Aurion
09.07.08, 17:35
A team from Indonesia took home a US$10,000 prize in the Rural Innovation segment of Microsoft's Imagine Cup this year by developing a way for people to report environmental problems with their mobile phones.
It's easy to see why the idea came from Indonesia. The nation is made up of over 17,000 islands in the South Pacific, many without electricity or good wireline communications. A fisherman from a small island village may see a problem such as a sinking oil tanker, but may not be able to report it quickly enough to stave off disaster.
Project Butterfly aims to solve the communication problem using the mobile phone networks that have become pervasive in Indonesia and many other developing countries. The Indonesia team created a way for reports to be collected and collated from voice calls, SMS, MMS (multimedia messaging service), or mobile or Web messages.
The software then classifies the problems according to priority and location, and sends an alert to authorities able to handle the problem.
The team hopes to work with environme
Source :
PC World - Microsoft Rural Innovation Winner Finds Gold in Green (http://www.pcworld.com/article/148102/microsoft_rural_innovation_winner_finds_gold_in_gr een.html)
It's easy to see why the idea came from Indonesia. The nation is made up of over 17,000 islands in the South Pacific, many without electricity or good wireline communications. A fisherman from a small island village may see a problem such as a sinking oil tanker, but may not be able to report it quickly enough to stave off disaster.
Project Butterfly aims to solve the communication problem using the mobile phone networks that have become pervasive in Indonesia and many other developing countries. The Indonesia team created a way for reports to be collected and collated from voice calls, SMS, MMS (multimedia messaging service), or mobile or Web messages.
The software then classifies the problems according to priority and location, and sends an alert to authorities able to handle the problem.
The team hopes to work with environme
Source :
PC World - Microsoft Rural Innovation Winner Finds Gold in Green (http://www.pcworld.com/article/148102/microsoft_rural_innovation_winner_finds_gold_in_gr een.html)