Vote in the NetSquared-USAID Development 2.0 Challenge

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published December 09, 2008 @ 10:31AM PT

NetSquared and USAID have teamed up to launch a truly awesome "Development 2.0" competition designed to help provide funding and momentum for projects that use innovative technology to tackle international development issues. They're particularly focused on ideas that leverage mobile technology in new ways.

Over the last few weeks, ideas have poured in from all over the world, and now you get to vote for your favorite five. The top 15 will present to a panel of USAID-selected judges and the top three will receive cash and other prizes.

These type of competitions are incredible forums for launching social entrepreneurship ventures. NetSquared's most recent Mashup Challenge was where we launched our Assetmap Uganda pilot.

Take a minute to go through the entries, and definitely check out some of my favorites below. By the way, what an incredible pool of creativity, huh?

Mobilizing Medical Records in Resource Poor Settings: "We will develop software that enables health workers to utilize electronic medical records [EMR] remotely via SMS." I'm not sure that this will work, but I know from everything I've read, community health workers and going to meet people where they live is essential to developing good health care systems in the developing world. I'd like to give them the best chance to succeed possible.

Ushahidi v.2: - Ushahidi uses mobile technology to crowd-source crisis information to both help emergency responders and create a living timeline of the event. I'd vote for them because I think their platform should be integrated into just about every emergency response strategy we have. Ushahidi were the winners of the earlier Net2 Project Challenge.

HarassMap - Reporting & Mapping Sexual Harassment on the Streets via SMS - Egypt: Egypt is one of my favorite places in the world. I studied at the American University of Cairo in 2004 and have been back almost every year since, working on a variety of refugee-related projects. Sexual harassment and its impact on gender norms more broadly speaking is one of the single greatest social problems the country faces. Its beginning to impact tourism. Britain, for example, now warns its female citizens about the threat formally. Its not just international tourist economics though, it also is a fundamental human rights issue.

QuestionBox - Democratizing Information and News for the Illiterate, Poor, and Unconnected: "Question Box gives rural populations access to the internet and information, even if they don't have computers or bandwdith." I love the simplicty of this idea. Have a question? For most of us in the states, we just Google it. But how often have you thought, "what would I do without Google?" This project uses technology that people do have - phones - to enable them to basically use the internet without using the internet.

Vote here.