanor O'Rourke 19 Oct '10

19 Oct '10

This Thursday at Change, Ken Pawlak and Fredrik Winsnes from the Microsoft Startup Business Group will be presenting their work with Microsoft OneApp. Specifically, they will be discussing the core economic drivers of the mobile handset ecosystem and how these need to be factored when designing mobile apps for use by humanitarian organization in developing markets. They have completed trials of their system in Kenya, Mozambique, and China and can answer questions about these experiences. What: Ken Pawlak and Fredrik Winsnes on Mobile Applications for Development When: Thursday, October 21 at noon Where: Paul Allen Center, Room 203

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Today's discussion
by Nicola Dell 15 Oct '10

15 Oct '10

Hi everyone Thanks for coming to today's Change discussion. For those interested, I have attached the slides from today's discussion. Also, here is a link to the cellscope project: http://cellscope.berkeley.edu/ and another link to an article about the automated pulse measurements: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/pulse-camera-1004.html Thanks Nicki

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UW CSE Colloq / 10-19-10 / Flaxman / UW Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation / Computational Social Science in Medicine
by Yaw Anokwa 15 Oct '10

15 Oct '10

abie is doing really exciting work at ihme. this should be a great talk! ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Connie Ivey-Pasche <connie(a)cs.washington.edu> Date: Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 13:47 Subject: [Cs-grads] UW CSE Colloq / 10-19-10 / Flaxman / UW Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation / Computational Social Science in Medicine To: talks - Mailing List <talks(a)cs.washington.edu>, faculty - Mailing List <faculty(a)cs.washington.edu>, cs-grads - Mailing List <cs-grads(a)cs.washington.edu>, cs-staff - Mailing List <cs-staff(a)cs.washington.edu> Tuesday of next week ... UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Computer Science and Engineering COLLOQUIUM SPEAKER: Abie Flaxman, UW Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation TITLE: Computational Social Science in Medicine DATE: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 TIME: 3:30pm PLACE: EEB-105 HOST: Anna Karlin ABSTRACT: "Medicine is a social science", this has been the mantra of public health since 1848. Today, medicine is a computational social science. In this talk, I'll give an overview of the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), and describe some of its many algorithmic challenges. GBD is a systematic effort to produce estimates of how 200+ diseases, injuries, and risk factors impact people around the world. Naturally, there are a lot of numbers to crunch. But you may be surprised to learn how many of the relevant numbers are missing. And the numbers we do have often don't add up. This is where we need computational tools, and where we leverage research from probability theory and machine learning, as well as economics and political science. I'll give you a quick tour of the interdisciplinary area that is Health Metrics. BIO: Abraham Flaxman was trained a theoretical computer scientist in the Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization program at CMU, but has recently "changed fields", which is to say learned how interesting global health research is and how important computer science skills are in that field. He is now an Assistant Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington, and instead of approximately counting colorings of random graphs he is approximately counting mosquito nets. He blogs about the computer science challenges in global health at http://healthyalgorithms.wordpress.com 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.

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This Thursday: Discussion on Computer Vision projects in ICTD
by Eleanor O'Rourke 13 Oct '10

13 Oct '10

This Thursday at Change, Nicki Dell will be leading a discussion about current projects using Computer Vision for medical applications in ICTD. She will be providing short overviews of three projects, and leading a discussion around questions inspired be this work. Projects covered will include: Cell Scope – Portable, Low-Cost Imaging for Monitoring and Disease Diagnosis (Berkeley) A system for non-contact, automated cardiac pulse measurements using video imaging and blind source separation (MIT) A system for automated spectroscopy using cell phone cameras (University of Illinois) Please join us for sandwiches, and to discuss current research in ICTD and Computer Vision! What: Discussion on Computer Vision projects in ICTD When: Thursday, October 14 at noon Where: Paul Allen Center, Room 203

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ICTD 2010 Assistive Tech session
by Gaetano Borriello 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

