Microsoft Mobile Development Challenge Update
Looking through the Millenium Goals together the resources I had previously put together for the Microsoft Challenge I came very distrubing facts and figures regarding child mortality especially related to poor and remote locations and non-reporting of births.
Based upon this I quickly wrote up a idea based around notification and follow up of Births and Child illnesses based around SMS and an integrated Case Management system. If such a system is placed within local or national helpline centers, managed well and given significant marketing then it would go some way to addressing some issues related to Child Mortality.
Full details of the entry are here -> http://netsquared.org/projects/notification-and-follow-births-child-illness-using-sms-assists-mg-4
Recent previous netsquared based challenges have been open to anyone so I did not read the rules for the Microsoft challenge. It is a requirement that entries be from eligible NGOs - read here - This makes the entry is currently invalid however I would prefer not to trash the project idea because I feel it has some potential. Therefore the entry will need to be championed /owned by an eligible NGO, if you are interested in getting your organisation involved with this project then please make contact.
Looking through the other Microsoft Mobile Dev challenge project entries it is clear that nearly all of the current ones are projects that submitted to previous Netsquared Challenges that have just re-entered without looking at the requirements. Only one project mentions the Millenium Goals and none (apart from the entry above) mention the use of any Microsoft tools (I am sure that will be a plus in the eyes of the judges). That said there are still 2 weeks to enter a project so hopefully there will be some eligible entries nearer the deadline.