south africa - ReadWriteWeb

Siemens Helps Bahraini Torturers: This Week in Online Tyranny

Curt Hopkins — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:30:00 -0800

With mobile tech, Siemens helps torture a new generation, this time in Bahrain. Siemens was instrumental in bringing the Nazis to power and keeping them there as they murdered millions of Jews, along with Gypsies, trade unionists, leftists, homosexuals and others. Serving as one of its engines of genocide, Siemens provided the German Reich with, among other things, slave labor factories located next to concentration camps. Apparently, Siemens thinks that it has been good enough for long enough and that this Internet thing has made a sense of history a thing of the past.

Bloomberg reports that Siemens AG and its joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, has made it possible for Bahraini secret police to intercept and generate transcripts of text messages and other mobile communications made by protesters in that country's troubled version of the Arab Spring.

]]> Mexico arrests two for Twittering narco rumor. Twitter has taken the place of the news media in an environment of narcotics-inspired self-censorship in Mexico. Hashtags have become the red lights that signal incursions of narco-violence in Mexico's cities. The government has taken it hard - a combination of genuine, if misguided, desire to not see panic flare up with a widespread narco-money corruption. Two Twitterers who retweeted a rumor of narcoterrorist murder of children have been arrested for their posts.

South Africa plans Blackberry eavesdropping. The South African government is talking about giving police access to Blackberry's encrypted messaging (BBM). AFP reported that Deputy Communications Minister Obed Bapela called the BBM a security risk, quoting the Sapa News Agency: "There is evidence that criminals are now using BBM to plan and execute crime. We want to review BBM like in the UK and Saudi Arabia."

UK PM's plan to ban social media dropped. Prime Minister David Cameron's knuckleheaded attempt to place the onus for last month's riots on social media has died the death it deserved. Our contention that the leadership of Cameron's government was walleyed about social media was something they wound up admitting.

WikiLeaks may be petering out. Peter Dorling, of the Sydney Morning Herald, who has followed the news surrounding Wikileaks and its Australian founder from the beginning, has published a fascinating, fair-minded story that theorizes an end to Wikileaks.

After accidentally allowing the publication of their remaining diplomatic cables - which, along with the publication of the password to those cables in a book by two Guardian reporters made them public - Dorling believes there is not much left for WikiLeaks to do. Their leak-submission function has not in fact functioned for a year and there does not seem to be another Bradley Manning hidden in the wings.

Fight over Libya's Internet. Six months after going dark, Libya's Internet connection to the world came back on briefly during the rebel surge that resulted in their control of most of the country. It's largely dark again and it may take a definitive end to hostilities before it is up to stay.

China tightens restrictions on microblogging, citizens react. "Chinese netizens are in an uproar," NTD reported. "Recent indications from the Chinese regime seem to point to tougher controls on popular mircroblogging services, such as Sina Weibo." State-run Xinhua News Agency, which acts as a mouthpiece for the rulers, criticized the site for its role in spreading what it calls false information. The "toxic rumors" Xinhua attacked included a train crash in Wenzhou. The outraged citizen response on microblogging sites, including Sina Weibo, forced corrupt and lazy authorities to act.

Uzbekistan creates a national Internet. The Central Asian tyranny has created its own version of a "halal Internet." Muloqot is intended "for the formation of high morals." In reality, it is about control of access to information and the means to disseminate argument and to cancel out the effects of social networks like Odnoklassniki and Facebook, where dissidents gather.

Kazakhastan bans Livejournal. After ordering all Kazakhstani websites use the .kz domain to be hosted on local servers, where they can be controlled by the government, the country's authorities have begun banning sites. The latest is early blog platform Livejournal. The excuse given was that the social network's "promote(s) terriorism and religious extremism and (contained) calls to acts of terrorism and the manufacture of explosive devices."

Egyptian blogger moved to prison hospital. Blogger and critic of the military, Maikel Nabil was the first Egyptian to be arrested by the military in post-Mubarak Egypt.

He declared a hunger strike to protest the injustice of his military trial and imprisonment and the continued meddling by the Egyptian armed forces into civilian life. Now, he has grown sick enough that he has been relocated to the prison's infirmary. He sickened "two days after he stopped drinking liquids on the eighth day of his hunger strike."

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Google Funds Preservation of Apartheid History

Curt Hopkins — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:01:00 -0800

Google has awarded $1.25 million apiece to the Nelson Mandela Foundation's Memory Programme and the Desmond Tutu Peace Center. The money is earmarked for the preservation, digitization and sharing of thousands and thousands of documents tracing the transition of the Republic of South Africa from apartheid to democracy.

