What do you-all mean by "the latest ICT gadget"? Do you think it is trivial and will decline? From what I've seen all over West Africa, it is nontrivial and here to stay. We are working on how to use it for getting information to villagers, who despite their remoteness seem to have access (Ghana, e.g., has 300+ cell towers).
Sarah Blackmun-Eskow, M.A. Deputy Director Office of External Affairs Ghana Telecom University College PMB 100, Tesano-Accra, Ghana U.S. Address: 290 North Fairview Avenue Goleta CA 93117 805-692-6998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gtuc.edu.gh The narratives of the world are numberless. . . . there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative.--Roland Barthes Sarah Blackmun-Eskow President, The Pangaea Network 290 North Fairview Avenue Goleta CA 93117 805-692-6998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.pangaeanetwork.org -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel O. Escasa Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 7:30 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: Re: [DDN] Google Insights - social networking Sabi ni Jacky noong Wed, 3 Sep 2008 23:31:29 -0400: > I agree with the idea that mobile phone is the latest ICT gadget; > however, there is a lot that remains to be done in terms of broadband > penetration. You don't need much bandwidth for SMS, and there's a lot you can do with SMS. For example, the Community Heath Information System (CHITS -- http://www.apdip.net/resources/case/rnd48/view) <excerpt> In this study free and open source tools from the Linux community combined with participatory people-centric strategies were employed to enable implementation of an injury surveillance system by health workers. The project has three main components: a Short Messaging Service (SMS) for reporting injuries, training of health workers on injury surveillance and a web-based system for the graphic presentation of injury data used by decision makers. The pilot project was implemented in a poor urban village of the Philippines. SMS was selected because of its widespread penetration in the Philippines and its wireless capabilities. </excerpt> Another SMS-enabled service is B2Bpricenow (www.b2bpricenow.com), a portal that provides up-to-the-minute price updates on market information for agriculture, consumer manufactures, and industrial produce. It brings together farmers and transport providers so that the former can get information such as pricing and transport availability from the latter. In a previous post (or it might've been in another mailing list), I thought that mobile telephone carriers could tie up with The Knowledge Channel (TKC) or some similar educational TV station to provide quick quizzes to the student viewers. TKC would flash a question on screen and invite viewers to SMS in their answers, and TKC would reply to a viewer's cell phone with either "correct" or "wrong". In the latter case, it would send the correct answer. The carriers would lend their infrastructure, ideally at reduced SMS rates. So who needs 3G? <G> -- Daniel O. Escasa [EMAIL PROTECTED] contributor, Free Software Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com) personal blog at http://descasa.i.ph -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and love email again _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
