[Seminar - ICT4D: Technology for Good] 

[Joy Ming - Alisa Nguyen - Harvard University] 

[This is CS50. - CS50.TV] 

Hi. My name is Joy Ming.  I am a sophomore from Quincy House concentrating in Computer Science with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy. And my name is Alisa Nguyen.  I'm also a sophomore in Quincy House concentrating in Computer Science. 

Okay. So today we just wanted to start off by asking you guys a question. What does technology mean to you? Can anyone answer? [female speaker] Cool computers and mobile phones. Cool computers and mobile phones. So basically, the idea is that a lot of technology today, what we think about technology comes in the term of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, large tech companies that have flashy consumer products. But our seminar today is trying to show you alternative ways you can use your new CS50 skills to make an impact on the world. 

So the title of our seminar is ICT4D: Technology for Good. Have you guys ever heard of ICT4D, and do you know what it means? [chuckling] Okay. It stands for Information and Communication Technologies for Development, and it just refers to the applications of technology to help people around the world. So they are interdisciplinary initiatives  to connect people with the resources that they need to improve their own quality of life. And so ICT4D comes from harnessing the revolutionary power of technology through all these different trends, so starting from the idea of computing and data processing in the late 1950s and then incorporating Millennium Development Goals later on and now currently incorporating the new technology of mobile phones to be able to find ways to help people in developing countries. 

And so we're just going to showcase a couple different ways ICT4D can be used in different aspects of society. The first one we're going to talk about is healthcare. Some current ICT4D being used for healthcare can be used for, for example, telemedicine, which is doing operations and processes from a distance or even providing information for people with disabilities to be able to communicate with other people. 

So another huge area of application is education. For this field we have this company called Inveneo, which provides low-cost computing hardware and servers to build up network infrastructures in developing countries. 

Another application is in agriculture in which different things such as price inequalities, the information about the markets, the policies and different new production techniques can be broadcast to the farmers as well as the consumers. 

Oh. And open source technologies often overlap with ICT4D. Open source refers to, like, open source software, which means that source code is publicly available so that anybody can edit it. You probably use Wikipedia all the time, and you can edit that. So there's a lot of projects such as Open Data Kit, which is a mobile suite of software tools  designed to allow for easy data collection and manipulation, so people such as community health workers in rural India can go out to villages and collect information about their patients and send that easily to the hospitals. 

Another application is through finance. For example, Vodafone has a money transfer application that allows people who don't have access to a bank account to be able to transfer money, pay their bills, or even add credit to their airtime. 

And the next one is environment. Different applications for that include an application that will alert about weather forecasting, so any natural disasters. An example is Red Lotus, which is created by a Harvard graduate, that helps demine various areas. 

ICT4D can also help with government. There is this program here in America called Code for America, which connects recent graduates with cities to build software tools that the cities can use to— For example, here in Boston there is this project called Adopt-a-Hydrant that tried to crowdsource the problem of snowed-in fire hydrants so that even people in your own neighborhood can help unblock those fire hydrants in case of emergencies. 

So now that we told you about a lot of different applications of ICT4D, we're going to focus on one case study looking at health in rural India and trying to brainstorm different ways that you would try to look at this problem. And so here, if you could just take some time to read the problem, what we want to do is identify some specific problems that are listed in this case study and try to find ways that you could possibly think about solving them or ways you've heard of solving them. So if you could take a couple of minutes to read it. [There are 17 doctors, nurses, or midwives to every 10,000 people.] [Each patient then is responsible for her or his own healthcare after they leave the hospital.] [Much of the care provided is decentralized to community health workers] [who, though trained by a hospital, are often limited in their abilities] [to provide complete care or interface with hospital records.] [Most hospitals use paper systems that often get lost or damaged.] [Paper systems also make it hard to communicate between hospitals,] [especially in a time of crisis, or keep records for the future.] All right. So no need to raise your hand. Just shout out whatever you see are some potential problems that are listed in the case study. [female speaker] It's hard that the hospitals use paper systems because if the community workers are traveling far away from the hospital, then they can't update information about people in the community or villages real time. So one of our lovely participants just was talking about how the fact the hospitals have to use paper systems, which is difficult for community health workers to be able to communicate real time. So what are some other problems that are listed here? [male speaker] The fact that there's only 17 doctors to every 10,000 people. So how do we get those people connected to those doctors and midwives? So another problem is that there's only 17 doctors per 10,000 people, so finding a way to connect the doctors with the people that they're serving. And so what are some solutions that you could come up with for any of those 2 problems that you found? Any ideas? [male speaker] Cloud-based computing seems like a pretty palpable idea, especially with the sharing of records between different hospitals and things like that. If you have everything recorded digitally and then you have it maybe in a secure cloud server, then it can be easily accessed by anyone, the [inaudible] and whatever to get into the system. >>Uh-hunh (affirmative). So one option that was just mentioned was cloud-based computing, which would definitely be a good way to store all of the records in a secure manner and allow access to a lot of different people. Any other suggestions of different ways? [female speaker] Maybe health workers can also use mobile phones. It would have to be a really user-friendly interface. But that could be really helpful for them to keep track of these records and interact with the cloud-based system. >>Uh-hunh (affirmative). And so another idea was that community health workers will use mobile phones to be able to interact with this cloud-based system. 

