DigiActive.org

Campaign: InSTEDD’s Mekong Collaboration Program for Early Detection and Early Response

Description and Background: In 2006, Dr. Larry Brilliant won the TED Prize and called for the development of a technological system that would stop the threat of pandemics and catastrophes. Renowned for his work in the successful, worldwide eradication of smallpox, Dr. Brilliant emphasized the game-changing purpose of this system – early detection and early response.  As such, he declared his TED wish, “I wish that you would help build a global system to detect each new disease or disaster as quickly as it emerges or occurs.”  From this prize and wish emerged InSTEDD (Innovative Support To Emergency Diseases and Disasters), originally titled “International Networked System for Total Early Disease Detection.”  Shortly after TED, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google’s founders) appointed Dr. Brilliant the head of Google.org, the organization’s philanthropic arm.

With funding from Google.org, the Rockefeller Foundation, and others, InSTEDD began its social, technological mission with CEO Eric Rasmussen (a former U.S. Navy chief doctor for disaster response in the Pacific), Dr. Dennis Israelski as the Vice President of Global Health, and Eduardo Jezierski as the Vice President of Engineering.  Along with Chief Technology Office Robert Kirkpatrick, Chief Operating Officer Judith Kleinberg, and several other full-time team members, InSTEDD operates very much like a classic startup in which everyone wears many different hats (click here for bios).  In addition to the executive team, InSTEDD has over a dozen dedicated team members on the ground in their Mekong Collaboration Program (MCP).  This program focuses on rapid detection and rapid response in the Mekong Basin of Southeast Asia – Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Yunan province of China – and has been stationed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia since 2008. In the region, InSTEDD partners with the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network (MBDS), a collaboration network of the six countries’ local governments and Ministries of Health that work to improve cross-border disease information sharing.  Not only does InSTEDD work closely with MBDS, but the organization also established a field-based Innovation Lab (iLab) in Phonm Penh in August 2008.  By empowering young Cambodian developers to design technological solutions based on their local expertise and understanding, InSTEDD works to maintain a creative, organic environment in which sustainable innovation can thrive.

Digital Tools Being Developed: GeoChat, Mesh4X, Evolve (tools that incorporate Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, SMS text messages, and so on, as applicable)

How These Tools Are Being Designed and Used: As Ed Jezierski explained to me in our Skype interview, GeoChat helps people in the field to share and report data with each other as well as with those at headquarters, amplifying the amount of information flowing between health workers; Mesh4X coordinates this information by synchronizing between various organizations’ virtual databases; Evolve functions as a place to curate the collective information and subsequently analyze it for conclusions.  For more details about InSTEDD’s approach, tools, and impact, read more after the jump.

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Campaign: MTV No Exit in Cambodia

Update: The campaign now has its own YouTube Channel. Check out their first video here.

Description: MTV Exit is a joint project between MTV networks and USAID to raise awareness of human trafficking. While its motives are good – “MTV EXIT aims to increase awareness and prevention of human trafficking through television programs, online content, live events, and partnerships with anti-trafficking organizations” – its methods have riled some NGOs that work in the field.

MTV No EXIT is a campaign by sex workers and garment workers in Cambodia and around Asia against MTV Exit. According to the campaign’s Facebook page, MTV Exit is currently in Cambodia doing a series of concerts but didn’t consult with sex workers about the impact of this in the current situation with the new anti-trafficking law. Allegedly, MTV Exit is also threatening to sue sex workers and garment workers who are campaigning against them.

Digital Activism Tools: Facebook page, YouTube, photos

How These Tools Are Being Used: The campaign is using a Facebook page as their principle web presence. The page links to the official YouTube channel of MTV Exit, though there are no videos for the No Exit campaign. The Facebook page also features photos of Cambodian rehabilitation centers for sex workers (see above), which the campaigners allege are abusive, and of sex workers campaigning for the legalization of their work.

Outcome: Update (Dec. 17, 2008) - MTV Exit Manager met with WNU and APNSW in Phnom Penh. Sex workers put their case to them about lack of consultation and flow on effects to sex workers about anti-trafficking campaigns.  MTV Exit agreed to consult with sex worker organisations in future when they are going into a country to do their campaign and also to work with them to ensure TV broadcasts don’t contain messages that can make the situation on the ground worse for sex workers.

Hat-tip: Dirk Slater
photo credit: the MTV No Exit campaign