We’re currently working on WHO Europe Region’s social media strategy and the design of pilot campaigns for this years World Health Day on ‘healthy ageing’ as well as WHO’s immunization programme. We’ve kicked off with staff interviews to gain insight and jointly develop objectives .. we’ll present findings to the Executive Committee on 24 January. Our high-level strategy for the Reproductive Health Matters journal has also been approved, so we can now begin developing an implementation plan to better engage with readers as well as attracting new, younger audiences. Meanwhile we have also begun developing a plan for a global community of practice on infection control. More on all of these three exciting projects later..
The New Year has got off to a great start here at M4ID, with news that the Finnish Government Technology and Innovation Fund (TEKES) has awarded us a grant to expand and grow to meet the increasing demand for our services. We’ll be working on this strategy over the next 11 months and look forward to an exciting new phase for M4ID. Thank you TEKES!
We hosted a very lively and well-received social media and mobile technology workshop in New Delhi this week, with 55 participants from women’s and youth SRRH/maternal health NGOs from across India. It was a great group and we learnt a lot from the exchange of ideas and experiences. The workshop was part of our three-year MacArthur Foundation project, and we will be supporting a number of organizations in their future new communication technology efforts. The Ford Foundation, whose grantees and staff also participated, announced that they would like to support the continued learning in this areas and may host a similar session in six months time..we are also building a platform to bring participants together and encourage sharing amongst this group . .exciting!
Check out this video highlighting the model we used in our recent small, inexpensive yet successful campaign for increased awareness of Dalit human rights.. we reached the campaign target of 6000 signed and sent appeals within three days!
Editors of this article in Venture Beat take a sneak peak at Aakash. The 7-inch android tablet, entirely produced in India, will be distributed at a government subsidized price of $35, making it the world’s cheapest Android device. The Indian government aims to put between 10-12 million of these in the hands of students across India by the end of 2012, according to Computer World. Pretty amazing.
We’re this week focusing on developing a social media and mobile situation analysis for India, as a foundation for our India NGO consultations in December. This is one of the first activities we are carrying out as part of the three-year MacArthur Foundation grant we were awarded to support women’s health organizations in leveraging new technology. We are also beginning work with Reproductive Health Matters, the technical journal for reproductive and maternal health. We will support them in reaching new audiences and providing more of their amazing content online. To work!
We’re pleased to have been asked by WHO EURO to build the capacity of their technical health experts in using social media in their work. The task includes, in addition to skills training, setting the foundations for a new organizational strategy. We are also working on a “vision paper”, ie what could WHO and its working environment look like if the organization harnessed communication technology to its fullest? More on this later.