***************** Call for Participation Session on “Free and Open Source Approaches to Assistive Technologies in ICT4D” Held as part of ICTD2010 (http://www.ictd2010.org) London, December 16th Organisers: Ugo Vallauri, Royal Holloway University of London Joyojeet Pal, ATLAS Institute, CU Boulder and Polytechnic Institute of New York University Endorsed by Computer Aid International The context The potential of ICT4D for increased social inclusion is a recurrent theme among researchers and practitioners alike. However, little attention is dedicated to an essential aspect of inclusion: the role of assistive technologies in increasing access to information. The number of people with disabilities is dramatic: 45 million people worldwide suffer from blindness alone and 87% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries (WHO, 2009). The cost of both hardware and software assistive technology is out of reach for the vast majority of potential users, thus generating further exclusion. Over the years, a number of approaches to this problem have been attempted, from subsidising existing commercial applications, to developing ad-hoc low-cost versions of proprietary software. This session focuses however on research and developments of free and open source solutions. We are particularly interested in contributions in the following areas of free and open source developments for people with disabilities:  Presentations of Pilot projects and/or practical solutions  Case Studies  Funding Models  Agenda for urgent research  Research and Development Perspectives from the Global South  Challenge and opportunities in mobile and touch-enabled devices  Emerging policy trends Session Format The session will last 90 minutes, and will be divided in two parts. In the first half selected presenters will be introducing key themes and projects. In the second half, the session will break in smaller thematic groups discussing possible collaborations and joint research projects in the sector. Details for submission Interested participants are encouraged to submit an abstract of 300 words illustrating the topic chosen and the key aspects of their contribution. Submissions should be sent as a PDF attachment to u.vallauri(a)rhul.ac.uk Deadline for submission: November 5th Notification of acceptance: November 20th The workshop is free, however registration for ICTD 2010 is required in order to attend. Please note that the second round for scholarship applications to attend ICTD2010 closes on October 15th. Application available at: http://www.ictd2010.org

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FW: [TIER] Inveneo seeks Project Engineer
by Richard Anderson 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

________________________________ From: tier-bounces(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu [tier-bounces(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of Andris Bjornson [abjornson(a)inveneo.org] Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 6:09 PM To: tier(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu Subject: [TIER] Inveneo seeks Project Engineer Hi all, Inveneo is looking to add an engineer to our team...please pass on as appropriate. Thanks much! ................................................................ Inveneo -- a 501(c)(3) non-profit social enterprise whose mission is to connect and empower rural and underserved communities in the developing world with information and communications technologies -- is seeking a Project Engineer to join our technical team. This job requires both solid core technical skill and an ability to adapt quickly to an ever-changing work environment. To excel at this job, you’ll need to be a technical generalist with knowledge ranging from WiFi networking to solar power systems. You’ll need to learn quickly, filling in any gaps in your knowledge as you go. Finally, you’ll need to work with people from a broad range of cultural, educational, and religious backgrounds as you train our IT partners in countries around the world. Anyone can hack Linux in an air-conditioned San Francisco office, but it takes a bit more to do it in the sweltering humidity of a microfinance office in rural Sierra Leone. If you feel like you’re up to the challenge, see the detailed job description at www.inveneo.org/jobs/project-engineer<http://www.inveneo.org/jobs/project-engineer>, and send us your resume at eng-jobs(a)inveneo.org<mailto:eng-jobs@inveneo.org>. ................................................................ -- ................................................................ andris bjornson inveneo chief technology officer

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FW: UW CSE Colloq / 10-12-10 / Anderson / UW CSE / Computing and Global Health: Bridging between Health System Needs and Computing Solutions
by Richard Anderson 10 Oct '10

10 Oct '10

________________________________________ From: voting-faculty-admin(a)cs.washington.edu [voting-faculty-admin(a)cs.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Connie Ivey-Pasche [connie(a)cs.washington.edu] Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 6:25 PM To: talks - Mailing List; faculty - Mailing List; cs-grads - Mailing List; cs-staff - Mailing List Subject: UW CSE Colloq / 10-12-10 / Anderson / UW CSE / Computing and Global Health: Bridging between Health System Needs and Computing Solutions This coming week on Tuesday - UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Computer Science and Engineering COLLOQUIUM SPEAKER: Richard Anderson, UW CSE TITLE: Computing and Global Health: Bridging between Health System Needs and Computing Solutions DATE: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 TIME: 3:30pm PLACE: EEB-105 HOST: Carl Ebeling ABSTRACT: Richard Anderson is completing a year's sabbatical at PATH, a Seattle based NGO working in Global Health. As part of a nascent effort in Health Information Systems, he has been working on computing projects tied to PATH's core mission of "improving the health of people around the world by: advancing technologies, strengthening systems, and encouraging healthy behaviors". This talk will focus on the connections between the challenges of global health and the design of computing solutions. The process of spanning these domains will be illustrated by specific projects he has worked on at PATH including: - Building and deploying an application for modeling national scale vaccine refrigeration capacity, - Requirements analysis for Tuberculosis case detection and surveillance reporting in Tanzania, - Analyzing the communication needs of peripheral health facilities and deploying clinic level devices for temperature monitoring and surveillance reporting. 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.

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