Could we as programmers do something similar?
Also, to some extent, I think that those that have recently spoken out against foreign aid in Africa are correct: only Africa can improve Africa's well-being. (I say this even as a former member of a local community organization that raised funds to send an experienced hydrologist to Uganda for a year to work on water quality there.)
Of course, we can't discuss many details here, because politics is anathema on news.yc unless IP law is involved. :)
[And that, BTW, is why we see all these posts lamenting that hackers "never do enough to solve the world's big problems" -- most of the world's big problems are intensely political, and politics is to news.yc as sex was to Victorian England. Of course, just because we don't talk about political issues here doesn't mean we don't work on them, off camera.]
Actually, though, IP law is relevant: If you can successfully lobby to reduce the patent lifetime for AIDS drugs you will save an order of magnitude more lives in Africa than you could ever do with your own two hands.
Another source of leverage is, obviously, invention. Hackers are good at inventing things, much of which you can do in your own shop (where you are most productive).
None of this should stop you from traveling to Africa, but the most useful thing you can do there is learn: Once you have a first-hand look at the life and problems of an African person you may have a better idea of how to apply your leverage.
I think it's a cruel stereotype, and the upvotes that comment has received are telling of the lack of sincerity on this topic.
There are many things you can do with IT/ICT to help the developing world. Here are some suggestions:
Build a non-literate UI on a cheap cellphone. Use it to provide rural villages with healthcare and market information, and financial management tools (like microfinance accouting).
Hack together a long-range WiFi to provide connectivity to a remote site.
Stream video from your cell phone to your favorite video-serving startup. Convince people to donate their time and money by showing them conditions on the ground.
Build a service that lets multiple villages form a cooperative using cellphones. Let them buy agricultural inputs in bulk at better prices, access wider markets for their goods, and coordinate transportation and tool sharing.
Use pcs or phones to educate rural farmers on modern agricultural techniques.
There are countless underfunded projects that are trying to do something in this space, going far beyond microfinance (though that may turn out to be one of the most important measures taken).
this is brilliant (no sarcasm) and a good example of fantastic ideas being summed up in a single phrase. is anyone working on this?
But to be serious, your programming skills are going to be of almost no use to them. Hell, go look at the Zimbabwe government's website to see how much they care - http://www.gta.gov.zw/ (prepare to cringe).
What skills you DO have are compassion, finances, and the ability to get awareness up HERE. Tons of charities need better and more functional websites that come up more often in SEO. They need more prominent donation tabs, they need websites that better explain their mission and better recruit. You can create a site to promote a cause, you can team up with someone and start your own charity (I intend to).
There's tons you can do. Just because you're not on location doesn't mean you're not making an impact.
I'm in Romania, which right now is a proud member of the European Union and thoroughly civilized. Well, it's in EU, anyways. I'm talking about an ex comunist country with an literacy percent of 99 and university free education all the way. And still, every time I went into a public institution for the last 15 years I wished they'd let me write software for them for free. The problem is, they don't (i asked).
There are more software companies here then mushrooms after a rain (my own startup included) and still the main clients are foreign. Both the private sector and the government are very very oblivious to any advantages software could bring. It pains me, but what developing countries need are not hackers, but evangelists, and damn good ones at that. More like missionaries, actually.
How about a Google Maps mashup that allows government goons to share notes on where opposition leaders are hiding?
As someone that has wired networks, written code and taught some basic computer skills in Africa, I would suggest narrowing down your search a little. Africa is a vast continent and there is a big difference between what you might find in Tunis vs. Kinsangani.
There are probably many projects that could benefit from having geek help but do not think you can just "parachute" into many places without a great deal of preparation. Without concrete plans for things like where you are going to live, how you are going to get medical care, etc. you may end up being more of a liability than an asset.
Good luck and do not give up trying to find a way to help. I lived and worked in Africa for four years after college and it was a great experience.
Teaching would be the obvious useful occupation. However, everywhere needs good teachers, not just Africa.
What I found more rewarding, and probably more useful than doing tech work, was helping kids have fun. The other bleeding hearts I was with were Ultimate Frisbee fans and we introduced the game to the local kids. We even had another aid worker bring a huge shipment of 144 frisbees into the country. This may seem frivolous, but one thing I noticed was that kids had tons of free time and were really eager to learn how to do fun stuff. Art, music, sports, etc. Computer programming would have been great, too... but there were hardly any computers.
There are a lot of bite-size python tasks they need help with. It usually pulling in data from a very unhelpful format and converting it to a helpful format. It's not terribly stimulating but it might be rewarding to enable the data to see the light of day.
Check out things you can do at: http://watchdog.jottit.com/volunteer
Take a look at the bigger picture being how do can you use your technology skills to programme/code something to make a difference? To assist with the issues being faced in Africa (And globally).
i.e The current inflation being felt world wide, the energy crisis(fuel / power), the food crisis with the high prices of food, in places like the US it does not affect people and even for some people like myself it will not affect me since i can afford the higher prices. However when it comes to people who can just barely pay for their daily food, it leads to starvation.
So yes, while we build 199999 Facebook(x) clone or silly little online app, millions of people out there are starving and can barely make ends meet.
Think about that.
There is a group created to put into action practical technology solutions to target some of these issues, feel free to join.
I live in South Africa and we have a serious shortage of programmers in this country, especially when it comes to the open source web based languages.
