Experiences in volunteer dynamics, inter ...

Experiences in volunteer dynamics, interorganizational collaboration and leadership for the purpose of deploying telemedicine solutions in remote areas in developing nations Martin J. Murillo

David Wright

IEEE Humanitarian technology Challenge Data Connectivity Solution Ottawa, Canada [email protected]

Telfer School of Management University of Ottawa Ottawa, Canada [email protected]

Abstract— The present paper presents interim results of a data connectivity project sponsored by an IEEE initiative. As part of our results, we present our experiences with the dynamics of recruitment and retention of volunteers, the establishment of inter-organizational collaboration with humanitarian goals, the establishment of a technical platform in order to reproduce technical conditions that address key health-related needs, and the testing of appropriate technology. We identify the major challenges in coordinating partners, strategies for the involvement of volunteers through the addition of value, and challenges across different cultures, languages, and professional backgrounds. We present our results, a fully working wireless testbed and the strategies we followed to accomplish this goal entirely through volunteers and with donations that amounted to more than 50% or our budget. This experience is very valuable for other projects being deployed in developing nations where the local volunteers experience similar characteristics in various areas. The experience is also valuable for organizations that seek to extend their reach to humanitarian causes with a modest budget through the mobilization of volunteers. Keywords- IEEE; Data Connectivity; Telehealth; Peru; Bolivia; IEEE volunteering; Volunteer dynamics; Volunteering; Testbed; Directional Wi-Fi; Humanitarian Technology Challenge; Collaboration; Added value; Humanitarian; Humanity

I.

INTRODUCTION

A. Technology and the digital divide The past two decades have seen unprecedented advances in digital telecommunications catalyzed by the Internet and mobile telephony. These advances are characterized by the advent of technologies that make it possible to bypass fixed line connectivity [2]. However, there are still places in the world where no two-way digital data communication is available; in fact, the probability that these remote areas will enjoy bi-directional data communications in the next 5 to 10 years is very small [5], [6], [7]. Researchers and practitioners fear that the imbalance of technology is creating a digital divide due to the fact that only a portion of the world population enjoys the benefits of these technical advances. This dividedness amplifies further the educational, social and

economic divide between subsets of the population and thus empowers only a selected few, especially in this very context when governments are automating services and participation, including health and other benefits. B. Importance of Telecommunications in Rural Health Care The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include health as an important objective. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), landlocked and mountainous countries present a unique challenge for poverty alleviation because the poor often live in remote, scattered and hard-to-reach areas [11]. Marginalized communities are most often vulnerable and deprived of basic health care affecting quality of life and in extreme cases leading to death. The remote and scattered nature of these areas make it extremely difficult for distributors to respond when they receive a request to replenish the drug stocks, attend to emergency patients, and other serious health situations [13]. Because a great percentage of affected people live in extreme remote rural areas and there’s limited number of health personnel with experience, telehealth is very relevant and an important tool that can help better the health of a great portion of the underserved or un-served population. The capability of exchanging data between central health facilities and remote field offices is critically important to providing quality patient care, allowing interaction among healthcare professionals to solve day-to-day problems, retrieval and transfer of patient medical records, remote treatment/diagnosis, emergency and outbreak warning, professional training and resource development, among others [3]. Pilot implementation of IEEE-sponsored data connectivity projects in remote areas in the Alto Amazonas region of Peru [23] and research carried out in other target areas in the Andean plateau of Bolivia [14], indicate that the telehealth needs in these areas are similar to those identified by researchers and practitioners in other rural areas of the world [1]. Researchers and practitioners have also underlined the following: 1.

In addition to the provision of second opinion to primary health care workers, teleconsultation has been important in reducing a feeling of isolation among rural health care practitioners [16]. Its importance as a means of avoiding

unnecessary travel for patients from rural areas to regional hospitals has been also extensively described in the literature [17]. 2.

3.

Distance training for health care workers, the increase of the availability of learning resources, and the facilitation of the sharing of expertise and best practices among users of the network have been experienced through successful projects; one of which involved 8 countries in Africa and Asia [18]. Data and telehealth applications including the inventory control for medical supplies, epidemiological monitoring and access to local health news have been utilized successfully and the results documented extensively; particularly in terms of the time saved on the part of rural health workers, and a reduction in their sense of professional isolation [19].

In addition to the benefits above, it is important that the economic benefits of telehealth be acknowledged in order to devise more sustainable solutions and find new efficiencies in healthcare provision. Studies of the cost effectiveness of telehealth in rural areas have already evaluated the economic benefit of a wireless telehealth system in the Alto Amazon region of Peru and found positive economic benefits [20]. The main cost saving was a reduction in the travel costs of health care personnel and a reduction in the costs of urgent referrals from health centers and health posts to local hospitals. These costs savings outweighed the capital and operating costs of the system from the second year of operation onwards [20]. II.

c.

