partners
The PACS Grid project is intended to provide a cost-effective solution for multi-location, multi-physician and multi-modality diagnostic imaging facility to facilitate storage and access of patient X-Rays, CT-Scans and MRIs across the Network of Healthcare Facilities in Ghana. It is required that:
• Any number of modalities at any number of locations can easily send images and patient data to their respective storage/server system for archiving and subsequent routing (push and pull) to/from workstations on the local area network (LAN) or between different locations via Virtual Private Networks (VPN) connectivity.
• Radiologists would have diagnostic viewing capability from anywhere via various web-enabled viewers. The integrated web-enabled RIS automates the workflow between all locations and enables access to patient records and data from any of the sites.
Ghana’s Education System was one of the most developed education system in Sub- Sahara Africa. During the past three decades the educational delivery system fell below expectation, resulting in the call for educational reform. The Free Compulsory Basic Education (FCUBE) introduced in 1995 promised universal education by 2005. However, the inability of the FCUBE programme to achieve tits targeted goals due to disparity in the distribution of resources has led to a resource gap between urban schools and rural schools.
This project intends to leverage the existing National Fiber Backbone Network that links all the local government outfits (districts, municipalities and metropolis) in Ghana to harness limited resources for quality instructional delivery and enhance Basic and High School Education experience in rural communities, foster Rural-Urban Collaboration and Public-Private Partnership. It intends to provide a system that will allow rural schools to access the resource pool of well-endowed urban schools and global education professionals – facilities, teaching and learning material while exploiting existing networks to provide quality high school education.
The modus operandi of this project is going to be based on partnership with well- endowed schools to deliver their instruction either streamed in real-time to the EduNet Learning Centers or Video Recorded versions of the lectures/lessons would be played back at the Learning Centers. Basic and High School students who want to access the programmes of the well-endowed would subscribe to the EduNet programme and receive face-to-face instruction either at the Learning Centers or virtual instruction through the Internet. Interactive sessions or tutorial would be conducted leveraging Google Hangouts. The main actors in this project would be the Ghana Education Service, NITA, ACDI, and the telecom service providers.
The Digital Community Network (DCN) is a network of Digital Community Centers (DCC) that are designed to be economic activity centers located in a rural or peri-urban setting to serve as a pole of attraction for economic activity; with a focus on social inclusion, citizen empowerment and supporting communities, based on a community informatics model. In a way it would be a smart program where the emphasis is on “Smart Communities” rather than “Smart Cities”; enabling and empowering citizens and supporting their individual and communal quests for well-being.
The developmental goal of the DCN is to provide sustainable infrastructure for delivering education, skills development, healthcare and other social services, and providing economic opportunity for the youth and unemployed; thereby reversing the migration of the population, particularly women and children, from the communities to the cities. Specifically, the DCN is to help SADA fulfill its mandate of bridging the development gap between the NSEZ and the rest of the country, using the digital community centers as platforms for inclusive sustainable development. Pursuant to this goal, the objectives for establishing digital community centers are to:
Each node of the DCN would be a multi-purpose facility, comprising a 21st Century Education facility, a Community Healthcare facility, a Community Library, a Community/Local Administrative Support facility, a Post Office with Internet Café and Banking Services, a Commodity Exchange and a Community Information Resource Center. The DCN would thus have EduNet, HealthNet, AgriNet, LAdminNet, and ComNet as sub- nets.
All the services rendered in the digital community center will be IT-Enabled and would be driven by power drawn from Solar Panels and a Solar Powered Generator.
The EduNet The EduNet would comprise a collection of 21st Century Education Facilities spread across the Digital Community Centers (DCC). Each facility will be a Knowledge Hub equipped with essential infrastructure for re-engineering the schools in the NSEZ into 21st Century Learning Environments. Each facility will have a Knowledge Factory and a Media Center that will be connected to remote educational resources (libraries, research sites, digital museums, selected well-endowed schools/colleges, community organizations and businesses). Schools in the community would either make visits to the facility to access the resources via virtual Knowledge Hub classrooms or connect via the Internet/Web to access the resources.
The Media Center Services Component of the Knowledge Hub will have essential tools and machines for File/Video Storage, Computer-Based Training, Internet/Web-Based Training, Video-On-Demand, Discussion Forum and On-Line Chatting.
Based on the philosophy of Creative Commons and modelled along the lines of Massive On- line Open Courses (MOOCS), the facility would create a platform to enable excellent teachers in selected well-endowed schools who would want to participate in this project to deliver instruction, particularly in Science and Mathematics, to schools in less deprived communities; initially in the NSEZ and subsequently to other less deprived communities elsewhere in Ghana.
The LADMin Network The LADMin Network will provide digital support for administrative decentralization so that administration is structured in such a way as to be responsive to local circumstances and requirements and including structured processes for citizen participation in localized/community decision making including resource prioritization and allocation.
The Knowledge Factory The Knowledge Factory component of the Knowledge Hub would be equipped with tools for content creation & enhancement, video compression, content translation modification and Teacher training.
The HealthNet The HealthNet would comprise the collection of HealthCare Facilities spread across the Digital Community Centers (DCC). Each node of the network will facilitate decentralization of healthcare delivery by serving as a facility for decentralized health support workers such as Medical Interns and Nurses from the UDS Medical School to undertake their trimester community service. In addition to the provision of on-the-job training for the Interns, it would provide a tiered system of diagnostics to ensure efficient use of scarce public health resources.
Digital Community Information Resource Center Digital Community Information Resource Center will have financial services as one of its offerings. It would be designed to facilitate the establishment, maintenance and management of accounting and financial records for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operating in the community. It would also provide agricultural extension services for farmers in the community and equally serve as an incident reporting facility, structured so that citizens can report on issues (for instance through the use of social media platforms) concerning public infrastructure in an aggregated way based on location. Where these electronic facilities are transparent to the users and inter- connected it would allow for inter-organizational and collective collaboration as required to ensure an active response by appropriate institutions (e.g. Ambulance Service, Fire Service, Police and Community Disaster Management Organization).
• Background
There has always been the need for society to express views and opinions through various channels. Traditional media (radio, television and print) has served this purpose for the past century and is mostly referred to as the fourth arm of government. However, print, radio and television can only go as far as to provide a limited number of people this opportunity at a given time.
Social media has revolutionized this model, allowing millions of people, if not everybody, to express various opinions on different issues instantaneously.
Africa is now home to over 124 million Facebook users, with millions of geo-located tweets originating on the continent on various social, economic and political issues each year. Social Media has massive opportunities for expansion on the continent. It is a tool that when used efficiently can drive positive economic and political change.
• Problem
The world is still adjusting and trying to get ahead of the curve of a generation of social media users who, more and more, see social media as a way of effecting social change. Social media is now the greatest agent of democracy. But the question is, how do we effectively utilize this enormous opportunity to forecast trends of topic amongst the people and generate positive social impact?
• Solution
The solution is to become better social listeners. If nations opened up more channels of discussion online, it would help address issues that border on transparency. Moreover, people would feel they have more access to a political system if they are actually listened to. The Ghana Elects Project creates a more interactive and transparent platform , to effectively monitor and analyze national conversations online and to allow citizens to express their views about issues happening around them in real-time. The project seeks to provide a one-stop online platform where issues of national dimensions can be collected, organized and analyzed.