Mandela's organization will be preserving and digitizing the archive of a man who served as the democracy movement's most public face, a long-term prisoner on the notorious Robben Island and later the first black president of the country.

]]> Reverend Tutu's group will do the same for his archive. Tutu, formerly the Anglican Archbishop of Capetown and another prominent public voice against racism, served as the leader of post-apartheid South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Materials included in the digitization project include journals, letters, photos, video and audio recordings, documents and more. The next step will be to offer the electronic archives to the public for research and education.

Google has funded similar projects to this, such as the Yad Vashem holocaust digitization project and the Google Art Project to bring the world's art to digital viewers.

"At Google we want to help bring the world's historical heritage online -- and the Internet offers new ways to preserve and share this information, in Africa and elsewhere."

At the same time as announcing these linked grants, Google also announced a number of projects they are funding to bring more people online in Africa. These include the Tertiary Education and Research Network, the Nigeria ICT Forum and the Network Startup Resource Center.

Robben Island photos by Caroline Ödman | other sources: Discuss

Virtual Mentoring Lessens the Burden on Kids in South Africa

Curt Hopkins — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0800

Between the socially disorienting echo of apartheid, high crime rates and HIV/AIDS, South Africa is struggling under a lot of extra weight. The group that too often bears the brunt of it is kids. South Africa has a much higher number of orphans than it should. Adult guidance of kids is sometimes in short supply. To make up in part for that, Infinite Family has stepped up.

Infinite Family connects mentors anywhere in the world with South African teens in need of adult guidance, advice and support. These "net buddies" connect via weekly video conferences.
]]> Amy Stokes and Dana Gould, two of the founders, and the rest of the Infinite Family crew, have created a virtual environment they call Ezomndeni Net. Ezomndeni is a Zulu for "all things pertaining to family." This EZ Net is accessed by a secure dashboard.

Mentors sign up for at least a half-hour chat every week for a year. Additional online resources include interactive forums, live chat, an online game area and a "web link pod," where a mentor and net buddy can do homework and explore the web together. The site also has an "SOS" button kids can use when they are having and emergency and need to talk. 400 volunteers and members of the board have helped connect around 300 teens, called with 200 mentors so far.

Any member of the EZ Net can become friends with any other member.

The need for an adult presence is not just practical, but elemental. As Stokes told CNN, who made her their first CNN Hero of 2011:

"If none of the adults you care about has ever lived past 35, then why would you think you can? Why would you stay in school; why would you learn skills?"

Anyone can sign up to be a mentor, though any applicant is thoroughly vetted and trained.

In addition to this example of the point of adulthood and guidance to help the kids succeed in their lives, the weekly talks build communications, English and technical skills that will help them as they grow up. Infinite Family has build five computer labs across South Africa that it operates for its net buddies.

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Project Masiluleke Takes On AIDS With Mobile Messaging

Jason Harris — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:00:29 -0800

Can mobile phones be an effective tool in the fight against AIDS? A new group of organizations believe they can.

Last week, in conjunction with the PopTech! conference, the Praekelt Foundation and partner organizations announced a new effort that will use the power of mobile messaging to help fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in South Africa. Project Masiluleke will utilize the power of the mobile phones as a low-cost way to deliver health-related information and prompt call-ins to call centers for those affected by these health care crises.

]]> This is a guest post written by Jason Harris, a mobile writer and enthusiast. To follow him further, read his blog.

As discussed here and elsewhere before, South Africa is a country with an amazingly high mobile phone adoption rate - around 90%. Unfortunately, South Africa is also a country that has around 1000 HIV/AIDS related deaths ever day. Project Masiluleke, which means "to give wise council" or "lend a helping hand" in Zulu, aims to use the mobile phone as a communication conduit between doctor's visits. The project's intent is to bring those with HIV and TB into the healthcare system earlier, when the diseases can be most effectively treated and/or slowed.

Project M, as it's being called, consists of four major components.

Drawing Perspective Patients In

First, the team behind Project M will use "Please Call Me" (PCM) messages to prompt citizens to call into a HIV/AIDS call center. Trained call center operators will provide healthcare information, counseling, and referrals to local testing clinics. Please Call Me messages are a wildly-popular SMS-like message that prompt a party to call the requesting party. PCM messages are used heavily in South Africa, roughly 25 million PCM messages are sent every day. PCM messages will be adapted by the Project M team to deliver advertisements prompting recipients to call into HIV/AIDS call centers if they are in need of health-related resources.

