Awards Given to Charities With Creative Wireless Efforts

May 2, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute

The Vodafone Americas Foundation and the mHealth Alliance have announced the winners of awards honoring the creative use of wireless technology to help people in developing countries.

Around the world, approximately 700 million households rely on fire and simple stoves for cooking, which present health hazards and contribute to climate change. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have created a simple wireless system that can be attached to new low-pollution stoves introduced in developing countries to monitor usage.

The 100 Million Stoves project, which won first place and $300,000 in the Wireless Innovation Project competition, will help assess the effect of the household energy programs and measure how much less carbon is emitted.

Second prize and $200,000 went to FrontlineSMS: Credit, a mobile-banking tool that seeks to extend financial services to poor people in developing countries.

Sana, a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed software that allows mobile phones to capture and send data for electronic medical records and links local health workers with doctors.

It won both third place and $100,000 in the Wireless Innovation Project competition and the $50,000 mHealth Alliance Award.

For more information: Go to http://project.vodafone-us.com.

About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.