We’re very excited to be part-taking in a number of events in Delhi over the next week. We’re firstly going to be talking to the MacArthur Foundation team about new technology approaches to maternal and reproductive health. We’ll then present our vision of digital advocacy at the Global Conference on Maternal Health, as well as meeting up with WHO, UNICEF and a number of interesting social media experts, such as Gaurav Mishra. We’ll surely return with heaps of new ideas, friends and experiences!
A recent CNN article highlights interesting use of mobile technology in Rwanda, where the government has issued nearly 500 mobile phones to community health care workers in the rural Musanze district. Through a text message, health care workers can register expectant mothers with a local clinic, where doctors track their progress. Subsequent queries, complications or updates, are also sent and quickly replied to via texts.
The RapidSMS scheme may prove vital in reducing the country’s high maternal mortality rate. Since its launch last year in Musanze, there have been no reported maternal deaths in the district (compared with 10 in 2008). The next step in this UN backed campaign is to provide a further 17,000 phones to maternal health care service providers and then a further 50,000 to every health care worker in the country. Will be interesting to follow how this approach will affect the country’s mortality and morbidity rates.
The 15th Africa Union (AU) Summit, held in Kampala, Uganda, drew to a close on July 27 with its biggest commitment yet to maternal health. Talks had to be extended after as many as 30 heads of state shared the challenges of providing adequate child and maternal health service. At the closing, leaders agreed to adopt the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) as well as widening the focus on the health of newborns as well as mothers.
In addition to CARMMA, leaders renewed the 2001 Abuja Declaration which commits African countries to spend at least 15% of their national budgets on health (excluding donor contributions). It is currently only achieved by Botswana, Rwanda, Niger, Malawi, Zambia and Burkina. It was also agreed that the AU Commission explore ways in which funds pledged at the recent G8 summit could be accessed and that countries must produce annual reports on maternal and child health for future meetings.
M4ID is pleased to have been invited to speak at Mobile Africa – Europe’s largest and most innovative happening on mobile opportunities in Africa. The event includes speakers ranging from Esko Aho, Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations and Responsibility, Nokia and Hossein Moiin, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia Siemens Networks to Marlon Parker, founder of JamiiX (see below post), and Jessica Colaco, a TED fellow and founder of iHub, Kenya. This will be followed by three interactive clinics on mobile applications, solutions and supportive funding. The afternoon will be all about bringing forth the most innovative young entrepreneurs from both North Europe and various African nations (where also M4ID will be presented). A live online bridge to a parallel Mobile Web in Africa event will then be opened, launching a developer debate between Helsinki and Johannesburg. Looking forward to it!
Last night we witnessed the launch of JamiiX, a product from South-African Reconstructed Living Lab, a community organization working in Bridge Town, also know as Ugly Town. The tool came to life organically: ex gang members and drug users were supported and trained in social media, they then realized the enormous potential of drug counseling through mobile chat MxIt. The mobile based support service proved so popular that it couldn’t be sustained on MxIt, and the team pulled together to develop a tailored service – JamiiX.
JamiiX is basically a web and mobile based tool that enables users to manage multiple conversations from different social media and instant messaging platforms and to provide counseling and support services via cloud computing. The service has worked extremely well, in the first months more than 100,000 people received counseling through it. A great, inspirational example of user-led innovation.
Our 2008 campaign helped get maternal health on to the G8 agenda for the first time, and we ‘re pleased the Partnership has decided to use M4ID’s work again.
Location based service Foursquare is becoming increasingly popular, to the point of being tipped the Twitter of 2010. The mobile phone based service allows people to virtually check-in to a location and earn points, status and coupons. Because the check-in process happens when someone is physically at for example a store, the person can see ads for services or products and take immediate action.
Non-profits are also starting to take note, though there aren’t many example cases yet, Earthjustice is one early adopter though that has used it to good effect. Foursquare will come to play a key role for communicators/marketers and fundraisers over the next years. Recommend signing-up and getting on aboard soonest. Below video intros the service nicely.. we’ll post thoughts on ways to use it for social change projects over the next weeks.
Today we received the good news that our presentation abstract has been chosen from the 500 submitted for the Global Maternal Health Conference, organized in New Delhi from 30 August – 1 September. The conference focuses on new, underused and neglected programmatic approaches as well as discussing how to strengthen global advocacy. We’ll bring our experiences and thoughts on using new communication technology for advocacy and campaigning to our maternal health colleagues .. looking forward to it!
We’ve been busy gearing up for next weeks Women Deliver conference in DC, looking forward to interesting plenaries and presentations, as well as seeing new maternal health advocacy material such as the film Stories of Mothers Saved, by Christy Turlington.
Google announced through it’s blog that YouTube has launched a South Africa version. YouTube is teaming up with South African broadcasters to fill the new version with locally produced content, as well as educational content from universities, such as the Rhodes Journalism School. While YouTube is of course available to anyone on the Internet, the site has localized content across 5 continents (27 countries). However, no African country has had one, until today.
A few days back, YouTube informed the world that it has exceeded two billion video views per day. There are now also more than 24 hours worth of video uploaded every minute, and the site has become the second largest search engine. All of this, in just five years! For a bit of history, check out their birthday video below..
