Iterative design and information communication technology for community development

Abstract

The goal of the Development Clearinghouse (DevClear) is to facilitate social networking between stakeholders in development assistance. These stakeholders include communities in need of essential human services (EHS), non-governmental organizations (NGO) that provide development assistance to communities, and funding agencies (FA) that provide financial, and other support for development assistance to communities in need. Essential human services are defined as access to; water, sanitation, shelter, household energy, clean indoor air, food, and personal security. A developing community is one that lacks the capability to provide at least one EHS to its members from its own resources. This project seeks to give voice to the need for EHS in developing communities, particularly communities that are low-income, rural, and/or comprised primarily of indigenous people. These communities generally have the greatest unmet need for EHS, and the least ability to communicate with the development aid community. The goal of this project is to create an internet- and short message service (SMS) based platform to allow for timely, multilateral communication between NGOs, communities in need, FAs, and other related entities. The team was asked to develop a means of connecting stakeholders in developing communities in the most effective manner. Each stakeholder would use DevClear to address a community's needs, as well as share information about their respective needs or available services with others. The preceding Capstone team determined that SMS was the most viable technology to satisfy these requirements. Ideally, the final design will have two interconnected parts, the web interface and SMS component. This Capstone team has been working to implement this technology into DevClear. As soon as a functional prototype is ready, the team will begin testing it. fully functioning prototype is expected by May 2014, with field testing planned for Siuna, Nicaragua in July 2014.