Kopernik: Connecting Innovative Technologies with Poor Communities
We are lucky to have a guest post today by Ewa and people like her in general who are doing what they can for global health. She and her team have just launched a new web platform connecting you with poor communities and technologies that might be needed there via an online store. I cannot emphasize enough that is this is long long overdue and that we should all be embarrassed that this hasn’t happened before. So major kudos to Ewa and her team for pulling this platform together and giving it a shot. Please visit their website and spread the word (you can also read there Tech for development blog here):

Guest Post by Ewa Wojkowska, a former UN worker, is the co-founder of TheKopernik.org.
As the rubble is cleared in Haiti, as a measure of stability comes to Sudan, as Sri Lanka holds a bitter peace and as Burundi faces its first election in the wake of massive civil war, a new development opportunity presents in some of the world’s poorest and most troubled places.

Online social entrepreneurship for the poor is one of the most compelling ways to fight poverty—and to reshape our development practices. Examples like Kiva and Global Giving are already leading the way, linking people anywhere in the world to better assistance and real results. The internet has created the opportunity for a transparent virtual marketplace: communities in developing countries identify their local needs, individuals anywhere in the world directly respond. Today our site—www.thekopernik.org—joins the force, connecting breakthrough technology to the poor through an online marketplace. It’s a simple, direct idea for real assistance to people in need.

Here’s our idea: Registered local organizations provide short proposals explaining their needs—simple water filtration in Freetown, Sierra Leone, self-adjusting eyeglasses in Manado, Indonesia. Any visitor to the site, anywhere in the world, can review the proposals and make donations to fund the plan of his or her choice. We connect these breakthrough technologies—water filters and drums, self-adjusting eye glasses, and solar lights, just to name a few—to the people who need them most.

What sets us apart is the focus on technology and a review mechanism for local organizations, or ‘technology seekers’, to rate the products. By including a feedback mechanism on the effectiveness of these technologies, Kopernik gives voice and choice to local communities and organizations – simple elements that are so frequently missed in international development efforts. We’re looking to take out the delays and to spark new ideas in international aid, one click at a time.We believe this is the new face of development.

If more people everywhere have safe, unfettered access to clean water, more efficient means of transporting that water, clear eyesight, and reliable light, how would their choices change? How would they see the world and their place in it? What could their empowerment achieve?

We now have the technology to improve everyone’s lives, and the internet is the window to get these life-changing technologies into people’s hands, directly and efficiently. We’re building a resource that those in need can access for themselves.

Ewa Wojkowska, a former UN worker, is the co-founder of Kopernik.org. The website launched this past week.

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• Kopernik Sells Technology To The Developing World (techstartups.com)
• Sierra Leone link to India medics (news.bbc.co.uk)

Post by David Van Sickle, guest blogger. Please see his very popular previous post: 7 Steps for Building Low-cost Open Source Technologies for Global Health. (Thanks to Andre of Pulse and Signal fame for cross posting this)

Missing Populations:
I’m currently in the United Arab Emirates, attending a conference sponsored by the UAEU in Al-Ain to raise awareness of global health problems in the Middle East and neighboring Asia, and to draw attention to the region and its populations and health problems among the global health community. As a result, I’ve been thinking about the scope of attention in global health, and about populations and settings that are, for some reason, out of focus right now; one group in particular has come to mind.

This group is among the poorest in their country. Just under one in three lives in poverty (more than twice the overall rate).

• They have, on average, the lowest per capita income, earning less than half the average income of the general population.
• Nearly a quarter of their households are food insecure and as much as half of the population is unemployed.

Their families inhabit some of the most substandard housing in their country.

• Nearly 40 percent of households are without electricity.
• More than 30 percent lack a safe and adequate water supply and waste disposal system.
• Households are often crowded. The risk of death from tuberculosis is 600 percent higher compared to the general population.

Populations are often geographically isolated, living many miles from communities, employment and health care facilities.

• More than 60 percent of households have no landline telephone with most individuals relying on cell phones for routine communications.
• Migration to distant urban centers for employment is growing.

Overall the group experiences a major mortality disadvantage and significant burden of chronic diseases.

• The group shoulders considerable decrements in life expectancy and significantly higher rates of infant and maternal mortality.
• They suffer from increasingly high rates of debilitating chronic diseases tied to negative social and economic determinants of health.

Given this set of circumstances, I have long expected that the attention of the global health community would land on this group. The problems are compelling and the potential value of existing and promising social and technological interventions are obvious. For example, with widespread access to mobile phones networks, mobile phones could be used to deliver education, raise incomes, or improve health and health care. There are a host of applicable technological interventions that could mitigate poor housing or provide electricity.

Yet, very few academic or applied global health organizations include the group in their research focus or activities. I’m ready to see global health efforts applied to aid Native Americans.