Health Jam
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NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change! This page is a draft in active flux ... |
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In A Nutshell
Health Jam Seattle<br\> Where: {{{location TBD}}}<br\> When: April 18-20, 2008 (awaiting confirmation)<br\> Goal: We're doing intensive project sprinting on hardware/software/content development for the TeleHealth Module and other Health related activities with the goal of having local health professionals test them in a mock "clinic" on the final day.
What is a Jam?
An OLPC Jam is a content creation crunch that gets participants from idea to reality in just a few days. By the end of the Jam, you'll have something finished to test with local schoolchildren and health professionals. It's a great way to get started developing for OLPC. Click here to learn more.
Introduction to the Health Jam
The One Laptop Per Child project is a non-profit based out of Cambridge, MA, with many volunteers in grassroots groups across the world. The goal of OLPC is to improve education in the world^s least developed countries. The method is a low cost educational laptop for constructionist learning - but "it's an education project, not a laptop project," and that's something we always have to keep in mind.
The Health group at OLPC is an interdisciplinary group working on medical-related projects associated with the XO, including software, hardware, and content. Health projects can be a local grassroots undertaking, a student group project, a pilot implementation, a global community creation-sprint weekend - we cut across geographic, disciplinary, and institutional boundaries to help all health-related OLPC work move forward. Our basic premise is that existing Healthcare infrastructure in the countries with XOs could be extended and supported by using the XO.
The Health group is working on three main areas: Content, Software and Hardware. In content, we are working with several Healthcare organizations that have already created basic health, sanitation, and dentistry education materials in several languages. Some of this material is printed, some digital, and we are working on converting it to easily displayable and translatable formats. In Software, we're working to create medical diagnostics transmission protocols to allow XOs to send data to remote doctors and specialists for analysis in real-time, while conversing with a patient who might be at home or unreachable in a remote area. In Hardware, we are attempting to design a $15 USD peripheral that can take measurements from a variety of sensors (EKG, pulse oximeter, stethoscope, etc) at a higher resolution than currently offered by the analog-in port and bundle it up for transmission to remote doctors/specialists. Other projects along these lines are starting up, and new projects and participants are always welcome.
This Health Jam is a 3-day project sprint experience that gives participants the tools, knowledge, and resources they need to begin - or continue - contributing to OLPC Health projects. A healthy dose of this is open work time with experts in technology, education, and public health floating around for ready consultation, but there will also be (attendee-run) tutorials on the side for folks who want to pick up new skills or teach others what they know. We'll culminate on Sunday afternoon with a public demonstration of our hard-won projects to local kids (our testers and judges), health professionals, and the local community and press.
Experience in health-related fields, software/hardware development, grassroots communities, and open source/content is helpful, but not required. The desire to help and a willingness to learn, contribute, and teach others what you know are far more important. Registration must be done in teams, with each team proposing a project to work on that they believe their members collectively have the know-how to see through to completion in 3 days.
This Jam is a community-organized event.
I want to participate!
Jams are collaboratively organized events, so the best way to get started is to just dive in and introduce yourself. Participating in this Jam? Have ideas? Want to coordinate rides, teams, projects, or talk about the Jam? Edit the Jam Talk Page!