For too long, we have conducted development without good information about our “customers” – the people whose lives we want to improve through our money and effort. We believe this is because developing countries often lack good statistical information on which policy-makers, donors, and private companies can base sound decisions. To date, our knowledge has mostly been limited to expensive door-to-door surveying techniques or difficult phone interviews. The proliferation of mobile phones in developing countries opens the exciting possibility of surveys reaching far fewer people for far less money and providing income for the beneficiaries themselves.

In this system, text messages would be sent to mobile phone users with one or two question surveys, perhaps about health care, education, or even consumer preferences. To provide an incentive to reply, mobile phone credits or mobile banking payments will be issued in exchange for complete surveys. Backend analysis will be used to improve credibility of the results, a task which will be made easier by the large number of people reachable using this system.

Those data can then be used by local, regional or national governments to improve service delivery, by donors and multilaterals for analysis and reporting and even by private companies interested in serving the bottom of the pyramid.

The data platform itself could also have the added benefit of spurring on the spread of cell phones and mobile banking to underserved populations. Instead of being a service they have to pay for, they can be paid to have access to these technologies and financial products.

We have conducted over one year of research to advance this concept and have determined that many of the tools already exist but have never been aligned in quite the right way. We are looking for seed capital and partners to help us launch this exciting venture.

Dana Worth and John Stephenson, the project directors, have extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. We both started our careers at private sector strategy consulting firms and now work at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a firm that applies business approaches to the challenges of development. Through our involvement with healthcare and humanitarian response works, we have been struck by how little data district, province, national and international decision-makers have at their disposal, and consequently, how many critical decisions were made based on old numbers of just plain gut-feeling.

Light Up The World (LUTW) has completed an initial prototype of a specialized LED based lighting system powered by renewable energy designed for use in medical and dental situations in the developing world. Medical and dental professionals in the developing world typically rely on fuel-based lighting systems when they are providing health care services at night. The light produced from these traditional systems is dim and diffuse, making it difficult for these professionals to provide quality care after sundown. We have designed and developed a specialized lighting system that is particularly useful for such situations when vision is critical to the success of a medical or dental procedure.

This project will act as:

• an alternative to fuel-based systems in health care situations in the third world;
• the solution for medical light in emergency aid locations in the case of an earthquake or other natural disasters where power is unavailable or unsafe;
• provide bright light;
• reduce the health risk posed by fuel-based lighting systems.

The availability of bright light from our lighting systems will enable medical and dental professionals to provide quality health care services after sundown. For example, the use of our systems in medical clinics will ensure that nighttime emergencies can occur in a bright, safe environment. Additionally, the availability of bright light from our systems will facilitate non-emergency medical care in the evenings, like community-based vaccination programs. Lastly, these lighting systems will be portable, which means that they can be moved during disaster situations ensuring that medical/dental care can be provided 24 hours a day when it is needed the most.

Large solar panel packages are expensive, require extensive training and maintenance programs, and are almost always provided to local communities free of charge through donor or government funding. Although most solar equipment is extremely reliable and include 20-25 year warranties, the lack of training, community involvement, and sense of community ownership of the equipment have resulted in over 70% of solar packages in Africa failing within five years of installation.* Through One Degree Solar, clean energy will not only be a tool for development, but a catalyst for sustainable and continued growth.

Goals

• To provide affordable, clean technology products to individual consumers, schools, health facilities, small- and medium-size businesses, NGOs, and micro-finance institutions.

• To reduce energy costs for the world’s poorest communities and create opportunities for economic growth through increased access to lighting and other energy-related prerequisites for development.

• To generate income within these communities using clean energy (crank and/or solar) products including, but not limited to, radios, phone chargers, flashlights and general lighting, and battery chargers.

• To address the market need and demand for rechargeable batteries of all sizes and battery recharging services. Using solar energy for such services would virtually eliminate operating costs, thus drastically increasing profits for store owners and lowering costs for consumers.

• To create jobs for small business owners and individuals who sell clean energy products and provide services using these products

Products Tested

• Solar powered universal battery charger; lunchbox size. Charges AAA to D size batteries used in existing radios, flashlights, and headlamps.

• Solar car battery charger; briefcase size. Car batteries are used to power small stores and homes.

• Battery powered headlamp. Cost effective lighting for health professionals, school children, as well as average individuals and families.

• Solar and crank powered radio. Radio is the primary means for government and UN to relay news.

*based on interviews with energy experts from major multilateral donor agencies

Grameen Shakti (GS)   is one of the leading renewable energy organization which has installed benefiting more than 2 million rural people .   

Key to its success is an innovative financial mechanism base  on installments . GS is also using women to carry out its activities . 

 Under the proposed project ,   GS plans to use mobile phones to facilitate collections of  installments  from rural clients .      

