Technology for the Developing and Third's topics - tribe.net

Barefoot College

boxeswithknobs — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 09:40:59 GMT

Hi, I saw a television program recently which mentioned the work of Bunker Roy, not sure if anyone here is familiar with his work, I didn't see anything after doing a search.

www.barefootcollege.org/

www.iht.com/articles/200.../edbunker.php

www.indianngos.com/people/bunkerroy.htm

I'm impressed by his efforts to take basic knowledge and techniques directly to the people, as opposed to allowing multi-national corps to act as middlemen.

M.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Payment Systems

johnpowers — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 05:27:25 GMT

Emeka Okafor's blog Timbuktu Chronicles is really a great resource for those interested in technology for the developing world.

http://timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com/2006/11/mobile-atms.html links to an article http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39163413,00.htm about a payment system using phone cards.

Sente is a way of sending money from one individual to another - Western Union without the infrastructure, if you like.

The money sender buys a mobile top-up voucher from their local seller. Only they don't top up their mobile, they top up that of their local village middleman, say, with $5-worth of credit. The middleman takes out his commission and passes on what's left on the top up as cash to Person A's friend, relative, creditor, whoever, in another village somewhere else in Uganda.

This is a great idea to the difficult problem of sending money where few people have bank accounts.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Micro loans

Lazarus_Long — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 05:05:09 GMT

I took note recently of the Nobel Peace Prize, the issue was Micro Loans. It is a good idea long overdue for those of us that feel the bureaucracies are inefficient and make our donations meaningless. Welcome to the modern era of international internet P2P loans and it is not even a Nigerian Spam Scam.

http://ascendalliance.org/page.php?microfranchises

http://www.grameenfoundation.org/welcome/muhammad_yunus/?gclid=CJ--_vnGp4gCFQ5PHgodQEg_5w

And then there was tonight's Frontline segment on PBS about a new start up in international P2P microloans; http://www.kiva.org/ Kiva.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/index.html

Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/

Watch the segment, share the idea and participate as you can. Perhaps this is a real way make the world better one person at a time and make banks compete to do the right thing.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

TechSoup Online Event--Wikis and Nonprofits November 1-3 is happening NOW

Susan — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:59:40 GMT

Apologies in advance for any inadvertent cross-postings…

The online event on wikis and nonprofits is happening now in the TechSoup community: http://www.techsoup.org/wikievent

--------------------------------

It will be going on this week, November 1-3 in the TechSoup Community. Please feel free to stop by and participate and we would also appreciate it if you would spread the word to your friends and colleagues.

Here is the announcement, please feel free to forward it to your lists:

--------------------------------------------------------------

SPECIAL TECHSOUP ONLINE EVENT – WIKIS AND NONPROFITS

--------------------------------------------------------------

Join us in the TechSoup Community, November 1-3, for a free, three-day online event about wikis, a powerful new collaboration technology that could change the way you work . Visit www.techsoup.org/
wikievent

You do not need to register, just show up to post and read the messages, in the TechSoup forums during the 1st-3rd of November and discuss wikis and how nonprofits can use them.

This event will be hosted by Adam Frey of Wikispaces and other wiki experts, users and designers. We will answer questions like:
*what is a wiki?
*How do wikis work?
*How would my nonprofit use one?
*And how do I build or energize a community around my wiki?

You will come away with practical tips, quick tricks, models, resources, and tools for bringing the collaborative technologies of wiki applications to your own organization. Bring your wiki questions and examples with you! We hope to see you there.

http://www.techsoup.org/wikievent

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

RED ALERT : SKILLS GAP – A LOOMING THREAT TO INDIA INC & THE STUDENT COMMUNITY

DevelopmentInitiative — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:56:13 GMT

The education system in the majority of Indian education institutions
has for long suffered from crippling deficiencies. This has resulted in
a steady stream of graduates ill-prepared to face the challenges of a
real job. This has been variously termed as "skills gap" or
"talent deficit". Traditionally, industry has tackled the skills
gap by conducting elaborate training programmes. But suddenly, the
skills gap issue has begun assuming demonic proportions to the extent
of potentially proving to be one of the prime reasons to severely dent
India's competitiveness in the global economy. The reason for the
panic button being pressed is because the skills gap issue has squarely
impacted the fledgling outsourcing industry. The simple reason for this
is because a skills shortage in India will force companies to limit
their India operations & explore opportunities in other developing
countries which are equally / more competitive - cost wise. This will
obviously result in reduced job opportunities within the country & is
thus a matter of concern to the student community in equal measure as
it is to the Indian industry.

