AudiencScapes

Josh Nesbit was doing HIV research at a clinic in Malawi in 2007 when he realized that new mobile infrastructure available there could be harnessed to bridge gaps and coordinate health care services. And so, Medic Mobile was launched in 2009- it develops technologies such as easy-to-use medical record systems and SIM card applications to help health workers communicate and coordinate patient care, and provide diagnostics using low-cost mobile technology. AudienceScapes Fellow Paromita Pain talks to Nesbit about how better information and communication access can help us live healthier and longer lives.

The World Bank's CGAP Technology Blog recently posted an article about InterMedia's AudienceScapes' Haiti Mobile Money Tracker.  A tool created to examine a series of household surveys, commissioned by the Gates Foundation in 2010, that helped monitor the impact of USAID and the Gates Foundation's Haiti Mobile Money Initiative.  An initiative that featured a $10 million fund to provide incentives to mobile service providers to quickly launch and expand mobile money (m-money) services. 

Pakistan is experimenting with a relatively new model of healthcare delivery: telemedicine. For distance-based medical services to be successful, however, projects must grapple with challenges like inadequate infrastructure and patient distrust of the concept.

The latest political news from Russia has President Dimitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin swapping jobs again next year with the aim of sustaining Putin's personal power structure for perhaps another dozen years. In principle, Russians could reject this arrangement when they go to the polls in March 2012 to elect a new president, but it appears that Putin is still popular enough to get what he wants. As Russia's political opposition blows in the wind, some social change advocates look to the internet as a potent grassroots conduit for movements against monolithic government control.