Hasta La Ideas

Project Masiluleke, or Project M for short, has been a cause celebre in several design subfields since its primary announcement last October. The project, which centers on text messaging to distribute information about HIV/AIDS treatment in deeply afflicted parts of South Africa, has been warmly praised by interaction designers, proponents of socially conscious design, advocates of technological leapfrogging in the developing world, and much of the design and innovation press as well (like Fast Company…and us).

If there were any concerns that this was a well-meaning but impractical solution that succeeded better in the minds of designers than the hands of users, though, they can be confidently put to rest, as this special report on health care and technology in April 16th’s Economist points out.

The article, aimed at as pragmatic an audience as any publication on earth, introduces the project with a touch of skepticism, observing that “modern wizardry like molecular diagnostics and digital medical records seem irrelevant” in much of the developing world, and describing initial doubts about the effectiveness of high-tech to improve lives in the poor places of the world, by none other than Bill Gates.

It then proceeds to note that “the response has been spectacular,” and outlines numerous related health care projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere that are succeeding in providing services to populations that had formerly been written off as unreachable:

The most promising applications of mHealth for now are public-health messaging, stitching together smart medical grids, extending the reach of scarce health workers and establishing surveillance networks for infectious diseases. The use of the technology is spreading: a recent report funded by the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, two charities, documented more than four dozen projects across the developing world.

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