Hi everyone. One of the grassroots data journalism projects that our Code for Africa<http://codeforafrica.org> and Hacks/Hackers Africa <https://www.facebook.com/HacksHackersAfrica> teams support urgently needs some help.
They're trying to find a cost-efficient digital imaging / microscopy solution for a sensorweb they're building that will use SMS messages to alert rural communities to e-coli and other contamination of local rivers that communities use for drinking water. The projects are in an area that is South Africa's epicenter of the HIV/Aids pandemic (with up to an astounding *46%* of pregnant women in the area testing HIV positive), and where there are regular cholera outbreaks ... which are fatal for anyone with a compromised immune system. The sensorweb idea stems from a Liberation Technology presentation on mobile phone hacks at Stanford in 2008/9, where some students demonstrated a smartphone they'd converted into a microscope using the inbuilt camera & flash. The presentation unfortunately wasn't part of the official speaker programme, so we're struggling to track the team. The African project intends using the sensorweb for two purposes: 1.) To create a public SMS alert service for villagers, that warns when rivers are dangerously contaminated so that villagers can go elsewhere for water. 2.) To create the region's 1st real-time database of water quality for journalists, activists, and the authorities to track sewerage and other spills into local rivers. We have a small ($10,000) seed grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and World Editors Forum to test the idea for citizen-run sensorwebs in impoverished rural communities. The local partner is a grassroots muckraking newspaper, Ziwaphi <https://www.facebook.com/ziwaphi>, which has dedicated a reporting team to the project for 1yr but doesn't have many other resources. We therefore need really cheap & easy-to-deploy solutions! Any ideas or suggestions or leads would be much appreciated. Hope someone on the list can help. Cheers, Justin Justin Arenstein SA Mobile: +27.82.374.0812 US Mobile: +1.650.336.5878 Skype: JustinArenstein Twitter: JustinArenstein <http://twitter.com/justinarenstein> Web: http://www.linkedin.com/in/JustinArenstein *PGP Key Fingerprint: **8B19 3C53 2B40 453B F48D 9D7A 7346 A3AE DB88 30CD* *Do you want to email me confidentially? See: **http://bit.ly/VLJt1N <http://bit.ly/VLJt1N>*
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