The TED talk titled, 'reporting crisis via texting' sparked my interest because I plan to use nearly the same idea Erik Hersman used for Ushahidi and reporting on the violence of Kenya. What Hersman did was allow local Kenyans to text a toll-free number whenever or wherever violence was occurring. Ushahidi annotated a map based off wherever the most texts were been received from. This map provided the benefit of communication to all internet users where the most violent areas of Kenya were. Furthermore, an aspect of this project I found interesting was the filtering of respondence. This filtering means that if anybody sends in false reports, than their reports can be thrown out, equally so if somebody sends multiple legitimate texts than that user will be marked as a reliable source.
I plan to use both aspects of Hersman's idea on my project. I want to help improve the infant mortality rate in Africa by creating a means of communication between doctors and tribes. I plan to use mashup maps to illustrate the relativity of the crisis; I would annotate the map to make marks where expecting mothers were located. I could even go beyond this to color code the annotations to place a timely factor on the situation. Furthermore, I could mark a line that resembles the traveling route of the doctors. There are many other ways to mark the map that would prove beneficial, but I will come up with more as I start drafting them. As far as filter responses, this would be important for my project because some tribes may claim false reports just to get a doctor to come visit; if a tribe repeatedly made false reports then then would be marked as illegitimate and doctors may visit them less frequently. The use of filtering allows the project to develop, and if tribes continue to correctly report pregnancies, then the project is actually successful at improving upon infant mortality rates. I did however put my own spin of what Ushahidi did in my project simply for the reason that my target, all tribes in Africa, does not own cell phones. I did come up with a way to solve this problem, and I will present it Tuesday during my ignite talk.
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I like your idea for improving infant mortality rates in Africa. Connecting doctors with tribes will benefit more than just the infant mortality rates..it will improve the overall health of those in Africa. Getting the knowledge to the tribes efficiently will teach mothers how to treat their bodies correctly when they are with child.
ReplyDeleteShowing a map of where doctors are located would be incredibly helpful for the mothers and their loved ones when she needs assistance, the only problem is making sure she will have access to those maps. You could look at where infant mortality rates are highest and look into their internet usage. It amazing how just one computer per community could benefit them so much.
Hey Amanda, you brought up two good points that I address in my project. The first thing you mentioned was that mothers are uneducated on how to treat their bodies. I sat down with my grandfather, who was a doctor practicing in Africa, and he told me that lack of doctors and medical supplies is actually not the problem. He told me how the mothers in many tribes would consume alcohol throughout their pregnancy because they were unaware of the effects. There are other reasons such as nomadic lifestyles and continental violence that also raise infant mortality rates. The second thing you mentioned was showing a map of where infant mortality rates are the highest. I was lucky to stumble across the CIAs website because they have a worldbook that contains color coded maps, country by country, of the infant mortality rate. Aside from Afghanistan, the entire continent of Africa is noticeably worse.
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