THE IEEE AND HUMANITARIAN INITIATIVES

A. Indirect and direct IEEE work for the less empowered. Because new centralized IEEE initiatives have volunteers as important stakeholders, it is important to make explicit the various ways the institution and its members are and have been involved with humanitarian efforts; this is also important for putting into context the foundation of these initiatives and why they are different from other approaches. “Advancing Technology for Humanity”, the motto in the IEEE logo, implies that technology is advanced for the benefit of humanity in general; humanitarian goals can also be more specifically dealt through more focused initiatives. Many technological inventions and the ones conceived by IEEE members are manifested in direct response to the needs of society. Among others, the mass distribution of electric power, motor vehicles and the age of computing have all had profound effects on today's culture [4]. Some of these technologies, however, are taking a long time to reach the less empowered and vulnerable; this is mainly due to the fact that private enterprises (in the telecommunications industry, for example) generally favor areas with a high density of people. In the context of IEEE work, humanitarian pertains to focusing on those less empowered and vulnerable people thus saving lives and alleviating suffering [8]. IEEE is indirectly or directly involved in at least five main ways of dealing with humanitarian initiatives. a.

b.

The work of IEEE membership has been mainly geared to serving humanity in general and much of technology and

d.

e.

efforts resulting from such have also been adapted to serve humanitarian purposes; technology has generally reached the less empowered in an appropriate manner in different scenarios, from underserved communities to disaster relief. General examples include radio, mobile telephony, the Internet, solar power, and others. Individual members’ sense of social responsibility and desire to help humanitarian causes through technology, donations, and other means has also played important role in humanitarian efforts. Examples abound of individual members in developed and developing nations producing appropriate technology and variations for the relief of suffering; for example, FrontlineSMS, has utilized SMSs (Short Messaging System) in an innovative way for data communications [9]. Also members, individually, have been lobbying governments for changing government electromagnetic spectrum policy that would free-up the Wi-Fi frequencies for remote communities (Wi-Fi is regulated in various developing nations and one needs a license to use that spectrum.) The quick emergence of new technologies along the freeing up of spectrum as a consequence of the adoption of digital TV, technology that will eventually be adopted by developing nations, will require early and active lobbying for the taking advantage of the spaces available for underserved areas development purposes. More centralized approaches such as section or society driven activities have been aimed to solve problems through monetary donations (e.g. Haiti earthquake) and at times developing technology to be used as a tool in various humanitarian scenarios. More centralized initiatives such as the Humanitarian Technology Challenge, Engineering for Change and others seek to directly reach the less empowered. Technologies such as Wi-Fi and WiMAX have been successfully applied in communicating with remote health posts of unserved and underserved communities; standards have helped in having a flexibility in choosing vendors and not being locked into a single vendor thus making prices competitive and thus more affordable. Alternative technologies such as the recently developed IEEE 802.22 standard that uses cognitive radio to adapt to local spectrum availability make the technology more flexible to penetrate different countries with different policies [10].

B. The Humanitarian Technology Challenge A key advantage of a centralized and coordinated IEEE involvement in humanitarian initiatives is that it could leverage its 400,000 members throughout the world as volunteers on projects in partnerships with other organizations. The Humanitarian Technology Challenge (HTC) is a joint project launched in 2008 between IEEE and the United Nations Foundation that called for both humanitarian and technologists volunteers to work together to address some of the UN's Millennium Development Goals. Indeed, the HTC intends to be an innovative, collaborative endeavor that develops and

implements solutions to selected humanitarian challenges in developing countries. Its mission is to address global challenges to humanity as selected based upon input from leading humanitarian organizations. The ultimate goal is to seek solutions that are sustainable, scalable and adaptable to multiple environments so that they can be implemented locally within the environmental, cultural, structural, political, and socio-economic conditions where they will be deployed [21]. For these purposes, a selection of three final challenges initiatives began with focus groups consisting of those who know the world's most pressing issues best - the field workers and representatives from 10 humanitarian organizations who serve on the "front lines" in developing nations. As a result of these focus groups, 37 humanitarian needs were identified in nine categories. From these needs, three final challenges were identified based on the number of people who could be helped, the magnitude of the anticipated benefits, the breadth and complexity of potential technologies, and the ability to implement them successfully within the local environment. These three challenges are: Reliable Electricity, Data Connectivity for Telehealth and Individual ID for medical records [3]. C. Background and Description of the Data Connectivity Solution Extensive discussions with local organizations with experience in telehealth networks, rural health centre personnel, local aid workers, health ministries, mayors and local government officials have underlined the following technical characteristics as necessary part in such a solution: •

Bidirectional transfer of data at equal speeds

•

Ability to store and forward data

•

Minimum data transfer rates enough for specific tasks

•

Low cost infrastructure

•

Ease of network expansion

•

Known, tested, tried and reliable technology

•

Components readily available worldwide

Nontechnical dimensions that directly affect sustainability of the solutions have to be also considered: •