Those are all great ideas, and so we're just going to showcase a couple ideas that are being put into practice by various organizations. And so I guess I'll use my mouse because you can't point. Raxa is a system that is creating an electronic medical record system for hospitals that will help consolidate all of the information. CommCare is a part of Dimagi, which is creating mobile applications for community health workers to be able to communicate the information to their subcenters or to the hospital. Jana Care tackles the problem of giving the patients more information about their diseases by allowing them to be put in touch with a coach one-on-one for diabetes prevention. ClickMedix gives the community health workers the tools to be able to provide care for the villagers. Partners In Health is using technology to track cholera in Haiti after the earthquake. And even larger companies like Google and Microsoft are also looking at ICT4D as a means of helping the world's problems. 

Now we would like to address the problem of access to education in rural areas. And we just wanted to showcase a project that people are working on right now called OLPC. So if we could just watch this video. [video playing] One Laptop Per Child. That's our name and our vision. We want to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each and every one with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. And this is that laptop. Say hello to the XO, a computer unlike any other, designed specifically to work in tough conditions and remote areas. It comes packed with software and activities to help kids learn, explore, create, and share. No matter what language they speak or where they live, the XO connects them to each other, to the world, and to a brighter future. We're a non-profit organization, which makes these kids our mission, not our market. That's why wherever the XO goes, there are 5 core principles everyone agrees to. First, kids get to keep the laptops. They have to be free to take them home and use them whenever they want. That's kind of the point. Second, we're focused on early education, which means kids about 6 to 12 years old. Third, we have to deal in large numbers of laptops so whole classrooms and schools get them at the same time so no one gets left out. Fourth, kids should have a connection to the Internet because there's neat stuff to learn on the Internet. Fifth and finally, the XO must include free and open source software. Then the laptop itself can easily grow and adapt with the needs of the child. So in a nutshell, that's us, an organization that makes a small computer to serve a big cause— bringing education to children all over the world with One Laptop Per Child. [♪ music playing on video ♪] [amazon.com/XO] We just wanted to ask you guys to assess One Laptop Per Child in terms of what are they doing, how are they doing it,  and positives and negatives that may arise. What are they doing? [male speaker] They're providing a service to a much-needed group. >>Yeah. So basically, they collaborate with governments of countries such as India and Brazil to provide the public school children with free laptops. Based on that video, do you want to talk about the situation? [chuckling] They mentioned network coverage. What are they doing about that? [female speaker] I don't think it particularly talked about it, but it seems like there would need to be a lot of existing infrastructure, especially if they want Internet connection. Yeah, there needs to be an existing network infrastructure in place for this to really work because the laptops do need Internet access. What about affordability? If you guys have heard about this before, OLPC has actually advertised their laptops to be only $100 for each laptop, and there have been a couple of criticisms with that because they ended up costing about $250 each. So the governments sometimes may not have enough money to pay for these. So they have done a give one, get one campaign where you donate money so that somebody else can have a laptop and then you get an XO laptop for yourself. What about the issues around training? [female speaker] This definitely could be really useful for education, but if the kids don't know how to use the laptops, then it's not consistent. Yeah. So what if the kids don't know how to use laptops in the first place? How are they going to learn? There isn't really any training provided with the XO laptops. Okay. So now let's move on to the need. Do you guys think that this is a pressing issue that we should address? [female speaker] Yes. >>Yeah. But there is more than one way to address this problem. So the idea is not questionable whether there is a need for technology for the children but whether it's actually addressing it properly. >>Yeah. So can you think of any other ways that you can address the access to education problem? [female speaker] Maybe it doesn't have to be individualized like laptops but still using other technology that would help. So maybe like a projector in a classroom. >>Yeah. [female speaker] Not jumping directly into the [inaudible] >>Yeah. So how effective is the personal laptop in terms of education? What if there is a better solution such as a classroom projector or a whiteboard or something that the whole class can use? And some other nontechnical solutions that we were brainstorming was possibly the issue of having more teachers to begin with if they didn't have enough teachers in their schools; having enough books and school supplies in their classrooms as well. And when we're talking about ICT4D, we also want to address future concerns that might arise from this solution. Scalability.  By scalability we mean is it possible to distribute all these laptops  on a wide scale to whole schools? How easy is that to do? Maintenance. What if the laptop dies? What are you going to do if you didn't know how to use it to begin with? Sustainability. Are you using eco-friendly products after the laptop's life cycle has ended? Yeah. So that was just a brief overview of a possible solution in ICT4D that may or may not be actually the best solution in the long term. So I guess the idea is that technology can be used for good, but sometimes it's necessary to critically assess whether or not it is the best solution and how this solution can be altered to best fit the situation, both in the present and in the long term. So OLPC sometimes is criticized a lot on these 3 aspects, but their mission is a good one. And it's hard to say that you don't want to give laptops to poor children in developing countries but just to be aware that there are some aspects that you should be critical to. 

