[School-of-data] data management for developing (3rd world) countries?

[David F. Flanders]

Apologies for the use of "3rd World" I know that is no longer the term to
be used, but none the less I'm hoping for those of you who have been to
*developing* countries such as parts of Africa might be able to relate the
kinds of data management situations they have found that work or don't work?

For example, how might a country like Timor encourage citizens to collect
data about their parts of the world and then upload and mash it up with
some other data, especially if there are power failures and lengthy periods
of time where networks are down?

I'm asking these questions as the Australian National Data Service is
looking to collect some advice for Researchers who are going into field
work where there is no ubiquitous 3G or National Broadband network.  Having
some guidelines on how citizens can collect data (what tools work good
offline) and then how those tools can sync with data infrastructure that
might not always be accessible (because a cloud has slowed down
the satellite link)?   This also goes towards getting local citizens to
help out with the research, so easy to use data management tools, e.g.
ability to count flora or fauna, etc.

I'm aware of some examples such as Ushahidi and some of the work by
Canonical (Shittleworth) but would like some first person stories for those
of you who are also looking into this situation.

Greatly appreciated for any feedback, comments and links :)

Kind Regards,

David F. Flanders
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/school-of-data/attachments/20130418/52e2ad63/attachment.html>