Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

works in progress.

Domain exploration

without comments

This is some beginning brainstorming.

Questions
- What can technology do to help the lives of people living in poverty?
- How can people be helped to communicate more easily who have little access to technology?
- How do technological solutions differ for people living in developing nations from those for people living in developed nations?  Where are overlaps?
- How can technology help with income generation?
- Is a sustainable non-loss business the way to most effectively create a sustainable business model for integrating technological solutions or are for-profit/non-profit models better?
- How can cell phones be used in new ways in developing contexts, as they are more readily accessible than computers?
- How can mobile banking be streamlined, more useful, and more accessible?
- Is voice (phone) based internet actually useful for people who can’t get on the visual web?
- What types of things must be rethought when information is spoken instead of seen?
- What are the implications of an auditory web for the illiterate?

General, larger questions:
- Is it better to create a larger more applicable system or to create something for a specific context for empowerment?
- A currently held popular model for development, and the model which I’ve believed in, is for a solution to be developed on the ground in partnership with a specific group.  How do you bring innovative ideas into a context like this?

Motivations
To improve the quality of life of people living in developing countries.
To create a solution that can be economically integrated, allowing both the solution’s application to be of help but for market forces to make the solution sustainable.
To use simple technology for greater income generation allowing people to be lifted out of the cycle of poverty.
To not forget ecological impacts of these technological solutions.

Domains
poverty alleviation - communication - mobile technology - auditory internet

Target group?
Caribbean areas of high poverty, specifically Belize and St. Lucia.

Written by drewcogbill

June 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 pm

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