Local policies

•

Politics

•

Culture

•

Religion

•

Donor policies

•

Corporate presence

•

Trust

the

The Data Connectivity Solution seeks solutions that are sustainable, scalable and adaptable to multiple environments so that they can be implemented taking into consideration the aforementioned dimensions. Various possible pilot locations in developing countries have been evaluated and two have been

chosen based on need, the vision and goals of the potential local partners, the degree of interest of IEEE sections and membership and the feasibility of having projects in a more controlled environment: Alto Amazonas region in rural Peru and the Altiplano plateau region in Bolivia. The Peru project is characterized by the presence of a local (NGO) partner that is expert in the deployment of networks in extreme remote areas; the Bolivia project, on the other hand, is characterized by a very dynamic IEEE section interested in leading the activities. In addition, a Proof of Concept Test (PCT) project, the main source of the experiences described in this paper, was planned in a developed country such as USA or Canada; the platform would be used by local and target location volunteers to establish procedures, gain experience of volunteer dynamics and inter-institutional partnerships, and test the performance of the equipment before its adoption, among many others. The objective of this paper is to communicate our experiences in the PCT and to complement those of researchers and practitioners by introducing three dimensions in the work towards the MDGs: 1.

The feasibility of using directional Wi-Fi communications for extreme remote locations in Amazon-like regions in a sustainable manner by involving mostly locally empowered people

2.

Basing the project partly on the participation of local and non-local part-time IEEE and other volunteers

3.

Adding value to the activities of such volunteers in order to complete considerable complex infrastructure

D. Organization of the paper The present paper is organized as follows: The remainder of section II describes the Proof of Concept Testbed. Section III explains the approach we followed to recruit volunteers and emphasizes the importance of networking and other tools. Section IV introduces the testbed while section V goes over the various lessons we learnt while doing the project and provides general recommendations for projects that have the same context as ours; it emphasizes the types of volunteers that can be key for the success of projects of this type. E. Proof of Concept Testbed The Proof of Concept Testbed (PCT) seeks to be a multidisciplinary environment whose goal is to learn about certain dimensions that would be present in a Data Connectivity Solution project: inter-institutional partnerships, logistics, dynamics of volunteers and professionals and the testing of new affordable state of the art technology, all while performing a technical project aimed at meeting a humanitarian need. It is important to note, however, that technology is just a tool in the solution of a humanitarian need; this dimension is at some degree absent in the PCT. The earlier mentioned goals imply the partnering and support of our projects in developing nations in all those areas, including the reproduction of technical conditions in a controlled environment and the utilization of the testbed for local institutional health-related application tests.

Original plans had San Francisco (Californnia) as host of the PCT; however, due to the Haiti earthquake,, a main partner shifted its efforts towards relief in that countrry. In the absence of that partner, Ottawa, Canada was chosen foor the PCT, since interested and quite active volunteers reside in the area. In an implicit or explicit way, the PCT T addressed the following questions: can a project of this typee be lead entirely by part-time volunteers and be finished in a reeasonable amount of time? What incentives work in catalyzing voolunteer activity? What is our experience with IEEE volunteeers? Are students more prone to volunteer in these projects and what are the best incentives for them? How feasible is the integration of NGOs and other civic organizations in projects such aas this? III.

DRIVING THE PROJECT WITH VOLUNTEERS

A. Recruitment, retention and the structure off the PCT volunteering organization In contrast to other volunteering instituutions, IEEE and initiatives such as the HTC do not generallyy work with fulltime volunteers for extended periods of time. However, partnering organizations such social enterprrises, NGOs and Foundations are known for working with fulll-time volunteers. It is also important to note that IEEE HTC prrojects, given the humanitarian nature and the emphasis on considering real needs of people of underserved areas, might nnot necessarily be in the professional area of the vast majority off IEEE members; this can be contrasted with mainstream IEE EE work such as conferences and workshops which are generrally technical in nature, have a more deterministic focus, aree more organized and build upon IEEE member and organizationnal experience. Networking has been the core of thee recruitment of volunteers; the process started with the work of two Canadian HTC volunteers who paved the way for a prresentation to the local IEEE section; members in search for funnding for graduate students demonstrated considerable interest given that funds would be available for such purposes, howevver this path was not an option at that time. On the other handd, the chair of the Engineers in Transition group of the section ccame forward and was eventually a key in networking with indusstry and academia members who turned out to be essential in aall aspects of the project. See Figure 1. The networking capabiility of the group can be appreciated given the work that the ggroup has already done in order to find employment and self-employment contracts in the community. The Ottawa area hhad experienced a layoff of more than 10.000 Nortel employees. One committed HTC member that workedd on the design of technology for humanitarian purposes could nnot take an active part in the project because conflict of interestt. In spite of this, this member was instrumental in making the nnecessary contacts with other IEEE and non-IEEE volunteers. For instance, he linked to a business and technology-bacckground faculty member who had the desire to help humanitarrian causes; such networking in turn made it possible to reach university departments that had interest and were in chharge of campus facilities where the infrastructure would be loccated. See Figure 1. The faculty member also knew backgroundds of other faculty and students and was able to identify potential volunteers.

