Innovation Plaza and the NTC
To put it simply, the NTEN community is amazing. We want to celebrate all the remarkable things our community members do on a daily basis to make the world a better place. So, on Thursday and Friday we'll display the best of the projects, tools, and services from the sector in a place we call the Innovation Plaza.
This year's participants are:
Thursday March 20
Project: HealthyToys.org, The Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemcials in Toys
No government agency is adequately assuring that children's products remain free of harmful chemicals, nor are there any requirements to label or disclose information about their chemical components. HealthyToys.org, The Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Toys, was launched to address these failures and keep consumers informed.
The project's impact on both the media and consumers was tremendous. We received local and national recognition from the media, and we received more than 44,000 new supporters in the first month due to the consumer demand for non-toxic children's products. Also, over the past three months, consumers have nominated over 8,000 new toys to be tested and posted on HealthyToys.org.
With HealthyToys.Org, the Ecology Center used the innovative techniques implemented with its HealthyCar.Org project to make an incredible impact creatively and on a budget. The project provides useful information to other organizations looking to make an impact with a market campaign to connect the failure of manufacturers to provide healthy and safe children’s products with the failure of corporate and governmental chemicals policy. By working with other groups (including Washington Toxics Coalition, the Center for Environmental Health, and many others) and using technology creatively, the Ecology Center’s HealthyToys.Org campaign raised a great deal of national awareness. Moreover, on an organizational level, this technological project is leading to others and opening up avenues to address a gamut of areas from healthy pet toys to healthy homes.
Project: iMentor Interactive
A product of iMentor’s seven years of experience, iMentor Interactive (iMi) is an online social network designed specifically for mentoring. iMi provides organizations with their own independent and secure social network, while providing participants and staff with all the tools and expertise necessary to run a quality mentoring program, instantly. The software provides tools that include online applications, automated matching, email, calendaring, email and event monitoring and tracking, pre and post program evaluations, etc.
There is a 15 million person mentoring gap in this country. iMentor was created to address the mentoring gap: the vast number of underserved young people in need of quality mentors. The benefits of mentoring are well established, yet the majority of youth-development organizations do not have the tools or resources necessary to add a quality mentoring component to their programming. With the use of iMentor Interactive (iMi), organizations will be able to provide young people in need with qualified mentors, while managing the program on a safe, closed, and monitored network. With iMi, iMentor seeks to close the national mentoring gap and empower organizations throughout the country.
IntraHealth International Inc.
Project: iHRIS Open Source Software
Many developing countries have a severe health care worker shortage. Adding to this problem is the fact that much of their human resources for health (HRH) data are currently being housed in a paper based format that has not been routinely updated. This information is virtually useless when it is not easily compiled into reports and able to be processed for decision making purposes. Our goal was to take this valuable information and transfer it into a format that was easy to use and provided health care leaders with the crucial information that they were lacking to make informed decisions based on the needs of their people. The solution needed to be sustainable in order to continue on after the project was complete. The iHRIS Software Suite is Free Open Source Software that has three main components that can be customized for local needs: 1) iHRIS Qualify tracks health worker training, certification and licensure , 2) iHRIS Manage maintains personnel deployment, performance and attrition information, and 3 iHRIS Plan models long-term health workforce needs.
In countries across Africa, the iHRIS Software Suite has been deployed and customized to meet the needs of each country. Following are a few examples of the impact that we have had in 2 specific countries:
1) In Swaziland, the Ministry of Health and Social Work (MOHSW) did not have a complete picture of the health workers that were employed in the country. Beginning with a “step solution”, building a simple database and distributing data collection forms, they were able to gather information on all health workers working in country. This information was reconciled with the payroll system, revealing many errors and omissions. The data were then used to develop a staffing plan for the annual budget, and money was saved by removing “ghost workers”. Using the questions that were identified by the Stakeholder Leadership Group (SLG), we were able to create reports detailing vacant posts, staff lists by cadre, seniority lists and staff due to retire. Using this information, managers have been able to track vacancies and address recruitment bottlenecks. And finally, the MOHSW was also able to develop a strategic plan using the HRIS data to make their projections for training and deployment for the next ten years.
