Language learning and translation

Just saw a TED talk from Carnegie Mellon, about work being done on large scale human computing....  Okay, that part was interesting too....

But what caught me is a free way to learn a new language.  They are in beta testing at http://duolingo.com/.  The idea is to learn a new language by translating words.  The original learn to do by doing...  But structured so that what you are doing is something that also helps translate web pages.

Support systems...

Here's an article recently published in the ontario society for professional engineers news letter. (link) It talks about how important it is for the local system to be in place to support infrastructure development.  Things like management, construction standards, accounting systems must be in place for large infrastructure systems to work.  Even for relatively small systems, if the support structures are not there, the projects will eventually fail.  This means its not just the technology, its the people and how they relate, the responsibility and social structures that are as important as the tools....

another man to watch: Al Hammond

Working in rural india, but planning to scale much larger, Al Hammond is developing a way to make affordable medical care in remote areas.  Local staff trained to run equipment and tests, tele-connected to doctors in urban areas, they can provide doctors visits or diagnostic tests for $1.  The local clinics also provide clean water at a reasonable price $1.50 for a month's supply.

Fast company article

Youtube video describing and demonstrating how it works.

Sharing a Cell phone

So here's another interesting potential.  It's a system to share a cell phone while keeping billing separate.  Think cloud - based telecom....

frog-design-movirtu-collaborate-on-shared-cell-phone-access-in-developing-countries

Open source, simple communications

Here's a couple of things i've found recently that may be useful in the developing world. A simple system for managing SMS messages to/from a central location is Frontline SMS. I haven't tried it, but if you want to use text messaging to reach people, then this just might be the tool.

Another recent article on kiwanja.net talked about a new interactive voice response system that will be released soon at freedomfone.org. This sounds like an open source version of the commercial answering system with voice menu prompts. It's billed as a tool for NGOs to use to share information between all the people that have cell phones but not internet access, or even literacy, in their own language. We'll see, but it looks very interesting... Maybe i can set up a digital voicemail/answering machine at home here that i can access via skype... I doubt the priority will ever get that high unless it's to test the software for some other purpose...