Figure 1. Recruitment and retention off volunteers (recruitment from top to bottom; retentiion colored)

Industry was also an important partner linked through the Engineers in Transition volunteer; a local and internationally renowned long-distance Wi-Fi deveeloper donated long distance Wi-Fi equipment and personnel tim me for the design of the PCT network; a senior employee of th he organization was a key stakeholder in the PCT project and d involved other employees of its organization. The organizattion was clearly active in humanitarian efforts as they haad donated equipment to humanitarian organization in various developing nations. Undergraduate students were alsso volunteers. However, due to the ad-hoc model of the projeect, the uncertainty of the volunteer time availability, and the limited accessibility to the physical premises of the network, they were not able to take o of having the testbed full advantage of the testbed. The option as part of a class was not possiblee until the main work was finished; even in such circumstancees, only one of the premises was available due to the restrictions on the other. ve centralized support of a The PCT project does not hav IEEE section or society but dependss from IEEE’s HTC project. Overall, most of our volunteers are not IEEE members; however some of them have joineed IEEE as a result of the project. Added Value was very imp portant in the recruitment of volunteers. For instance, student vo olunteers who belonged to a technical field such as electrical eng gineering wanted to benefit from design opportunities that will w arise in the project. Volunteers in the business area desired d to benefit from the opportunities to design innovativee business models for the sustainability of the projects in underserved areas; other volunteers were merging carreers with international development area or were well aw ware of the necessities of developing nations. Many of the original volunteerss, depicted at the top of the diagram of Figure 1 became less acttive for various reasons, the principal being work and family co ommitments. However it is important to underline that variou us volunteers and potential volunteers did not choose to becom me involved due to the lack of a more organized approach forr the implementing of the testbed: clear job descriptions, requirements and other important details.

IV.

THE TESTBED

An important learning of the project has bbeen that the final product, the “testbed”, is not composed of a ttangible technical result alone, but also of partnerships, nnew knowledge, experience and lessons learnt that have beenn valuable in the projects in the south and in various other ccontexts. In the technical sense, the testbed links two premisees approximately 12 km away from each other (See Figure 2). One of the premises is located at the wireless communiccation technology lab in the School of Advanced Technologgy at Algonquin College. See Figure 3. Because most of the cabling infrastructure alongside cabinets and other ssupport hardware were already present, the installation proocess has been relatively straightforward; however a certifiied installer was required to go on the roof, climb the tower aand do other jobs that required special training and ceertification. The infrastructure on the roof is linked to a state-of-the-art laboratory belonging to the department.

c.

Capacity tests from one premisee to the other

d.

Testing of video streaming and videoconferencing

e.

Remote connectivity from Perru in order to test wireless setup parameters

The second point is located at the roof off the newly built Desmarais building at University of Ottawa. IIn contrast to the other premise, Desmarais had no wirring and other infrastructure needed for data communicationss at the top of the building. See Figure 4. A 9-foot self-standinng mast provided enough clearance for a line of sight com mmunication with Algonquin College. Equipment is located att a premise in a lower level.

Figure 3. The tower/mast combinatio on is utilized to support two wireless devices from two vendors. T-B Building at Algonquin College on whose roof is installed a tower. Tow wer top can be seen at the topright extreme, along with other equipm ment belonging to the wireless lab

Figure 2. Arrows/Red crosses indicate the locattion of the points where the wireless infrastructure is located. Disttance between the points is approximately 12 Km. Source of image: Google Maps.

The testbed has been utilized informally ffor the following tasks: a.

Benchmarking of the vendor equipment

b.

Capacitate volunteers in the setup off equipment and services

•

• • •

Collaboration with 802.22 impllementation recommendations; this includess having a “fresh start” in locations where there’s no data connectivity and solutions do not have to subscribe to legaacy interfaces which are limiting and inefficient Simulation of RF scenarios so as a to identify the causes of down times in certain areas of the t Amazon region Social/health baseline, evaluation of social impact and outcome of the projects in the south s Design and development of mo ore solutions in developing nations through IEEE society, section s or interest group driven initiatives V.