2) In Rwanda, the Ministry of Health (MOH) did not have a consolidated source of electronic or paper records on their health workforce. In order to address the staffing shortage at hand, especially in rural areas, the MOH needed a standardized information system which could be routinely updated to track the deployment of health professionals across the country. The MOH partnered with USAID and Capacity Project to develop a system to support accurate up to date data collection, management of staff and use the available data for decision making. In the spring of 2008 they will upgrade to a new iHRIS Manage. This upgrade will have enhanced features including maintenance of historical staff data and inclusion of position descriptions. Once these upgrades are implemented, the Ministry will host workshop support the use of data in decision making.
Profiles in Caring TV / GoodTube.org
Project: GoodTube
GoodTube is a dynamic new video sharing site for non-profits, with state of the art video player, interactive search navigation, and action steps for viewers to donate, volunteer and learn more. It provides a free, worldwide platform for non profits to share what they do and inspire viewers to make a difference. It is limitless in its reach, easy to use, and pure in its purpose. It is an off-shoot of an unprecedented, successful non profit TV series on volunteerism, broadcast nationally and internationally - "Profiles in Caring". We know how to help non profits because we have been doing it for 5 years. GoodTube is the next evolution - and we have put together some of the best internet developers and web communication specialists to insure its quality, functionality and outreach.
Project: Databasin.org / in Alpha - private demo can be arranged
The Conservation Biology Institute, with funding from the Wilburforce Foundation, created the Data Basin Project (http://www.databasin.org) to integrate data from key organizations and individuals in the conservation community into a public distributed database, known as the Information Commons, that fosters collaboration, speeds up the conservation research process and ultimately leads to better science-driven conservation decisions. Using the system, conservation advocates and researchers can look for data by topic or publisher, integrate data from multiple sources, analyze the data using easy graphing and statistical tools and share the results in multiple formats like Google Earth, ESRI and Power Point. Data Basin users are able to evaluate, comment and rank the data they find, making good data more valuable and easier to find. Users who need extra help in understanding the data can “drill down” for additional layers of metadata and they can interact directly with the experts who created the data. The system captures user-contributed data from individuals and organizations that wish to make their data available to the conservation science community.
Databasin.org will make it easier, faster and far less expensive for conservationists to share, analyze and visualize conservation information and create compelling presentations that can influence conservation decisions. The system will cut the time it takes a conservation advocate to create a compelling presentation that can explain a complex issue to a congressional aide from a matter of weeks down to just a few hours.
Friday March 21
National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD)Project: Aidmatrix Network
After Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, FEMA and Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster recognized the need for a collaborative tool to help streamline the, oftentimes, "second disaster" of unsolicited goods and volunteers. FEMA and National VOAD partnered with the Aidmatrix Foundation to create the Aidmatrix Network which is an online exchange of humanitarian goods and services to be used on a national and state level during disaster response and relief.
The Aidmatrix Network was tested thoroughly during the Fall of 2007 California wildfires. Prior to that it was utilized following the Spring of 2007 Enterpise AL tornado. As noted in the case study, there was a tenfold (10x) increase in the acceptance rate of unsolicited goods versus previously measured disasters. The Aidmatrix Network is also being used extensively by the Emergency Managers of the states of Alabama and Arkansas in response to multiple tornadoes impact during February 2008.
Project: SEMR (Simple Electronic Medical Record)
We have developed a Simple (as in easy to use) Electronic Medical Record system targeted for use in developing countries. We use fingerprinting to ID patients. The system is multi-lingual and runs locally, but provides online consultation capabilities when the Internet is present.
In rural communities in developing countries, medical record sytems are often non existant, or non functioning. Simply because names are common, there are no addresses and people generally do not know their date of birth. Finding past histories that are paper based is daunting and often fruitless. This system improves medical care and reduces the time needed to assess patients. All patient data, eventually (when the internet is available) is copied to a central server where we map disease patterns and check for alarm conditions (pre-defined epidimiological events). This provides a basis for addressing illnesses strategically.
Project: Open and Accessible Online Video System
Participatory Culture Foundation is the non-profit organization that makes Miro. Our mission is to build a more open and diverse world of online video.
Video RSS is at the core of what we do and is a perfect example of openness at work. When Miro connects to a video publishing website, RSS is the language they speak. This lets Miro see if there are any new videos available and begin a download. Since RSS is free, public technology anyone can build software like Miro that uses RSS. That means that publishers only need to create a single RSS feed in order to connect with lots of different video players. With closed, proprietary technologies there are gatekeepers who control who can publish and who can watch. We don't think the internet should work this way.