The aim of this posting is to discuss various facets of this emerging
threat to India Inc. In order to enable an informed discussion,
relevant facts & analyses culled from various authoritative sources are
given below :

1. McKinsey report on "Extending India's leadership of the global
IT & BPO industries"
(http://www.mckinsey.com/ideas/articles/Nasscom_3_Executive_summary.pdf).

India's economic growth will be greatly accelerated if the India
based IT & BPO industries sustain their global leadership & are able to
generate approximately US$60 billion inexport revenues by 2010.At this
level, these two industries alone can contribute 1% per year to GDP
growth for the next five years. India's offshoring industries could
well become one of the world's great export industries at par with
France's luxury goods industry, Japan's automotive sector &
Taiwan's electronics manufacturing cluster.

Currently only about 25% of technical graduates & 10 - 15% of general
college graduates are suitable for employment in the offshore IT & BPO
industries respectively. As countries from around the world enter the
market & competition for offshoring contracts intensify, India must
improve the quality & skills of its workforce.

India will need a 2.3 million strong IT & BPO workforce by 2010 to
maintain its current market share. Our supply projections indicate a
potential shortfall of nearly 0.5 million qualified employees.

2. http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=28821
Much has been said about India's great IT manpower edge and the vast
pool of skilled professionals that are available to the high-growth
IT-ITES sectors. Today, even India's burgeoning population, with 50
percent people in the average age of 25 years and below, is emerging as
a major asset for the nation. It is being said that with such a large
group of people in the working age group category, India is unlikely to
face any manpower crunch in the future.
This is of course the rosy side of the picture. The facts however, show
that this large body of people is not directly employable and needs to
be transformed into "suitable" offshore talent, before it can be
used by the country's technology industries.

3. http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=1071
"To meet the targeted revenue of $50 billion, the software and services
industry would require a manpower of 2.1 million by 2008 from the
current 800,000 people. However, against the demand of 2.1 million, the
industry can employ only 1.1 million by 2008," quoting a McKinsey
estimate, Mr Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom said while addressing
the first ever HR Summit 'Nasscom HR Summit 2004' here.

4. http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=16735
"I congratulate the Indian IT industry for achieving $33.6 billion
business for the 2006 from $28 billion in 2005. It is notable that the
NASSCOM is aiming to achieve $60 billion by 2010." After a brief pause,
the President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, asked the delegates, "How about
achieving $200 billion?"

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Dean Kamen's new projects

phil — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:03:15 GMT

For clean water and energy generation :

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/16/technology/business2_futureboy0216/index.htm

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

third world/ second superpower

Alex — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:33:18 GMT

I think Ethan Zuckerman's essay

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001027.html

on bringing the third world into the second superpower is really, really worth reading... check it out.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 9 replies

Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

miketreder — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 13:38:08 GMT

Last week I attended an Expert Group Meeting titled "North-South Dialogue on Nanotechnology: Challenges and Opportunities." This meeting was organized by the International Centre for Science and High Technology (ICS), an Institute of the United Nations operating in the framework of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

For more info, see http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/02/challenges_and_.html

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 3 replies

Gandhi's Economics

kanch_bud — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 01:21:05 GMT

I want to educate myself about Gandhi's economics. Can anyone help with links, assessments, distinctions?

Does it work? Is it working? How has it been implemented?
What are the downsides and benefits of it?
How might it apply to non-Indian contexts and economies?