 Many of GS  clients are either Grameen Bank borrowers or have accounts at GB branches    

Under the proposed project  the following would be accomplished :

• Rural clients who are GB members  would be motivated to pay their installment  at  GB centers during group meetings . 
• Rural clients who have accounts   with GB would inform the bank through mobile phones to transfer the installments to GS accounts . 
• Others would be given a discount to open accounts with GB to make payments to  GS 

Installment  payment information  would transferred via mobile phones to  Grameen Shakti staff at their computers .  These information transfer would be done by  GB staff and periodically checked by  GS staffs

The success of the project who help to demonstrate the impact of  mobile phone  banking which is yet to be endorsed by the government .  It would also help to incorporate more  women more in GS activities as they would not have to visit  rural clients every month to collect installments  

Mobile technology has yet not been widely used as a low cost, high-impactway to address the dangerous co-epidemic of HIV and multi-drug resistant TB. We live at a time when mobile devices are changing people’s lives around the globe. Text-messaging, which can be received at no cost in South Africa, has the potential to serve as a powerful communication channel for spreading life saving information throughout the country. This idea is being implemented by the iTEACH program and Project Masiluleke in South Africa by tapping the mobile device as a high-impact, low-cost way to broadcast healthcare information encouraging positive actions such as HIV testing, and connect patients to their care providers. Cell phone and SMS technology currently reach over 80% of the population in South Africa. However, more than 30% of the population -- or over 14 million of the poorest people with the highest incidence of HIV have no access to electricity. Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB), a co-epidemic of HIV, is highly contagious and is a leading cause of death in many South African communities. MDR TB patients and their families who live without electricity face severe economic hardships which reduce their ability to adhere to life saving MDR TB treatment programs. iTEACH and the Portable Light Project have collaborated to develop a comprehensive home treatment program. The proposed pilot project will bring together health care information dissemination via text-messages, clean solar energy with a renewable home lighting and cell phone charging system and a comprehensive home-based MDR TB treatment training program in KwaZulu-Natal. Women in local sewing clubs integrate flexible solar kits into a locally produced African cloth fastened to an emergency blanket, making a detachable solar textile lantern. By day the patient uses the blanket to stay warm while exposed to the outdoors. Sunlight charges the unit in three hours, creating 6 watt-hours of energy stored in a rechargeable battery. At night, Portable Light powers a cell phone and provides ten hours of bright white light to facilitate the night time home care treatment established by the iTEACH Program. The next day, the Portable Light blanket is recharged by the patient, who helps to power his or her own treatment, while providing renewable energy and light for family members.

Every incoming administration receives hundreds of "white papers' advocating policies and priorities for every aspect of the Executive Branch. Development assistance is no exception.  We propose to promote transparency by aggregating all available recommendations relevant to USAID in a single website. 

 In addition to the public service of aggregation, we propose to democratize the process of making recommendations through user comments and voting, very similar to the way Netsquared manages its competitions. The benefits of using social networking tools in discussions about foreign assistance priorities, in addition to transparency, are greater opportunities for outreach and a wider net for innovation.While USAID can't be bound to the outcomes of the process, it would be an innovation in public outreach that would open up input from a far wider range that is heard at its ACVFA (Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid - essentially an echo-chamber for the development assistance establishment).  In addition, public engagement may produce new ideas.  Finally, the opportunity for public education about development assistance will emerge through discussions among development professionals and private citizens on what does and doesn't work in development assistance and why.

The expected inpact is greater public support for foreign assistance and USAID, with the possibiity of improvements in development delivery through innovations proposed in the discussions.

Radio is a powerful medium for many reasons - it is handy, portable and inexpensive. It reaches even the remote locations in India and allows for regional language editions. The Community Radio (CR) policy of November 2006 allows Indian organizations to set up CR broadcasting stations catering specifically to local populations. Since the local community constitutes the target audience in these stations, understanding and engaging the listener community becomes an important aspect of their competitive strategy.

The proposed project LISTAENR seeks to tap the potential of an integrated web and mobile-based application to enable two-way communication between any CR station and its audience.

CR stations can subscribe to the LISTAENR service through a user-friendly web interface. They can use this interface to enter audience details, message details and manage user response logs. When a station wishes to announce a new program, award, competition, service, scheme, opportunity or reminder, requisite information is fed into the system. The message is then broadcasted via integrated SMS to the target audience.

Conversely, listeners can respond to a radio program, ask a query or place a request through a mobile SMS, with appropriate tagging. These messages are automatically integrated into the system, and a short summary with response analytics is sent to the CR station. If required, CR stations can access the raw data online for further understanding of user responses.

The project will use a basic, cost-effective and scalable mobile-server connection (independent of SMS providers) for sending the messages.