Figure 4. Nine foot self-standing mast on Deesmarais building, University of Ottawa

A. Ongoing work As the projects in the south go forward, thhe testbed is to be utilized for the simulation of similar scenarrios and provide input on issues and problems that will arise, including performing tasks that would not be possible inn target locations due to the fact that the systems are in use or the physical access is difficult. The testbed is currently beeing expanded to other premises so as to provide more pointts and provide a closer representation of the target locations. For instance, one of the projects is the establishment of schemes for the monitoring of radios locatedd in the Peruvian Amazon region. This is important as equipmeent is mounted on 60 and 90 meter towers and preventive maintennance, early fault detection and other actions are importannt for resolving problems that require reaching the locations aand climbing the towers, a job that is dangerous given the huumidity, weather, insects and other dangers present in those areaas. The testbed is also being used for the integration of W Wireless Sensor Networks for monitoring river levels, waterr pollution levels and provide emergency warning systems [15]]; this element is being done in parallel in Ottawa and in Peruu. The following other collaborative projects are open: • • • • • •

Real-time georeferencing data-feed for offfering open data to institutions, researchers, humanitarianss and aid organizations Reproducing certain target scenarios incluuding the simulation of RF characteristics Participation in the design of innovative bbusiness models that will guarantee sustainability and reproducibility of the projects Multi-point open-source decentralized viddeoconferencing software and hardware Survey of Wi-Fi and other technologies inncluding their variations for a more structured approach to their adoption in different contexts Creation of automatic self-configuration pprofiles for different terrains, weather conditions scennarios

LESSONS LEARNT AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The content of this section has been b provided in the light of the project work that has been acco omplished thus far, and our contextual experience; as such, it does d not seek to generalize but to contribute to a general repository of ideas and experiences in different contexts. o the PCT volunteering An important characteristic of organization is that it is composed of individuals whose professional background is not in the humanitarian area. All volunteers are part-time and havee regular jobs in industry, academia and other areas, includin ng students. The volunteers share the desire to help humanitarian n issues through technology as a tool; they also share the desiree to learn about other areas that are directly related to the hu umanitarian work and are needed for the design and implementation of a successful project. p is led by an IEEE Under the assumption that a project member, we learned that there must be a dedicated champion in the IEEE section, organization or society who would steer a project and put considerable hig gh amounts of time into coordinating, organizing and implementing the design and development of the project. Generally the volunteer must have humanitarian areas as part of her/hiis professional goal so as to bring added value to her/his rep pertoire of experience or personal goals. It is also importaant that such member has practical international experience, preferably in developing nations and the ability to commu unicate in various spoken languages and an understanding of o target cultures and their respective work cultures. Because the average IEEE member m has his/her own professional agenda, committing vo olunteers to a humanitarian cause on a consistent basis can be difficult, unless there is an interest in humanitarian issues and//or an added value that can directly benefit them professionally or personally. Given the ad-hoc nature of thee recruitment of volunteers, availability of resources, infrastructture, other volunteers’ time, outcomes and results, setting tight schedules s has not worked in our case. This is an important lesson n learnt and may be relevant to future projects that may wish to try t a different approach. For instance, “sabbatical” periods for key interested volunteers a them to dedicate fullcould be put in place; this would allow time to a cause; however this comes at a considerable ote that this specific project economic price. It is important to no

wanted to incur minimum costs by maximizing the utilization local part-time volunteers. Two types of volunteers were identified: main stakeholders and regular volunteers. Main stakeholders are extremely interested in humanitarian causes and the project would cease to continue without them. They also have vested interest professionally and/or in the added value that can be obtained from the project; such added value can be interest in deploying similar infrastructure and solution for their own benefits while sourcing funds from the volunteer’s organization. A. Volunteer profiles In general, the following profiles can be rescued: The leader The PCT is lead by a committed volunteer who has the passion and personal or professional desire to merge humanitarian initiatives with technical and/or international development initiatives. The leader has a clear goal in mind and for that purpose performs the tasks in a consistent manner and leads through doing the work oneself, when necessary. Given the add-hoc time availability of volunteers, the leader must be willing to re-delegate or perform oneself the tasks that needed to be done by a volunteer; thus, time availability is critical as (s)he needs to put in, at times, a full-time schedule per week. In this case, the leader had technical background and worked in international development with emphasis in Information Communication for Development (ICT4D). It is important to note the difference between leading and managing; leading implies doing things himself or herself, showing how to do things and it implies a very active role; it was found that this project needs a leader who can also be a manager. A volunteer who is only a manager would not fit in this type of initiative. The networkers The structure of the team would not be possible without the members that believe in the cause and raise their voice whenever they see an opportunity; most volunteers have that opportunity but not everyone takes advantage of it. In our case, an Engineers in Transition IEEE member, an active IEEE HTC volunteer, and a non-IEEE business professor with technical background were key in this area. See the illustration in Figure 1. The hands on The hands-on nature of the practical part of the project could not be possible without volunteers who were experts in the deployment of long distance communications, design and simulation of RF conditions, configuration of wireless devices, safe and secure climb to towers, alignment of antennas and other aspects that make a solution work. This experience is generally found in specialized two or three-year technical colleges. These technical schools put emphasis on doing things with only a modest background on circuit design, for example. This can be contrasted with the regular curricula of universities offering mainstream electrical engineering classes. These hands on volunteers could be left in a remote location and would be able to have all the knowledge, tools and resources to establish