Rgds and Thanks,

Paul Bard

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Web Plan

timsi — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:16:15 GMT

Hi All

I have put a BLOG on my profile called ESSENTIAL CONTENTS OF A WEB PLAN. Any suggestion to that or how do you like it?

Thanks

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

The Mad Genius from the Bottom of the Sea

justsayjo — Mon, 30 May 2005 14:06:55 GMT

found this on another tribe, but it is quite cool:

"Unlimited energy. Fast-growing fruit. Free air-conditioning. John Piña Craven says we can have it all by tapping the icy waters of the deep"

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.06/craven.html

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

any pointers on this?

Ulysses — Thu, 19 May 2005 18:44:22 GMT

Back in 2000-2001 time frame I saw an article that was outlining Fiorinia's business strategy where she was about to leverage the markets of third world by designing and selling products to cater to their needs. One such example quoted in the article was selling handheld devices to Indian fishermen which will give them satellite images and information on fish resources in the ocean.

The article even had a name for this business logic wherein products that are not so expensive and could be sold to the third world markets to benefit them.

Well Fiorina is out now but I am still very curious about this Business logic that was proposed back then. Does anyone have any idea of the article(maybe in Businessweek) that I am referring to? I very much want to also know the exact name for this business logic that they had coined.

I really appreciate any pointers or help from anyone. Thanks in advance.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 1 reply

Based in the developing world..for the developing world....

caguide — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 01:53:51 GMT

Based in the developing world..for the developing world....

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posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Technology to the Aid of Tsunami Victims

chaiguy — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:22:47 GMT

I was wondering if anyone had any information on how technology was being used to help the victims of the Tsunami?

I was thinking that the MIOX water purification system would be of great use in this situation due to it's affordability, portablility and ease of use. Any thoughts?

http://www.miox.com/News/CDI_MIOX_License.html

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 4 replies

STB Chip Showcases the World's First Rechargeable Smart Battery

electricbrave — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:00:34 GMT

STB Chip Showcases the World's First Rechargeable Smart Battery (MPB 4000)
for Mobile Phones and Mobile Devices at Consumer Electronics Show 2005

SEOUL, KOREA—(PR Newswire)—January 7, 2005—STB Chip Corporation (STBX: PK), a smart battery chipset company, has developed the world’s first portable cellular phone-use smart battery pack that extends talk-time battery life for mobile handsets by 800 percent. The company will showcase products at the Consumer Electronics Show 2005 beginning January 6 in Las Vegas, NV.

The technology users can charge their cellular phones or other mobile devices while on the move, regardless of where they are. The smart battery pack, with an estimated lifecycle of five years, will sell at $60 per pack.

MPB 4000, about the size of a mobile handset, is a high capacity portable rechargeable battery system. The lithium-ion cell portable battery pack has power capacity of 4,600-mAh, about fourfold the 1,000-1,300-mAh capacity of regular rechargeable battery of cell phones. The greater the capacity, the longer the battery life.

The product is a smart battery that displays an accurate amount of reserve energy held by the battery. Customers can tell how much power remains in the battery pack by the light-emitting diode (LED) battery power gauge.

Equipped with an integrated circuit (IC) microchip, MPB 4000 identifies its chemistry and tells the charger which charge algorithm to apply while protecting the battery from overcharging, under-discharging and short-circuiting.

``Demand for external rechargeable battery packs will surge in the future as countries launch digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) services. As current rechargeable batteries only support roughly two hours of continuous use time, DMB phone users definitely feel the need for a portable battery pack that extends the battery life of their handsets,’’ said Sung Ki-suk, CEO of STB Chip.

``U.S. companies and service providers have shown significant interest in our product. Japanese mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo has also expressed interest in purchasing our new products with an initial order of approximately 60,000 units,’’ Sung added.

Sung expects to export as many as one million units of the portable mobile battery pack to North America and Northern Europe next year. The company is currently in negotiations with large discount chain stores in the USA.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Massive Change

spam — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 01:42:44 GMT

So, Ivana & I went to the Vancouver Art Museum this weekend and checked out the exhibit there called Massive Change. It's an exploration into the themes discussed in the book by the same name, and looks into the question "Now that we can do anything, what will we do?"

