Emphasis Added : Media, Millennials

The end of polio, malaria, tuberculosis and infant AIDS - 4 killer digital initiatives

patrick — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:43:00 GMT

: The Big Push Campaign

You don't need to be a brain surgeon to understand that basic, accessible healthcare is a human right denied to many of those in the developing world, particularly children. The good news is that we are winning the war against child mortality, as well as being very close to defeating diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

A 2010 TedTalk by Dr. Hans Rosling reframes 10 years of UN data, providing a compelling and enlightening look at the underreported progress we are making against child mortality. Rosling is a world renowned international public health scientist and medical statistician who just this week was named as the winner of 2012's Harvard Foundation’s Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award, "for his outstanding work in analyzing global health care disparities and promoting humane medical equity”.

Digital technology and social media provides opportunities to reach more people, more quickly around the world with health education, information, diagnoses and treatments. Here's 4 initiatives striving to turbo charge a rapid end to some of the world's biggest health problems.

: Medic Mobile

1. Medic Mobile

Medic Mobile works with partner organizations that provide high-impact health services in challenging settings. The project's key areas of focus are:

Getting People Into Care: Remote Patient Registration and Danger Sign Monitoring;
Helping People Stay in Care: Notifications for Antenatal Care and Immunizations; and
Improving the Quality of Care: Stock Monitoring and Data Collection.

Using free and open source software, Medic Mobile claims to have boosted immunization rates by more than 20%, contained disease outbreaks, and made drug stock reporting 4 times cheaper and 134 times faster, which impacts the care of over 600,000 patients.

2. The Big Push

Picture this: A world where no child is born with HIV or where no death is caused by a mosquito bite. As unrealistic as that sounds, in reality, we are much closer to achieving this dream than anyone realizes. But, like every amazing advance made by humankind, this goal needs a Big Push to change the course of history for global health. Initiated by The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, in partnership with The Huffington Post, The Big Push is a campaign to rally support to achieve global health goals that are now within reach.

3. The Last Percent

Melinda Gates launched this Gates Foundation initiative to eradicate polio. Thanks to childhood vaccines, polio has been reduced by 99% and we are on the threshold of eradicating the second disease in history (after small pox).

4. Shot@Life

The UN Foundation and the American Academy of Pediatrics launched a mobile app at the Summit that allows parents to track their children’s milestones while raising awareness for the need for life-saving vaccines for children globally. 1.5 million children around the world die each year from a vaccine-preventable disease and Shot@Life is the UN Foundation’s newest campaign that educates, connects, and empowers Americans to champion vaccinations. Vaccines are the most cost-effective way to safeguard the lives of children in developing countries against diseases like polio, diarrhoea, measles and pneumonia.

The new mobile app allows parents and followers of the campaign to capture and share the moments of childhood with stylized photos on Facebook, Twitter, or through email. In partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the app also includes a Milestone Tracker that outlines developmental and health-related indicators that typically occur in a child’s life from birth to age five. The app makes it easy for parents and others to become Shot@Life champions and spread the word about vaccines as one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries.

As always, participate where you can and if you have any other ideas worth noting or following, let us know!

Social Good Summit - how social media and technology is changing the word for good

patrick — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:41:00 GMT

By Patrick Doherty

Last weekend's Social Good Summit (SGS) brought together a vast array of thinkers, innovators, philanthropists, politicians, journalists, social activists and, of course, celebrities to discuss the power of technology and social media in doing good in this world. It's easy for us to be cynical or high and mighty about the ridiculousness of tweets, vanity of Facebook, and the dangers of being online too much.

For once it was refreshing – no, downright inspiring – to spend three days immersed in a conversation about how the digital revolution is revolutionising millions of peoples lives and is a real agent for good in this world.

A first time initiative was the Global Conversation. Summits were concurrently held in Beijing and Nairobi with over 200 Meetups in 100 countries. But most impressive was the effort that like-minded individuals made to hold sessions in places such as Mogadishu, Somalia. A suicide bomb exploding at one of the only Internet cafes in Somalia’s capital last week did not deter the cafe’s owner from speaking on one of SGS Mogadishu’s Global Conversation panels. In fact he insisted, “This is even more important now.”

Other events were held in Rwanda, Uzbekistan and Bangladesh, who even provided live streams of their events. Bhutan broadcast its summit on national TV. The U.N. ensured the security of the meetups, hosting Juba, South Sudan and Kabul, Afghanistan’s sessions on its compounds.

: Jane Goodall, Social Good Summit by Patrick Doherty

There were many high-profile people showing support at the summit. There were messages from Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and Melinda Gates, interviews with the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano and Professor Muhammad Yunus, Founder, Grameen Bank & 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and surprise vista from President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim to name but a few.

Celebrities in their guises as UN Goodwill Ambassadors or to support their own causes filled out the field of high profile attendees. Presentations by big names included Forest Whitaker launching his PeaceEarth Intitiatve, Mira Sorvino premiering her film, Trade of Innocents on human trafficking, America Ferrera and Alexis Bledel discussing their work with the One Campaign in Honduras, and Maria Bello promoting her We Advance initiative in Haiti.

: Social Good Summit by Patrick Doherty

Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia was there, as was Clay Shirky (near and dear to the hearts of MCDM students). Deepak Chopra gave the audience things to think about in regard to spirituality in the digital age.

The event was capped off by chimpanzee activist and protector Jane Goodall who entertained the audience with chimp sounds which were then sampled by DJ Apple Juice Kid.

While it was fun to see all the big names, the cool part of the summit was the showcasing of people and project working hard to create social good.