All of these 1) require some domain expertise, even if small 2) are conceptually simple, but the delivery is hard
I recently met the founder at an event in SF. He gave me a demo of their very impressive solar-powered computer product. This is a high-tech nonprofit run in an entrepreneurial way by people who are trying to change the world for the better.
So, perhaps a text based mobile service (most places do not have mobile-internet yet) to do something useful may be of value e.g. to find the current market price of rice (to buy/sell without being cheated) or warn about events like potential flood/hurricane risk or when the next bus is coming or text-based bartering system or even just teaching the kids how to use the OLPCs effectively.
Your talents and engineering senses? Most definitely.
The idea is the same, the venue is different, that's all.
Even a doctor could only help those in close physical proximity and in no need of advanced medical tech or much expensive drugs.
The fix for broken states is to fix the state, then the economy takes off and your stills are needed.
Most broken states are run by undemocratic governments, to "fix" them you need a change of regime. Undemocratic states often spy on their citizens to stay in power. So l337 crypto skill could help a democratic underground communicate and organize.
If you really want to help, buy the things they make and lobby YOUR government to lower trade barriers.
Trade barriers are probably a good point, though.
The reality of africa is that Europe dumps a lot of it's produce into African markets at below market prices reducing the value of the local goods. There is no point in giving to charity until this stops. African countries don't want charity, they want markets and foreign capital so they can grow jobs for THEIR people.
Is this a deliberate scheme by European countries to destroy the African economy, or why are they dumping the goods? Or maybe their production methods are just more efficient and therefore the goods are so cheap?
Of course if cotton can be produced cheaper there, it is a shame that the world doesn't make use of it. But other than that, I don't see why a nation should stubbornly insist on one kind of production.
I have heard of only informal studies on the percentage of economic growth over the last 200 years that was caused by charitable or governmental redistribution versus skills, technology, and reinvestment. And the number is usually less than 1%. But apparently someone has studied this more rigorously, and gotten a more confident estimate. Let's hear it!
If you worked with a small town (provided they had access to reliable power), you could probably have a measurable impact on the local economy. That is really the only way I could sustain myself in such a situation- by being able to see the good I'm doing to a whole community.
You don't think IQ is a factor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality#Nation...
Mechanical-fish wrote in another thread: "Wake me up when you have an actionable plan to solve a problem. That would be interesting."
We identified a big internet service/applications gap in the development-aid water and sanitation sector. Essentially these people are stuck in the LP/cassette tape age, when the rest of the world moved on to iPods and p2p networks.
Some basics:
Market size: 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation, 1.1 billion lack safe water to drink. Some US$10 billion is spent every year to try to resolve that problem. The goal is to halve those numbers by 2015 (UN MDG goals), but that isn't going to happen.
Problem: There are lots of problems with development aid, but we are focusing on a couple of specific areas: information exchange, funding and monitoring and reporting.
Information exchange – Information about low cost, appropriate technologies and sustainable water and sanitation solutions for low-income households and communities is very hard to find and collect for the non-specialists. Information is available, but spread over a large number of sources, and essentially disorganised.
Funding – The water and sanitation community struggles to attract additional flows of money and connect funds directly to where the demand is. It is estimated that around 15-30% of budgets are directed away from intended beneficiaries due to corruption and high overhead costs, partially due to a lack of transparency. It is specifically difficult to find grants and loans for local initiatives, even though these initiatives have proved to be very efficient.
Monitoring and reporting – Monitoring and reporting are often used as a means to ‘justify’ a correct use of funds, not as a tool to intervene pro-actively in projects while they are evolving. The sector is stuck in the “thick Word report” process, rather than using easy to use IT tools. Additionally the sector struggles to visualise and share results in an appealing way to those outside the sector.
You can take what I considere basic internet tools and drastically improve the "state of the art" that the people working in this field today use. Which is what we are doing, like picking low hanging fruit. We are putting together a non-profit foundation to work on this and deliver some tools.
We are putting together three integrated products:
- Akvopedia – the first truly open knowledge platform dedicated to water and sanitation - Akvo Matchmaking – an unique marketplace for water and sanitation projects screening and funding - Akvo Really Simple Reporting (RSR) – an easy and transparent way to track projects in the field and to share and visualise results
Essentially a Wikipedia for water and sanitation knowledge, eBay, Blogger and YouTube for water and sanitation projects, rolled into one.
The tools we develop ourselves will be available under GPL and the platform is available at an "at cost" basis to the users, who are NGOs, government departments and companies. Which will be way below in cost what they can provide for themselves.
We are in the process of deploying the platform and building out the first product, Akvo RSR. The web site is essentially a wireframe which we used as part of our fundraising, which will be swapped out with the real thing during the summer.
We have more than a dozen development-aid partners and we are working with hundreds of field partners lining up to use the system, and expect to put the first 25-50 projects on the system over the next couple of months. The goal is to scale this up to thousands of projects over the next year and then further.
I could go to Africa and work as a hydrologist (I have the education) but I think that I am going to be much more effective rolling out some modern internet systems to make all these people working in this field more effective. Our funders agree with me, otherwise I don't think they wouldn't have given us money.
www.codewithcause.com
I had a friend who worked in Kenya for a few months and the class conflict was so tense there that he had six armed bodyguards on the advice of his employer.