November 2, 2000 | Read Time: 3 minutes
By NICOLE WALLACE
Using technology to overcome isolation — both social and geographic — is a common element in many of the project proposals that won Ericsson Internet Community Awards.
Ericsson, a Stockholm telecommunications company, honored five nonprofit organizations from around the world for creative ideas on how to use technology to further their missions. Each winner will receive $100,000 in Web-development services from the company’s Internet Solutions division — an increase from last year’s inaugural awards, which went to three organizations that shared $250,000 in technology assistance.
The two winning organizations from the United States will use technology to alleviate social isolation.
- The National Down Syndrome Society, in New York, plans to build sections on its Web site for people with Down syndrome, their families, doctors, and employers. The new portions of the site will offer both information and discussion tools, such as message boards, that will allow members of each group to talk to one another.
Loneliness can be a real problem for people with Down syndrome, especially as they get older and are no longer in a school setting, says Jennifer Schell Podoll, director of public relations for the society, who hopes the online discussion area for people with Down syndrome will help visitors with the disease realize there are many others like them.
- Pathways Community Network, a collaboration of social-services organizations and local governments in metropolitan Atlanta, has already developed a private Web-based system that allows organizations in the city to work together, gain access to clients’ case-management records, and share other vital information, such as the number of openings in drug-treatment programs or homeless shelters.
The system works well in the office, but outreach workers who encourage people living on the street to seek help do not have access to the system when they are in the field. The only way they can find out what services are available is by telephone.
“If they have to walk away to a pay phone or place a bunch of calls on a cell phone, they usually lose the person,” explains Pathways executive director, William Matson. “The person wanders off or loses interest.”
The organization will try to solve that problem by using its prize money to provide caseworkers with handheld computers or cellular phones with Internet access.
Two of the other winning projects plan to use information technology to scale barriers posed by geography.
- Jan Pryor, research coordinator at the Fiji School of Medicine, explains that many doctors in that part of the world practice in remote areas, hundreds — or even thousands — of miles from the nearest city. “Tasks that would be relatively simple for health-care professionals in a developed setting are virtually impossible for health-care professionals in much of the Pacific,” Dr. Pryor says.
So, the medical school will develop an Internet-based network that health-care professionals can use to gain access to current medical information, consult with specialists, and take advantage of distance-learning opportunities.
- The Rhodes University Mathematics Education Project, in Grahamstown, South Africa, plans to make its professional-development program available online to math teachers in the Eastern Cape province, where rural schools are isolated by their remote locations and poor roads.
The fifth winning organization, the Gould League, in Victoria, Australia, will develop a new Web site, Australia 2020, which will examine how lifestyle choices individuals make every day — including decisions about housing, family size, and energy use — affect the environment.
Visitors to the Web site for the Ericsson awards program selected the winner of the People’s Choice award by voting for their favorite proposal among the 20 finalists.
The winner, Alley Cat Allies, in Washington, received $20,000 to purchase computer hardware and software to improve its Web site, through which it hopes to provide referrals to organizations across the country that promote humane methods to control feral-cat colonies.
More than 700 organizations from 39 countries submitted proposals, all of which are available on the awards program’s Web site.
For more information: Go to http://www.ericsson.com/erica.