a successful data connection. A good number of these hands-on volunteers were students. The institutions and resources managers Infrastructure cannot be setup unless there’s a suitable location to host it and provide basic needs such electricity and link to the appropriate location. City office buildings and other locations are either jealous of their space or are saturated with mobile antennas and the like. Thus finding individuals, departments and institutions willing to host the infrastructure can be a challenge. Our two target locations are characterized for having an interest in hosting the infrastructure and at the same time providing valuable service as an added value, anywhere from utilizing as part of a class and students projects, to establish high-speed backup links between the various university premises. They have enabled the quite tight institutional infrastructure of the universities, so that we can install our towers and equipment on university rooftops. The collaboration of these institutions is on two levels: First, from an academic viewpoint, the directional Wi-Fi link provides a laboratory for telecommunications students; the business aspects and sustainable deployment provides business case studies for business students and research projects. Second, from the viewpoint of the university telecommunications infrastructure, the directional Wi-Fi link provides a demonstration of a low cost technology which the institution has found suitable for use on other inter-building links, at a cost saving compared to other wireless technologies it has used in the past. The writers There is an immense amount of international development work being done in the world that is not communicated formally or informally due to the absence of individuals who are willing to document through writing, video or other methods. This is also due to the lack of time and the absence of the communication component in the projects. When the work is not available for others to learn from, mistakes are repeated and in some cases we are “reinventing the wheel”. In other cases documentation is existent but there’s still no single repository of project documentation thus information is scattered or sitting on someone’s desktop. Volunteers that communicate results and have a good general picture of the goals are key contributors to the sustainability of projects. In the PCT, two members were identified, the business professor and the international development volunteer. The added value of professional repertoire was key in fueling the writing as they knew how any writing would benefit professionally. The writing was also extremely relevant in informing the team of what is happening so that they have a better idea of the needs of the project. The vendors and service providers Institutions that provide equipment and services can be either living at the edge of their profits or be too big to entertain donation requests, thus possibly lacking a sense of social responsibility. A local tower expert in the first category charged for their work and material, nevertheless the company donated employee time and tower equipment worth two thousand dollars. Another local wireless manufacturer known

for its involvement in humanitarian causes donated thousands of dollars in equipment and personnel time. These institutions include personnel that are motivated to work on humanitarian projects and have deployed their equipment on such projects in the past, but they also need to make a profit. One attraction of commercial vendors to the HTC telehealth project is the aim of financial sustainability, so that after pilot projects are successful, the system design can be expected to be widely deployed in other locations. Other large equipment vendors were contacted but no positive response was obtained. The partners Partnerships can be created and soon or later discontinued due to a myriad of reasons. When a project with the characteristics of the PCT relies on the expertise, infrastructure or unique resource of at least one partner, care must be taken in nurturing the partnership and understand the risks as the “monopoly” of either side could put the project into jeopardy. Thus it is important to diversity through having various partners, when possible and appropriate. It is important that the sides have a clear and explicit idea on what intends to take and give to the project, and provide explicit and concrete deliverables, when possible. The straight technologists Technologists are seldom criticized for their assumption that technology itself is a solution to a social or humanitarian problem. Indeed, some technologists do not realize that technology is just a tool which needs to be understood, mastered, adopted and maintained by the locals in target locations. Solutions centered on technology alone disregarding the real problems, local context, policies, price and other details tend to be short lived. The understanding of technology as a solution played as important paper at earlier stages of the project when volunteers focused on technology alone and divergent opinions and points of view on the technology to adopt caused various members to “give up”; the situations could’ve probably been different if the focus was on the real issues. After all, communications technology evolves, new standards rise and become obsolete and most products and technology have short life cycles. B. Communication with target locations Electronic mail has been a main tool for the exchange of project related communication within the PCT team and with the target locations where we have a project in development and other projects in the planning. It was found that short messages about single issues worked more effectively than long emails that covered various issues. In addition, backgrounds on projects, information, documents in various formats and pictures were stored in a custom social networking site. The site has also been used to inform team members on general issues and to exchange ideas. While the site has been populated mostly by the leadership, upon request, team members in target locations have been putting information, including link studies, description of social characteristics, and have also requested input on different issues. For other members and general public, the site has been a source of information.