LISTAENR can help address important questions of promotion and outreach, revenue generation and sustainability, and participatory radio content production. It can supplement and enhance instruments like telephones, letters, or phone-in facilities to sustain close linkages with the local people and their issues of concern.

Overview

If a Driver can reach you, you can be a partner sharing a transport Lift, negotiated by mobile phone!  More than 200 million people, who are not in a position to travel with their own vehicle, can improve their quality of life, by making use of a mobile Liftclub portal service.   SureLifts is a mobile LiftClub service, where a Commuter may place a request for a lift, stating the days, time and the locations.

How does it work?

As validated registered members of the club, Commuters and Drivers will be matched, and after being served with quality information by SureLifts on their mobile phone, negotiate a Lift with an acceptable partner.  Members would be matched with available partners as soon as qualified offers become available, which would be submitted as mobile messages in order to take swift action.  A mobile SureLift portal was designed to provide comprehensive travel arrangements, helpful community and member account information in a very efficient style.  After conclusion of the lift arrangement, the members are afforded the opportunity to rate their partners and once more negotiate a new lift deal.

Benefits:

SureLifts allows the public community to participate in private partnerships enabling themselves with a mobile online service, when and where they need to go effectively, whilst improving their lifestyle. At the same time the members, as civilians, participate in improving the community service and assist in protecting the environment and improve social relationships.
SureLifts records the carbon emission value that the partners achieve by sharing transport.

Open source coding will be used in order to make it feasible to provide the service cost-effectively  in as many communities globally as possible.

Why operate as a mobile platform?

The service must be offered on a mobile platform; in order that any person can, online, negotiate a lift in an effective and safe manner. Use will be made of location based services to determine the shortest and most convenient options to both partners. The two parties will as members have sufficient information, to privately conclude their arrangements, track progress and keep record of the carbon emission offset value that they have effected over a period.

Security:

The details of registered members will be kept private and secure by SureLifts and will only be used to validate the acceptability of the member according to the rules set by the Board of Trustees of the particular Lift Club.  As a premium service, members can be tracked by authorized friends and be served with location-based information relative to the route travelled.

More information

Blog: http://surelifts.wordpress.com

SlideShow: http://gcmcknight.webng.com/Surelift/Surelift/Surelift/SureLift/

Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkhbg1nsvUo

Mobile screen clip:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEM9Kf7cdw4

Why SurePower(SP)? 

Mobile phones are commonly referred to as "Africa's Computer".   More than 70% of economically active inhabitants in South Africa use mobile phones, and apply SMS communications as an alternative to voice.  SurePower provide an effective mobile communication service for the Electrical Power Distributors.  An advice relating to their neighborhood of an impending power load shedding is provided JUST IN TIME by quality messaging to participating consumers.  Power Distributors are now enabled by the SurePower(SP) service to ascertain in which geographical area the affected electricity user is.

SP conducts an effective survey by ringfencing all the participating mobile users who would be affected by a specific circuit break.  This conceptualized PowerCell would be the definition of the group of interested mobile users, that need to be advised during a specific timeslot in a day.  SurePower also makes possible the complementary benefit, where a Power Distributor can confer with partnering users on how to cooperate in using the limited power resources.

What are the SurePower features: 

• Send power interruptions predictions to mobile users relating only to their suburb via cost-effective SMS alerts.

• Access a mobile WAP internet website for members of the participating group.

• The Utility company benefits from the PowerCell survey for planning purposes

• The facility provides the capacity of conducting various PR interactions with Mobile user involvement.

Who is behind SurePower:

The team is lead by Pieter Henning; who is a Telecom Engineer with 30 years experience, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

When are the Power Distributor and the mobile Users involved in the service?
The Power Distributor would advertise in the local media that interested users must SMS their Postal code when they experience the next triggered power outage.  The SMS information received in the 30 minute window period would be sufficient for SP to calculate the Powercell

MassConnect is a user community and development platform that uses social networking and targeting to create an environment for rapid development and deployment of mobile & web2.0 software.

At its core the MassConnect Paradigm is “Share The User”

MassConnect categorizes and groups users based on preferences, geo location(GPS), and user behavior to create a qualified user targeting server. We provide an API and allow developers to build applications on the MassConnect Network and launch those applications to user communities who are in need of specific software. Since we share all this targeting data, we can truly help build and distribute software that meets a need in a community quickly and effectively.

Types of Applications that can be built on the MassConnect Network include:

Aids Awareness/Outreach

Agricultural Trading

Real Time Reporting

Community Organization

Targeted Working Groups

Business Alliances

Text based Broadcast Networks (NEWS)

Educational Outreach

Communication

At MassConnect we believe that sharing the user responsibly will open the floodgates to innovation and allow developers the opportunity to focus on building great applications that solve very specific problems in our world.