“From Mud Huts to the Cutting Edge of Technology”
by Michael Matheke
In March 2010, Caitlin and I were driving around Khandwa district on a motorcycle desperately searching for staff to begin operations of our ambitious “Eradicate Malnutrition” program. In our heads, we had a checklist of criteria for potential new staff, mostly focusing on education levels and any experience in the health, nutrition, or NGO sector. As we drove from hamlet to hamlet, over dried streambeds and through fallow, dusty farmland, the checklist was whittled down to one item: literate.
In July of 2011, 5 of our amazing CNEs from Khandwa are now on the cutting edge of technology, helping Microsoft design their Digital Slate technology for data collection in the field. At the same time, the rest of our Khandwa team is collecting information with an application on their phones specifically designed from RMF called Commcare. After a 3 month study, Microsoft Research will publish a paper based on the inputs of our team comparing these solutions to data collection problems. It seems that my initial pessimism, as it so often is, may have been a bit misguided.



