The platform has not been utilized by all team members possibly because volunteers do not feel comfortable putting information in the open and there is the inconvenience of logging in to the site. Additionally, communication with the target locations was not as fluent as expected. Research has shown that when different cultures are involved, silence and lack of responses via technology can have multiple meanings for virtual team members, including indifference, technical failure, discomfort, or confusion [22]. Another issue is that the communication through text-based media is more laborious so people tend not to type out details they would communicate verbally. Rewards systems are important in virtual work; in our case, one tended to assume that the reward was the sense of having contributed towards humanity; however periodic rewards were also important and not present. Future work will need to keep track of member participation and offer rewards accordingly. In terms of addressing organization and team structure, knowledge management systems were in place; no delegated facilitator was in place to provide a human link; neither was a common training program developed to strengthen necessary skills [22]. Thus future implementation will need to take such into consideration. As the project focuses and in some way shifts to Peru and Bolivia, the utilization of the social networking site is expected to increase, as more people are involved and it becomes important for them to know more details about the work and the way in which team members in Ottawa and other parts of the world can help those in Peru and Bolivia. In addition, it will serve as a repository of information from which quarterly reports and other documentation will be extracted. The above recommendations will be taken into consideration. Because of the volunteering nature of this project, virtual teams and online collaboration will be an important tool in addressing parts of the solution in a manner that saves travel costs and provides members the chance of volunteering. Dimensions such as design, software, documentation, and others can be done in virtual teams. VI.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper introduced interim results of the Proof of Concept Testbed of the Data Connectivity Solution of the Humanitarian Technology Challenge, a fully working wireless and interdisciplinary testbed between University of Ottawa and Algonquin College and the strategies we followed to accomplish this goal entirely through volunteers and with donations that amounted to more than 50% or our budget. This experience is very valuable for two of our projects that are being deployed in Peru and Bolivia where the local volunteers may experience various similar characteristics in certain areas. The experience is also valuable for organizations that seek to extend their reach to humanitarian causes. In particular our volunteers: •

Are mainly technology professionals, background in humanitarian projects

•

Are unpaid

with

little

•

Work part time at the convenience of their other commitments

•

Are not necessarily IEEE members

•

Are introduced to the project by each other without centralized IEEE involvement

•

May need to withdraw from the project because of professional conflicts of interest, commitments or lack of the project’s clear job descriptions

•

Can be divided into main stakeholders and regular volunteers

Our experience shows that it is possible to coordinate such volunteer actions with the following conditions:

result of this project, various technical and non-technical research areas have emerged and they will be tackled and communicated accordingly. Current work on a business model document is in course and the sustainability and expandability of projects of this kind will depend on its adoption by target locations; this will in turn offer various learnings that will need to be also documented accordingly. The learnings of the Humanitarian Technology Challenge project from the beginning to this point are immense and there remains much to document, including partnership with organizations, the retention of volunteers, expectations of volunteers, the effectives of virtual teams working in an electronic platform, and others.

•

It is lead by a dedicated champion who needs occasionally to put in 20 hours per week

•

There is some real and perceived value added to the volunteers and/or to their organizations

We would like to thank the GHTC organizers and reviewers for providing us the opportunity to present our experiences.

•

Virtual work can be accomplished through email as the primary means of communication with other tools such as social networking sites as repositories for documents and discussions that can be accessed by all participants.

Funding for this project was provided by the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge, University of Ottawa, Algonquin College, EION Wireless, Alpha Beta Communications, and the social capital of all our volunteers.

Inter-organizational collaboration has been an essential facet in establishing the PCT. Equipment vendors need to see a long term strategy from which future sales of equipment can be expected. Educational benefits are sufficient for educational institutions to participate, and the experience has also allowed one of them to see costs savings for its own operations.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Doug Reid that in spite of his work with EION Wireless, Algonquin College and other personal commitments was always able to be there in spite of his health and inconveniences; he has been an example of commitment to the humanitarian cause. Thanks to the uOttawa team, Pierre Lalonde, Khalil Chamoun, Pierre de Gagne, Eric Rivard, and Pascal Belanger for their time and commitment to the cause. Our sincere thanks do Bhagvat Yoshi, the chair of Engineers in Transition, for being a key networker and a pioneer in our project. Thanks to David Wright that in spite of his busy schedule was always able to be there and provided the scholar perspective to our activities. Thanks to Alfredo Herrera for being a key networker; thanks to Kristjan Solvasonbrown, Vidhya Vijayakumar, Gerry Crichlow, Richard Kelland, Atekeh Maghsoudlou, Jamie Manzer for their contribution to the solution. Thanks to EION wireless for donating thousands of dollars of equipment and to Roland Reebs of Alpha Beta for his patience and providing his time and resources along donations. Thanks to Peter Spring and Ryan Polterman for their continuous support and Rich Baseil from IEEE headquarters for the confidence and his continuous support. We must also express our thanks to the Inveneo team, particularly Mark Summer for their input in the initial stages of the project and to the Spigit team that fueled the earlier stages of our virtual communication through which various ideas emerged.