In the second part of the project, the Project M team will use TxtAlert, a text messaging reminder system developed by Praekelt Foundation, to send out SMS messages to remind patients of upcoming clinic visits. As it stands, only 10% of South Africans with AIDS are actively receiving anti-retroviral therapy. TxtAlert will help remind patients who are enrolled in these therapy programs to attend their visits, enhancing their care.

Reaching Out, Mobily

As a third part of Project M, a virtual call center will be initiated and built. Existing AIDS/HIV helplines will be enhanced by using teams of highly trained and committed HIV+ patients. This group of peer counselors will be made up of "gold star" patients who are knowledgeable about their about their illness and are committed to providing high-quality advice and guidance to those who are dealing with the emotional weight of an HIV diagnosis. The peer counselors will be selected and trained by NGO and government officials.

The virtual call center counselors will be available via mobile phone and will field questions remotely. Not only will the virtual call center create thousands of jobs, but those who call into the call center will be connected with a nurturing voice to help console and distribute quality information.

The fourth and final piece of Project M involves at-home HIV testing with mobile support. Unfortunately, with such a high population of HIV infected persons, the South African healthcare system isn't fully capable of handle the tremendous load. Also, South Africans who may be HIV positive avoid the lines to get tested because of the stigma of being seen in line.

To help battle this, the Project M team will employ mobile testing stations that can conduct the blood test in one's home, giving them privacy. Trained councilors will also be on hand to administer guidance and advice in case it is needed. The concept of an at-home test has been well received by the South African government and healthcare officials. A mobile testing solution would be welcome in rural areas where the testing resources are most needed.

Lots of Players Involved

The team behind Project M is made up of various organizations including businesses, NGOs and government agencies. The major players include the Praekelt Foundation, mobile network operator MTN, design firm frog design, National Geographic, and NGOs such as LifeLine Southern African and World-Class Advisors.

So Much At Stake

There is no doubt that the mobile phone represents a huge opportunity to disseminate information to huge groups of people quickly and cheaply. It is refreshing to see so many organizations involved with Project M including mobile network operators, mobile technology firms, NGOs and government officials, all united to help potential victims of dreaded diseases.

This time of effort and coordination, if applied to more social causes, would bring tangible change in many areas of need. We send kudos to Project Masiluleke and we will continue to track the progress of the project on an ongoing basis.
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Africans and Their Mobiles, Part 2: Using Mobile Phones For Social Good

Jason Harris — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:00:00 -0800

This post is the second in a two-part series based on: 1) the African mobile marketplace and how Africans utilize their mobile phones; and 2) how organizations are using social marketing to reach this highly mobile population for social change.

The series is based on a conversation I had with Gustav Praekelt, a mobile entrepreneur located in South Africa. In this post we explore how mobile technology is being used for social good in Africa. See also Part 1 here.
]]> This is a guest post written by Jason Harris, a mobile writer and enthusiast. To follow him further, read his blog.

The Mobile Phone's Expansive Reach and The Massive Outreach Opportunity

Africa is an expansive and growing mobile market. With 300 million mobile accounts and more being added each day, the mobile phone presents a far-reaching outreach opportunity for marketers. However, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are also excited at the possibility of being able to send messages to 300 million people at the push of a button.

The Praekelt Foundation, a charitable outreach of Praekelt Consulting , is taking their knowledge of web and mobile technologies and finding ways to help Africa's needy. The Foundation finds, attracts, and incubates projects to reach out to Africa's under-served populations. Praekelt Foundation's current projects are all health-focused, but the organization is actively seeking other avenues to assist Africa's Mobile-based under-served people.

SocialTxt

SocialTxt is a project that utilizes Please Call Me (PCM) systems. To understand what a PCM message is, one must look at the nature of the African mobile market. In North America, the vast majority of cell phone customers pay on a postpaid basis, meaning most of us pay X amount of dollars for Y amount of minutes. However in Africa, the opposite as true, roughly 85-90% of customers utilize pre-paid SIMs to make and receive mobile phone service. In some African countries like Nigeria, pre-paid customers account for as much as 95% of the mobile market.

In these pre-paid dominant markets, when you run out of call credit, you can't make outgoing calls or SMS messages. To get someone to call you, you might ring them once or beep them. To respond to all this traffic generated on the mobile phone network, mobile network operators invented Please Call Me messages as a way to prompt your friends or family to call you back. A Please Call Me message is merely a SMS-like message that prompts the recipient to call the number of the requester. The PCM messages are free to send for mobile customers, up to 6 per day.

PCM messages are extremely popular in South Africa, of which 30 million messages are sent a day in a country with a population of around 47 million people.

