Monthly Archives: May 2009

Wireless Innovations Saving Lives

Innovative technology has the potential to save lives, and wireless technologies hold a special promise for vexing global problems.  In some resource-limited areas, access to reliable wireless service is among the only infrastructure platforms available.

That’s why the Vodafone Americas Foundation™ was delighted to give away more than $700,000 through our first Wireless Innovation Project™, a competition that identifies and funds unique innovations using wireless related technology offering the best potential to address critical social issues around the world.

Too often promising social innovations languish because they don’t have a platform for effective and efficient delivery.  We designed the competition to encourage cross-disciplinary cooperation within universities and encouraged non-governmental organizations and non-profits to apply. We also wanted to add the private sector rigor to the process of competing—a daunting online application forced teams to challenge academic and theoretical assumptions with real-world data. More →

Launch of the Humanitarian Technology Challenge

The United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Partnership, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest association of technical professionals are announcing the launch of a new initiative called The Humanitarian Technology Challenge (HTC).  HTC is a project that is designed to identify and help develop technology-based solutions to current challenges facing humanitarian workers and others working in resource-constrained environments. They are matching humanitarian professionals and technologists who are interested in contributing their time and expertise to help develop technological solutions to challenges that aid workers and development experts face working in the field.

Stay tuned for a list of keynote speakers and panelists selected from among the humanitarian and technology communities, and a complete agenda covering the two-day event. We expect this event to create challenge working groups and set in motion a process for facilitating web-based collaboration on solution development that will continue after the conference closes. More →