The long term sustainability of the project depends on developing local inter-organizational collaboration such as incorporation of the testbed to class work, utilizing it for alternative means of communication among campus infrastructure and ultimately to provide humanitarian value for the less empowered in developing nations. Another important result of the project has been the recruitment of new IEEE members which has been a positive and unexpected result. VII. FUTURE WORK The learnings, failures included, of the PCT have contributed immensely to certain aspects of the deployments in the Peruvian Alto Amazonas and these in turn will contribute to the deployments in the Altiplano region of Bolivia and other parts of the world. Current work is in the way on detailing the experience in Peru which has extra dimensions such as culture, work culture, major logistics and other aspects that are largely absent in the PCT [23]. The Peru project has been a source of vast amounts of learning, anywhere from partnership with indigenous governments, municipalities, IEEE membership, universities, volunteers, health workers and private enterprise; vast and big infrastructure was able to be built with contractors and volunteers with a modest budget and with in-kind capital and social capital that amounted to 50% of the total budget. The documentation of these learnings will be a key platform for projects of this kind, not only for IEEE but for other organizations that want to go to the humanitarian area. As a

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This section would not be complete without acknowledging Russell Lefevre of IEEE and Paul Margie of the UN Foundation for their vision of HTC and Mary Ward-Callan of IEEE HQ who developed the processes to implement that vision within the IEEE structure. REFERENCES [1] Wooton, R., Patil, N.G., Scott, R.E. and Ho, K., “Telehealth in the Developing World”, International Development Research Centre, 2009.

[2] ITU-D, The World in 2009: ICT Facts and Figures, October 2009. http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/backgrounders/general/pdf/3.pdf, accessed Aug 20, 2011 [3] The Humanitarian Technology Challenge Website, http://www.ieeehtc.org accessed June 13, 2011 [4] http://ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Culture_and_society, accessed Aug 20, 2011 [5] D. Owen, "Community Telecommunications Part I: A New Technical & Business Model," January 2006. http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/economic_growth_and_trade/info_techn ology/tech_series/Rural-Telecom-Tech+BusinessModel508.pdf, accessed Aug 20, 2011 [6] A. Pentland, R. Fletcher, and A. Hasson, "DakNet: Rethinking Connectivity in Developing Nations," IEEE Computer Society, January 2004, pp. 4-9. http://mobileactive.org/files/file_uploads/DakNet_IEEE_Computer.pdf, accessed Aug 20, 2011 [7] P. D. Kaushik and N. Singh, "Information Technology and Broad-Based Development: Preliminary Lessons from North India," World Development, vol. 32, pp. 591-607, April 2004. [8] “Humanitarian Principles”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_principles, accessed August 15, 2011 [9] http://www.frontlinesms.com/aboutthesoftware/about-the-software/, accessed August 15, 2011 [10] http://www.ieee802.org/22/, accessed August 15, 2011 [11] UNDP, "Human Development Report," 2005. http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR05_complete.pdf, accessed August 15, 2011 [12] G. Chami, R. Goulding, and C. Shaw, "Innovation key to getting medical supplies to those who need them most," January 2010. http://www.straight.com/article-282120/vancouver/innovation-keygetting-medical-supplies-those-who-need-them-most, accessed August 15, 2011 [13] ITU-D Study Groups, “Telecommunications for rural and remote areas,” May 2006. https://www.itu.int/ITU-D/study_groups/SGP_20062010/events/Case_Library_old/asia_pacific/PAPUA%20NEW%20GUIN EA.pdf, accessed July 21 2011 [14] Data Connectivity Social Networking Site, 201, http://ieeehtcdata.ning.com, accessed September 9, 2011 [15] BBC, 2010, “Amazon river level in Peru at 40-year low” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11172581, accessed September 9, 2011 [16] Pradhan, M.R. 2009, “Telemedicine in Nepal” in “TeleHealth in the Developing World” Edited by Wooton, R et al. Royal Society of Medicine Press [17] Abebe, S. “Ethiopia: Digital Doctors” Panos publishing, London [18] Khoja, S and Naseem, A. 2009, “E-Health in International Networks: New Opportunities for Collaboration”, in “TeleHealth in the Developing World” Edited by Wooton, R et al. Royal Society of Medicine Press [19] Martinez, A. et al. 2004, “A study of a Rural telemedicine system in the Amazon region of Peru” Telemedicine and Telecare, Vol 10: pp. 219– 225 [20] Martinez, A. et al. 2007, “An Economic Analysis of the EHAS Telemedicine System in Alto Amazonas”, J. Telemedicine and Telecare Vol 13, pp. 7-14 [21] Challenge Description of the Data Connectivity of Rural District Health Offices, Humanitarian Technology Challenge, Mehmet Ulema, Editor. [22] Gibbons, C. 2007, “Virtuality and Collaboration in Teams”. In “The Organizational Behavior Reader” Edited by Osland, J et al. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. [23] Murillo, M, 2011, “IEEE Humanitarian. Technology Challenge - Data. Connectivity for Remote. Health Offices. The Peru. Experience”, IEEE Sections Congress 2011, SF, CA. [24] http://www.openspectrum.org.za/principles/, Open Spectrum Alliance Principles, accessed September 10, 2011