#Uganda farmer on info r CKW program provides: “The market information saves us from lies which the middle men tell to cheat us" #ICT4D06:24:12 PM July 28, 2011from TweetDeck
super excited our #mHealth program in #Ghana is one of the finalists in the #SavingLivesAtBirth challenge from @usaid and @gatesfoundation04:47:34 PM July 28, 2011from TweetDeck
Great mention of our CKW program here | The Observer: http://bit.ly/qHmcZs #ict4d #m4d08:56:50 PM July 24, 2011from Echofon
Durbars are community entry ceremonies that must be done in all of the 11 zones where we are working with Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH) . They include bringing offerings to the Chief, telling the community members about MoTeCH, dancing and hopefully getting the community members to formally “accept” MoTeCH as a valuable health service. Durbars last for several hours, usually take place under a tree and we’re holding them for all 11 zones this week so we can keep on schedule with our launch activities. (more…)
In early 2009, Grameen Foundation went to Uganda with the idea of creating a fluid and effective two way communication channel between rural farmers
CKWs in training
and the world of agricultural experts, development agencies, traders and commercial players. Through this loop, rural small holder farmers would be given livelihood saving agricultural information generated by the experts and the big players would keep informed on conditions on the farm from adoption of best practices to available produce for sale. (more…)
A Village Phone operator signs up to be an agent for KerjaLokal
On April 28, AppLab organized a training of 20 VPOs in Tangerang, Western suburb of Jakarta, on becoming Agents for KerjaLokal, a blue collar job search service that can be accessed via the mobile phone. The 20 new Agents will participate in our initial pilot testing of the KerjaLokal micro-site and the supporting algorithm to match job seekers with jobs they desire. (more…)
Joyce Ndago and Maria Nuela, two of our MoTeCH field staff
In December we had our first workshop to introduce and test our mobile phone technology for MoTeCH to community health workers (CHWs) in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Prior to this workshop, much of our field research and testing has focused on building content for our “Pregnant Parents” application, but today we were focused on how MoTeCH can help practitioners deliver high quality antenatal and neonatal health care. (more…)
We are being assisted this week by a crew of Harvard Business School (HBS) graduate students who have volunteered to assist Grameen Foundation and its sister social enterprise in Indonesia, PT Ruma, on developing business plans for some new pro-poor products. The HBS students will spend 2 weeks in Indonesia. During that time, they will review and further develop the business model for the AppLab-sponsored jobs market application, Kerjalokal.com. Their recommendations will fit into Grameen Foundation’s ongoing work to incubate and launch sustainable social enterprises that make use of ICT innovations to help the poor improve their lives and livelihoods.
Posted by: Ross Jaax, AppLab Indonesia Program Manager
As we get underway with our application development in Indonesia, we are looking at those Applications that will assist people in the informal job sector, the source of livelihoods for most poor Indonesians. The informal sector encompasses the lower end of the labor market, for those those working as maids, gardeners, drivers, and other day laborers. It also includes millions of small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) who engage in such businesses as selling snack food and sundries from roadside kiosks, cooked food from push carts, and pre-paid airtime for wireless communications. (more…)
How do AppLab programs get started? How do you really understand the best way to address the problems that people in poor rural communities face? The approach we have consistently taken for AppLab projects is to conduct a broad “needs assessment” survey at the very outset of the project. We work with experts in ethnographic research who spend hours and hours interviewing people in the field. The end result is qualitative data which helps to guide and inform our project work. (more…)
During the test of concept phase of our Community Knowledge Worker initiative, AppLab Question Box (AQB) was one of the services that the CKWs provided to rural communities. Grameen Foundation worked with Appfrica Labs, and US based NGO, Open Mind, to pilot this service. AQB is a live, local language hotline service that brings the Internet and expert advice to the homes and market stalls of individuals who may never see a computer, visit an agricultural specialist, or read in English. Between April and September, villagers in Uganda’s Mbale and Bushyeni districts had access to the service to ask agricultural, education, recent events and other questions. (more…)
Since the beginning, the Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTech) team has been focusing on using rapid prototyping for figuring out what will – and won’t – work in the rural environment. A week ago, the team headed to the poorest region in Ghana – the Upper East (UER) – to set up a series of exercises to determine whether pregnant mothers would be interested in asking questions about their pregnancy and newborn care via mobile phones. We were wanted to understand what types of questions they were interested in having answered, and what the technical (mobile phone usage, SMS vs. voice, network issues) aspects of providing this service to parents in rural areas would be. (more…)
Grameen Foundation´s ICT Innovation Program – Approach and Philosophy
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
We officially launched our Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Program two years ago, when we began our Application Laboratory (AppLab) efforts in Uganda. This initiative, in collaboration with the mobile operator MTN and Google, built on the successful Grameen Foundation/MTN Village Phone Program. With over 10,000 Village Phone Operators, this served as a unique testing ground for developing applications and information services tailored to the needs of the poor. Over nearly two years we explored the potential of more than 50 services, actively tested a subset of these, and in the end of June launched a suite of five services nationwide (additional details at www.applab.org). (more…)
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