PCM messages, in recent years, have been used by advertisers and marketers as a vehicle for marketing. Praekelt and his colleagues saw the PCM system as a tool for social change. The Praekelt Foundation thereby approached a network operator about a year ago and convinced the company to work with the Foundation to conduct a trial of positive social impact advertising.

The PCM message offers 120 characters that the Foudation and it's partners to utilize. For example, a message can be sent to encourage the recipient to call an HIV call center or medical center. The messages fill a need, as Praekelt said, "This is not fancy technology and most of the PCM message users are at the bottom of the social economic chain. These are people who don't have TV's, so programs such as SocialTxt give companies and groups a great way to reach these previously un-reachable portions of the population."

To enhance the PCM message, Praekelt Foundation, in partnership with health-focused NGOs, can insert a WAP link to a mobile website or a phone number to an interactive voice response system allowing for further health-related information to reach HIV-stricken patients.

With SocialTxt, the Praekelt Foundation has teamed up with partners such as the national HIV/AIDS Call Centeres, People Opposing Women Abuse, Netcare/Vodocom Cleft Lip Campaign, and Khomanani Zithande Campaign.

TxtAlert

HIV/AIDS is a health epidemic at the forefront of Africa's focus for health outreach. Of 33 million people in the world who are HIV Positive, 22 million of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of those 22 million, 5 million are in South Africa alone. This means, as Praekelt points out, that roughly 10% of the world's HIV-positive population lives in South Africa.

TxtAlert is a project that uses SMS messages to remind HIV patients to go to the health clinic for their next visit. In addition to notifying patients of the upcoming appointments, TxtAlert also requests them to reschedule if they are unable to attend. These efforts are aimed at keeping patients engaged in their treatment programs and to deter them from discontinuing their HIV/AIDS treatment programs.

The Praekelt Foundation's research found that even though most of the partner clinic's patients were jobless, more than 90% of these patients have at least one working cell phone in their household. Naturally, SMS is a viable communication method in such a situation.

In addition to prompting patients to attend their appointments, TxtAlert is being used by health clinics to incentivize those who come to the clinic as well. After a patient attends an appointment, TxtAlert will send the patient a text saying "Thank you for coming to the clinic, remember your next appointment is coming up on ". The patient will then receive a reminder text 90 days before the appointment, 2 weeks prior and so on. Well performing patients get free airtime and cell phones as incentives for coming in.

The Praekelt Foundation and partner clinics are experiencing favorable results with SocialTxt. On average, a typical clinic will have a 15% no-show rate for patient appointments. However, when a clinic utilizes SocialTxt, those rates drop to around 3%.

Praekelt points out that a great factor about SocialTxt is that deploying the system doesn't require vast amounts of capital and infrastructure. The main building block is an electronic patient record system and the rest is done behind the scenes by the TxtAlert software. The system is highly scalable as usage and needs rise. The Praekelt Foundation is currently working with a pilot clinic with about 10,000 users on the system. However, they are adding more clinics and will soon be up to 120,000 users on the SocialTxt system.

A third project utilizing SocialTxt will be unveiled at the Pop!Tech conference in October. Pop!Tech gave funding to the Praekelt Foundation to send out thousands of PCM messages regarding HIV/AIDs education.

Mobilisr

Mobile messaging is a far-reaching conduit for reaching a mass audience. The Praekelt Foundation, along with co-lead organization Cell-Life, is working to build an open source, high speed and highly reliable mobile messaging platform called Mobilisr.

Mobilisr could be used for health-related outreach, but also be used by governments and public-safety organizations to send out messages relating to: human rights monitoring, elections monitoring, emergency alerts, conducting public surveys, or could even be used by a group to organize protests.

Prakelt also told me that Mobilisr is enabling customers to conduct SMS voting (much like American Idol's text messaging voting system). The problem with the existing SMS voting systems, as he explains, is that they are built on proprietary systems. Te Prakelt Foundation is working with NGO's (such as Cell-Life) to build SMS based pledge lines and incentive systems built upon WAP sites.

Mobilisr just launched on October 1st. It will be interesting to see how the technology is employed by NGOs and other groups for social good.

Conclusion

With mobile phone technology spreading so rapidly across the African continent, there are many opportunities to reach out to Africa's under-served population. Any vehicle that offers access to the population should be exploited. It's a shame that many people in these groups are being ignored, even though many of them have mobile phones.

It is great to see organizations such as the Praekelt Foundation working with mobile network operators, health clinics, and NGOs to connect Africa's under-served population with the care and services they need to be happy, informed, and perhaps more healthy.

About The Author
Jason Harris is a technology and mobile enthusiast based in Portland, Oregon. To connect with Jason or read more of his posts, check out his blog at Techcraver.com.
Photo: Paul Watson
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