With the 220 meetups, over 60,000 tweets, the Global Good Summit trended internationally for all three days and was "Largest Conversation About A Single Topic In One Day," according to RecordSetter.com.

: Peter Gabriel, Social Good Summit by Patrick Doherty

Over the next week on Flip the Media, we will profile 25 projects and the people behind them who are striving to make the world a better place using technology and social media. First are three projects focused around the Environment and Urban Living. Next week we will look at projects Women and Girls, Health, Human Trafficking and Refugees, Giving and Causes and Social Network Alliances and Tools.

1. Map Your World

Map Your World is a multi-platform project that puts the power of new technologies into the hands of young change agents, enabling them to map, track, and improve the health of their own communities – and then share their stories of change with each other and with the world. Map Your World was inspired by the feature documentary The Revolutionary Optimists. The film follows “The Daredevils,” a group of youth in one of Kolkata’s most notorious squatter’s colonies, who made a dramatic improvement in the health of their community, a place that cannot even be found on the map. The Daredevils undertook the project of making a map of their colony. They also have been painstakingly tracking and collecting data around health issues that impact them, such as water, sanitation, and infectious diseases. In 10 years, they have made dramatic improvements in their area: they’ve turned a trash dump into a soccer field, lobbied for electricity, and decreased diarrhea and malaria rates in their neighbourhood.

2. The Climate Reality Project

The Climate Reality Project is bringing the facts about the climate crisis into the mainstream and engaging the public in conversation about how to solve it. Founded and chaired by Al Gore, Nobel Laureate and former Vice President of the United States, The Climate Reality Project has more than 5 million members and supporters worldwide. It is guided by one simple truth: the climate crisis is real and we know how to solve it. On November 14th, join The Climate Reality Project for 24 Hours of Reality: The Dirty Weather Report online. This is the second annual event showing how global climate change is connected to the extreme weather we experience in our daily lives. The entire 24-hour event will be broadcast live over the Internet.

3. Charity: Water

Charity: Water is a non-profit bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations with 100% of public donations directly fund water projects. Using a unique fundraising idea, people pledge to give up their next birthday, instead asking for donations in the place of gifts. The story of a 9-year-old girl from Seattle – Rachel Beckwith, who was tragically killed in a motor accident – highlights the power of digitally connected world to bring some good out of darkness. 30,000 people gave more than $1.2 million in one month in memory of Rachel.

Those of us who live at the cross roads of culture, media and technology are uniquely positioned to tell the stories of some of the great work that is being done to create a better world for so many. Check out the projects that caught your eye, spread the word about them and let us know of others – we would love to feature them here on Young World Rising.

: Forest Whitaker, Social Good Summit by Patrick Doherty

Doing anything special on Monday? How about helping change the world?

patrick — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:45:00 GMT

By Patrick Doherty

This coming weekend (September 22nd to 24th), the Social Good Summit is on again in New York City and we will be there. Held during UN Week when world leaders gather for the UN General Assembly, the event unites people from around the world around one common theme: the power of social media and technology to solve our world’s greatest issues. The summit is presented by the United Nations Foundation,the United Nations Development Programme, Mashable, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 92Y and Ericsson.

The ambitious centerpiece of the program is Monday September 24th's Global Conversation which aims to be "one of the largest online conversations driven by citizens inside their communities ever to take place." Along with concurrent events taking place in New York, Beijing & Nairobi, the conversation will be opened up to people around the world via the UN Development Programme’s 160+ satellite locations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s worldwide network, and Mashable’s Meetups Everywhere community.

So far the Summit estimates there will be over 200 meet ups occurring in almost 100 countries around the globe. However, by using #SGSGlobal, anyone can contribute their suggestions, stories, and ideas. The ideas collected on the 24th will be shared globally. The goal is to create an ongoing discussion for the coming year and to ensure the best ideas reach far beyond the hallowed halls of the UN.

It's easy for anyone to join. Those of you here in Seattle can go to the local Mashable Meetup. You can also watch the Summit on YouTube and interact in real-time with the Social Good Summit community with the official hashtag, #SGSglobal.

The line up of speakers and topics at the New York event is impressive, including:

Todd Park, U.S. Chief Technology Officer for The White House speaking on Innovation In Open Government,
TMS “Teddy” Ruge, Co-Founder of Project Diaspora, which seeks to encourage the African Diaspora to make a difference in the lives of their communities of origin
Nobel Peace Prize winner and creator of the micro-credit movement and founder of Grameen Bank Muhammad Yunus, who will talk about the life-changing impact of mobile
Asi Burak, Co-President, Games for Change

Alongside those speakers, there will also be three ex-prime ministers (New Zealand, Norway, Poland), as well as the usual smattering of actors in their Goodwill Ambassador modes. Other topics covered during the event include battling disease, political unrest, human trafficking, global sustainability and climate change, bridging the digital divide and the role of the millennial generation, and even the ocean - presented by a Cousteau no less!

The Social Good Summit will be a fascinating exercise in bringing the world together to create better outcomes for all people through digital technology and social media. I encourage you to watch the sessions on YouTube and participcate. As smart folks with expertise and interest in the social and digital world, lending your voices and ideas to the global conversation can only improve its chances of success and help create a better world for one and all.

Net Generation Entrepreneurs: Four Perspectives

Rob — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:40:00 GMT

Earlier this fall, I made a guest appearance at the Digital Media in Emerging Economies class at the University of Washington, where Young World Rising is part of the syllabus. One of the students, Amy Rainey, was inspired to produce this short film based on some of the stories and ideas in the book.

Net Generation Entrepreneurs: Four Perspectives from Amy Rainey on Vimeo.