Imagining Together: Using Technology and Extreme Ideas to Solve the Toughest Problems of the World
From Anita Borg Institute Wiki
Panelists: Lani Fraizer (Pepperdine University and Synergies in Sync, LLC), Ritu Arora (University of Alabama at Birmingham), Geetha Krishnakumar (inherIT). Moderator: Michelle Marquard (Pepperdine University and Cisco Systems)
Imagine a world without poverty, hunger and disease; greater survival prospects for future generations, better educated children, equal opportunities for women, and a healthier environment; a world in which developed and developing countries worked in partnership for the betterment of all. Now imagine that you are part of the solution. This session serves as a forum for techno-social students, educators and professionals to discuss strategies and technologies for social change.
Notes added by Ritu Arora
The session started with Ritu's presentation on "Using Technology to Solve the Toughest Problems of the World". An introduction to the Millenium Development Goals was given and three goals - improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, and gender equality were touched upon briefly with statistics on each of them. This was followed by the following case-studies and a video on family planning (created by EngenderHealth):
1) 3-for-1 project 2) PennyPot project 3) Mobile technologies & agricultural practices 4) Multi-point Web 5) Deaf Children Learn to Sign by Toying With RFID 6) New Information System for Blind and Visually Impaired 7) PDADocter
The speaker urged the audience to make a contribution towards the global effort of using technology for addressing the challenging problems and proposed to start a collaborative virtual group of like-minded techno-social people. The presentation was followed by Q & A session.
The next presentation was from Ms. Geetha Krishnakumar. She gave some statistics on mobile and internet penetration in the society. Then she mentioned the exclusion factors that are responsible for depriving people from certain sections of the society in becoming active contributors to technology. Geetha then presented a video of a Sudanese woman immigrant to Australia and her struggle in adjusting in the developed world which is techno-efficient. The woman took seven years to overcome language barriers and learn basic computer skills. Geetha then highlighted the causes behind this situation - age factor, ability to learn, socio-economic circumstances etc. Geetha's presentation was followed by a Q & A session and the audience were requested to fill a feedback form.
