As many of you know, Goma, DRC is the site of much mineral wealth – as well as much conflict, both over this wealth, and ethnic conflicts, including remnants of the Hutu/Tutsi hatred that resulted in the Rwandan genocide. Just as diamonds are mined to finance these conflicts – coltan (used in the Sony PS2 [...]
Posts under ‘Africa’
Poynting Antennas and Wilson Antennas
I’m posting this here mostly for my own future reference: I’ve been using tri-band antennas from Wilson Antennas, but unfortunately they don’t actually work in the places where you need the antennas because, well they’re made for the US-based frequencies (e.g. 1900, rather than 1800) Jeff Wishnie from Inveneo points out this antenna for boosting [...]
Preparing for Power Cuts
I’m pretty gadget heavy on this trip. In terms of power stuff I have: 1 solar flexible-panel charger (retail $99-ish) for 4 AA batteries2 solio solar chargers, for mobile phones and usb devices (can be charged via solar or grid power. I only have one adapterfor grid power) (retail about $80 each)1 inverter (retail about [...]
My Secret Public Service to African Computers
Since I’m about to do this to my VMware installation of windows I thought it would be a good time to write a quick blog post on how to prevent your Windows computer from being infected by cds, dvds, and usb drives. Of course this means that when you pop in a cd/dvd, it will [...]
Back in the Field
I’m on my way back out to Uganda, this time to run a pilot study of the software, working out some of the details of the design (co-design?) with the people in the management agency and the clinics, and doing a comparative study between a bunch of possible device platforms: Palm 680, Palm Centro, Blackberry [...]
Solar Power for Emergency Obstetric Care in Nigeria
This is a bit belated (I’m something like 6 months behind on blog posts) but my group got an honorable mention at this year’s Bear’s Breaking Boundaries IT for Society competition. Our project, led by Laura Stachel (MD, studying for a DrPH in the School of Public Health) proposes to provide sufficient reliable power for [...]
AfriGadget
My friend Neema pointed out AfriGadget, a blog showcasing African ingenuity. The posts currently on the front page feature everything from biodiesel and renewable energy to simpsons toys to mobile phones made from recycled parts. Tweet This Post Facebook
e-voting for development
So with all the recent news on Kenya’s elections and subsequent (concurrent?) riots, it crosses my mind that there is a great need for transparent+verifiable, reliable, and low-cost voting systems in developing countries. I know that a lot of people at UC Berkeley and other universities are working on e-voting, both on the implementation/computer science [...]
Under-reported humanitarian stories of 2007
NPR’s All Things Considered recently interviewed Nicholas de Torrente of Doctors Without Borders (the American branch of Medicins Sans Frontiers) about their recently published their top ten under-reported humanitarian stories of 2007: Displaced Fleeing War in Somalia Face Humanitarian Crisis Political and Economic Turmoil Sparks Health-Care Crisis in Zimbabwe Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Spreads As New Drugs [...]
Epocrates for developing countries?
So I’m talking to my doctor about possible drug interactions between various prescriptions and he pulls out a… (drum roll) palm treo. Oh okay so that’s probably not a major revelation.. doctors love Palm devices and have loved them pretty much since 3COM started making them back in the 90s. (Can I say that yet? [...]
