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Quickbits May 2008

MapAction and BrightEarth both feature in an article in the Independent entitled “Mapping the disaster zones” - how they think up the intensely creative titles for these articles, I just don’t know. Interesting enough, but these articles always leave me with a sense that the writer just doesn’t get it - apparently “Within 48 hours: The latest field information is combined with accurate 1:5,000,000 “base maps” to form the first complete maps of disaster-zone data”, which is news to me.

At the bottom of the press release Intel, Grameen Announce Joint Business Venture to Fuel Social and Economic Development Opportunities Empowered by Technology, we learn that Intel have teamed up with NetHope to develop new solutions for the field, the first (and possibly last) of which is the Aid Station, a “rugged, purpose-built, low-cost technology platform suitable for use in harsh, remote locations”.

Jon Thompson sends me links to two initiatives which mainly force me to ask the question “Why?” NGO Post and Commkit are both well-intended, but both seem to be hell-bent on reinventing the wheel. If Digg works, why not just create an NGO channel on it rather than build an entirely new NGO version of it? If you need “a humanitarian communications platform that is autonomous (works with very little infrastructure) and accessible (anyone can use it)”, then why not use the internet with Sahana running on it? OTOH, it’s standard NGO practice to reinvent the wheel, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised - however if anybody can shed any light on either of these, I’ll be more than happy to revise my opinion.

Development Gateway have launched two new dgCommunities - one for Disasters Prevention and Response and one for Stabilization & Reconstruction, both with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This partnership seems to have emerged out of CSIS giving up on the idea of launching their own community, the Hub, which explains the inclusion of S&R (terminology which the US military loves and the humanitarian community does not). I’ve nothing against community sites, but I’m waiting to see one in this sector which works as a community (particularly following my own experience with AidWorkers Network).

The OLPC XO2 is announced. Quoth OLPC news:

On top of that it seems as though a new UN Millennium Development Goal is in the works. The press-release quotes Nirj Deva, Member of the European Parliament, as saying: “One Laptop per Child and the XO laptop are crucial to the fulfillment of the proposed UN Ninth Millennium Goal: to ensure that every child between the ages of 6 and 12 has immediate access to a personal laptop computer by 2015.”

Somebody shoot me. Or better still, send me more news for this section.