The associated website is www.massivechange.com

It presents a reaasonably hopeful view of the future, pointing out possibilities that good design can bring to our world. Given that we now or soon will have the capabilities to effect massive changes on the world and on every aspect of life, how do we make the right choices to make the world a better place? We are on the cusp of being able to completely transform and redesign our cities, our economies & markets, our methods of transportation & movement, the distribution of materials, labor, information and wealth and even life itself, which means we have a lot of decisions as a culture to make to determine what the future will look like.

It also focused quite a bit on the emergence of the third world, and particularly how properly designed technology can have a truly profound impact on the lives of people in rural third world areas that we in the first world can only barely comprehend.

The main focus is the application of good design to systems, to consider the lifetime of objects, materials and energy that we use in our lives, to minimize the impact of their creation, maximize their utility and efficiency during their use, and recycling or reclaiming them when they're done.

Neat stuff. A lot of it I've run across before, a lot I had either not seen or thought about. Seeing a lot of it in one place presented as a holistic, interrelated set of problems and solutions was enlightening. For me, the best part was the discussion of urban systems and transportation, which itself was a good lead in to exhibits about energy for the first world as well as the third world.

It's art. It's science. It's design. It's cool.

The whole thing had the wild, breathless look & feel of an issue of Wired Magazine, which can get annoying after a while, and I wish that the exhibit on new materials was more interactive; it was frustrating to just look at some of these materials and not be able to touch them. And it was just a bit too optimistic, but I suppose that's a nice change from all the depressing projections of the future that seem so popular today.

Anyway, if any of you wind up in Vancouver over the next month or so, you might consider checking it out. It runs through Jan 3rd there, then it's on to Toronto.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 2 replies

China stories

semira — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 18:33:27 GMT

Anyone know of any positive stories of renewable energy/sust. dev. implementation in China?

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 1 reply

Any Help

timsi — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:13:22 GMT

Hi All

I'm a freelancer in web technologies. Anyone needs any help related to Website or Web application, let me know as I'll be more than happy to help them out from their problems.

Ciao

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 9 replies

New Sudan documentary

euboia — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 10:23:21 GMT

There is a new documentary about Sudan coming out soon:
http://www.insightnewstv.com/refugees

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Sustainable Development Contacts in Asia?

Davis — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:05:44 GMT

Hi Everybody,

I will be travelling to Southeast Asia{thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia}, this fall/winter. I am wondering if anbody has contacts or first hand experience with projects in this region?

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

www.nanoaging.com news about technology

Jonathan — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 05:13:13 GMT

www.nanoaging.com news about technology

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 1 reply

Old inkjet = new biotech dispenser

ladygoat — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 18:51:55 GMT

I came across this article in the last Science issue. This idea could be great for developing countries who don't have much in the way of fancy biotech machines for their research labs ... use discarded inkjets!

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5692/1895

"Don't throw away that out-of-date inkjet printer. Older model inkjets, although lacking in the newest bells and whistles, are finding second lives as inexpensive robots that can dependably dispense minuscule amounts of growth factors and other proteins and even whole cells, in any pattern, gradient, or grid that can be drawn."

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

heyy guys check out http://connexions.rediff.com

jeev — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 09:15:48 GMT

heyy guys check out http://connexions.rediff.com

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 1 reply

open source technology in Southeast Asia

Albert — Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:07:58 GMT

Hi!.
I am interested in any resources or experiences regarding implementig open source solutions in countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc.

For instance, how many hospitals, relief organizations, NGO's or even local
um .... information networks ...
are using or looking for help using FreeBSD or Linux?

Any pointers or personal experiences wqould be
very helpful.

Thanks!

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 4 replies

Internet Access

jorene — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 21:32:55 GMT

After interning at an academic library, I have become impressed at the availibity of information access in America. It was interesting to find that internet access in some regions is often slow and the costs are very expensive, because they often use dial-up. It makes you feel lucky to live place that has fast access to information, and makes one want to laugh a people who complain about slow internet connections.