And so we talked a lot about different solutions that are existing and different ways, like brainstorm solutions for the problems. And so right now we're just going to talk a little bit, I guess, about how you would be able to be a part of the ICT4D community. One way definitely is to learn more. Whether it's through classes at Harvard, Harvard has a lot of good classes that look at the situation. There's a lot of classes in terms of maybe the anthropology or the sociology of the background of the developing region, and there are a lot of classes also that help you with skills that would eventually be able to be applied to our technology. Like CS50. >>Like CS50, of course— to be able to use the skills that you have now to one day create the solutions for the problems in other classes that you're learning. Other options are through cross-registering. There is the development lab at MIT, which does good engineering projects for developing countries. There is actually a class for ICT4D at MIT looking at this topic. And always just being aware of the learning. So there are a lot of resources available even though it's a fairly new field. There are a lot of papers and definitely a lot of ways to learn more about the situation and ways that you can help. >>Yeah. So just an extension of that is keeping up to date with all the news in the ICT4D community and all the opportunities available. So there's a couple of national US email lists that you guys can join. There's a large group at the University of Washington that looks at these issues, and it's called Change. So if you want to look that up, that's change.washington.edu. And there's also a couple more local email lists. One started at MIT, another at Carnegie Mellon, and it's just a nice way to keep up to date with what everybody else is doing. And definitely one of the best ways to contribute is to actually contribute to a project. And so even with the skills that you have learned in CS50, it is possible to get involved in free and open source software like we were talking about where all of the code is online and they're just looking for people to contribute, to mess with their APIs, and to just be a part of their community. So there's that, and you can do it through a more structured opportunity like Google Summer of Code, which basically funds you to work on open source software. Other opportunities would be to contact various local organizations. If you talk to us, we'll probably be able to help you brainstorm a couple of organizations and areas that you're interested in if you want to be able to contribute through that. And eventually we're going to create a more comprehensive list of the various organizations that are looking for awesome Harvard students to be involved, whether it is on the technical side or on the business end. So for example, last summer I was able to use my CS50 skills in India to work with a healthcare technology non-profit. I hadn't coded before, but CS50 put me in the mood to be able to contribute a lot to a project that was existing and make an impact. >>Yeah. And also if you have your own idea as to how to adjust these problems, definitely start your own project. There's a lot of things that you can do here, like the President's Challenge, at MIT they have the $100K Challenge, there's Hack Harvard. There are so many resources around you if you want to get your idea up and running. And there's a lot of good stories of Harvard students who have done things like this. One of my friends was working in India working with price inequalities and SMS technology to be able to alert farmers about the demands for their products. Another friend is working on alerting maternal-child health in India as well and SMS reminders about compliance in medicine. But ideas like that are definitely possible, and there are so many resources to be able to let you do that. >>Yeah. 

And so, yeah, thanks for coming to our seminar. And if you have any questions, definitely— Any questions now?  Or we'll be free to talk in a less formal setting. But yeah. Any questions you want answered on the camera? [laughter] Yeah. Thank you. >>Thank you. [applause] 

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