Deep in a rural village in India outside the city of Jhansi, children play on dirt roads where goats and cows roam. The humble and colorful homes have mud..
Deep in a rural village in India outside the city of Jhansi, children play on dirt roads where goats and cows roam. The humble and colorful homes have mud floors, and women collect drinking water from wells.
All the sights and sounds are quintessential aspects of the region, with the exception of one feature — the use of smartphones to save lives. In this village, women healthcare workers, known as accredited social health activists (ASHAs), use a mobile application called mSaki to help them educate expecting mothers about maternal and neonatal danger signs.
Funded by Qualcomm Wireless Reach and developed by IntraHealth International , mSaki is currently being used by 329 ASHAs to benefit 16,000 mothers. A mobile broadband initiative accomplishing such a task in rural India is no small feat.
According to the national health ministry, India’s newborn mortality rate stands at 29 per 1,000 live births. The country is aiming to get the number down to a single digit. Additionally, the literacy rate among females in India is low. A background paper done by the New York-based International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity revealed in October of last year that only 48 percent of India girls studying up to the fifth grade are literate.
As for internet connectivity, according to a Pew Research Center poll, a mere 22 percent of India’s adults could get online in 2015. That being said, there are nationwide efforts being made to get people connected. The county’s Digital India program aims to digitally empower citizens and provide broadband in remote areas. As part of this plan, the government wants to make mobile connectivity available in more than 40,000 villages by 2018.
In the meantime, mSaki is still able to have an impact, because the application is designed to manage low connectivity. The data that’s fed into mobile devices is stored offline.