What are your thoughts?

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 10 replies

Smart Mobs for Parecon

Sébastien — Mon, 14 Jun 2004 06:14:35 GMT

A scalable social network system using Smart Mobs infrastructure like phones and text messaging can be used for participatory economics:

1) In this system, goods and services are produced according to a plan developed by an iterative procedure of democratic, participatory consumers and producers councils. Smart mobs could optimize the communications and participation at this level.

2) Parecon businesses could use smart mobs by creating a pool of job offers and demands to distribute balanced job complexes in a decentralized way.

I would like to get in touch with people interested in making this an opensource sourceforge project so if you are, or know any one or any anarchist tech collectives that might be interested, let's talk about it/contact me/join the "Participatory Economics" tribe.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

thinkCycle

sarahboyd — Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:23:51 GMT

check it out:
http://www.thinkcycle.org

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 4 replies

Reuse in the third world

RogerLai — Thu, 02 Oct 2003 18:17:32 GMT

"technology" today in our market seems to be disposable. One of the things that struck me about my travels in Southeast Asia last year was the incredible amount of reuse and recycling that went on. A lot of trash was used in creative ways, and their television sets were often repaired rather than replaced. But then maybe that had something to do with being a backpacker travelling on a budget and seeing the more impovershed parts.

With first-world products developed to be disposable, will there be third-world versions made to be reusable/repairable?

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 8 replies

Yo Soy El Presidente!

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 18:45:52 GMT

Mis amigos, he venido una manera larga aquí de decirle sobre la necesidad de la tecnología y la infraestructura en Colombia. El gobierno actual allí debajo de presidente Uribe es muy corrupto y nos estamos destruyendo lentamente. Soy seguro que usted sabe sobre el problema de la droga. ¿El problema con las DROGAS es HUGE..So nos dejó trabaja junto muy bien? Envíeme un mensaje que le diré cómo donar a mi causa.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 5 replies

journalist seeks geeky mentoring stories

Carla — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 23:37:02 GMT

Hi - I'm a journalist writing for software developers at http://developers.sun.com/toolkits/ and now I'm researching a story on technical mentorship/mentoring in large corporations. If you've got one or a lead to one please let me know, I'd love to interview you. Thanks much!
Carla King

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Worldchanging

Alex — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 02:33:40 GMT

Folks in this tribe might find our new site, http://www.worldchanging.org, worth checking out. It's a group blog about tools for building sustainability, democracy and open systems. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

Simputer blog

phil — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 13:55:39 GMT

Hi,

I found a blog dedicated to the simputer

Could be interesting.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies

solor wifi

norcalbarney — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 05:32:37 GMT

I'm imagining a little solor powered box with batteries, a small computer and a couple wifi cards with external antennae. I'd like them to be tied to a tree and self organise into a usable network, hopefully with interneto access. It seems like it should be doable for $500 per today, and 1/3rd that in a year. It's all about chips and batteries, baby.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 1 reply

"Appropriate Technology"

sarahboyd — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 20:34:39 GMT

From the mechanical engineering perspecitive:

"Appropriate Technology" is a term used to describe mechancial systems which can be built and maintained in-situ in the third world, and which serve to build local entrepreneurialism, improve health, life, etc.

here is an organization which is doing excellent work:
http://www.approtec.org

Also awesome - Ralf Hotchkiss, a prof at SFSU who applies "appropriate" tech to wheelchairs.

http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/

and theres lots more out there too p.s. I don't personally like the term "appropriate techonology" because it sounds oddly condescending. Especially when universities in the U.S. run classes about "appropriate technology" which are taught entirely in the U.S. and not in the environment of intended use. It's contradictory to the whole concept. But what can you do.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 2 replies

home power pdf's

norcalbarney — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 05:39:08 GMT

did you know you can download the current issue of Home Power magazine from thier website? The link is http://www.homepower.com/magazine/downloads_current_issue.cfm

I think that's pretty cool.

posted in Technology for the Developing and Third - 0 replies