Internet and Communication Tech Investment Needed To Bridge Digital Divide
Policies in some developing countries are creating obstacles to the benefits they could realize from advancing Internet and communications technologies (ICT), a new report finds.
A failure by these governments to implement strategies to foster broadband communication is helping maintain the digital divide between developed and emerging nations, authors of the 2013 Global Information Technology Report say.
May 2nd, 2013
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Low-Cost Devices Keeping Babies Warm or Cool in Developing Countries
We get cold, we put on a sweater. Too hot? Take off a layer. Temperature regulation for most of us means just adding or shedding clothing. But it’s a much more serious situation for babies, particularly newborns. Hot and cold could mean the difference between life and death.
Brain damage and disorders such as cerebral palsy can occur when babies are deprived of oxygen before birth. Some of the most common causes for oxygen to be cut off from foetuses are when there’s a knot of the umbilical cord or a problem develops in the womb with the placenta.
Extended cooling, though, can prevent brain injury. But with equipment costing $12,000, such measures are not always an option in developing countries.
April 3rd, 2013
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Nonprofit Funds Needed Medical Procedures with Crowd Donations
It feels wrong to write it, but in a lot ways, finding the right nonprofit to make a charitable donation is like shopping for clothes. You want to find something that fits. You want it to last. And you want a good price. The only real difference is that the product improves someone else’s life rather than your own.
No one seems to know this better than the people behind the new crowd-funding project Watsi. On the group’s website, people can pool small donations (as low as five dollars) to cover the cost of urgent medical procedures for those who need it around the developing world. And just like Kickstarter, and every other project to have exploded from that creative nucleus, Watsi turns donors into consumers in a most ingenious way—by inviting them to browse detailed descriptions of each medical situation and profiles of the people waiting for treatment, and then to select one for a direct donation.
The project has been so successful and people are donating at such a pace that Chase Adam, the man who came up with it, says most of his energy is spent trying to find new patients to put up on the site. And now, only six months after it was established, Watsi is getting attention from investors. In January, Y Combinator, a prestigious incubator for emerging web and technology companies, accepted Watsi as its first nonprofit, bestowing on them a $17,000 grant and access to a highly influential community of investors and advisors.
February 7th, 2013
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