Anokwa.com » Archive for February, 2008
February 20, 2008 at 11:21
tags: research
I’ve been mostly mute about what I’m going to do generals and hopefully dissertation on. The silence is mostly because I had nothing to say, but after some hard thinking, I think I have an idea worth blogging about.
There is a widespread need for tracking and reporting of data generated in the developing world. This data is often captured on paper forms that serve as the information store for many organizations. These organizations are often required to generate external reports and make evidence based decisions – tasks which paper does not easily enable.
While popular tools such as Excel and Access are sometimes used, they are often not powerful enough to meet the data needs for many organizations. At the same time, these tools cannot create easy to use systems to track and report on data.
To better address the frustrations with current tools we are planning on building a free and easy to use software framework called Karatasi. We envision Karatasi as a set of applications to enable data entry and report generation, but with less training than is currently required using programs like Microsoft Access.
Before we build the software, we wish to understand the data entry and reporting needs of organizations. We have a few broad questions we hope to explore.
- How much of your data is stored on paper? How are computers or mobiles used to capture or process data?
- How do you gather data for your most important forms and how do you generate your most important reports? How much effort on a weekly or monthly basis does this require?
- What computer-based solutions to digitize data have been tried and what successes and failures have been encountered? What have been the key contributors to success or failure?
I’ll be heading to Tanzania and Rwanda from April 14 and May 5 to discuss the above questions with some organizations. The time will be spent gathering information primarily through informal interviews and photographs, so stay tuned!
P.S. Brian and I started the change group and that’s where you will find some of the other developing world work.
February 18, 2008 at 14:51
tags: finance, life
I use credit card every time I get the chance and I think it’s a good idea if you have some amount of self control. As long as you never ever carry a balance and always pay on time, I find credit cards can be excellent financial tool.
Besides getting the standard credit card protection, credit cards offer lots of other perks. For example, Visa and Mastercard protect most purchases from theft or damage for the first 90 days from purchase while your debit card barely protects you against fraud. Additionally, I’ve found credit card companies go out of their way to keep me as a customer — I just have to call to complain about something and it’s generally fixed. So, given that I use them all the time, I’ve been looking into good ways to maximize my money.
Cash back cards are a good way to get a little back from credit cards, but they are generally irritating to use. Either you have to wait to hit a threshold to get a check mailed or you have to make sure to buy at certain stores or you have to redeem points for gift cards or wait a year to get your cash back. All these are hassles I’d like to avoid, so I set out some requirements for a new credit card.
First, it has to be accepted everywhere (sorry Amex and Discover). Second, I want cash applied to my credit card statement automatically or at a minimum via phone. Third, it has to be free of annual fees.
With the help of metafilter and my über googling skills, I came up with these favorites.
- Bank of America‘s Cash Rewards and Financial Rewards offer 1% cash back the cash can be redeemed by phone every $2500.
- Capital One‘s No Hassle Cash has the same deal as the Bank of America, but will also give a 25% annual bonus on the rewards earned.
- Chase Bank’s PerfectCard requires 9 purchases/year to stay annual fee free, but rewards are credited to your account automatically. Rates are 3% on all gas purchases and 1% on everything else.
I already have one of the BoA cards, so I’ll be trying the Capital One in my wallet. If you have other cash back cards you like, please post in the comments.
February 18, 2008 at 2:32
tags: life, seattle
LN and I volunteer at the local shelter most Sunday nights. She’s been doing it for a long time and I started tagging along at the beginning of this year.
The shelter is for non-violent homeless teens in the U-District and it’s a place where they can eat, sleep and take it easy while trying to get on their feet. I wish I could say I do it to give a little back to the community, but I’d be lying. The work is mostly fun and takes my mind off grad school.
I was in the kitchen when I heard the explosion above me. It was the kind of loud that startles but doesn’t frighten. Moments after the bang started to fade, I felt debris rain down and instinctively turned my back to the noise. I could have sworn the old dishwasher had exploded, but the draft blowing in from the window suggested otherwise.
It didn’t take long to figure it all out. Someone had thrown an empty forty at the shelter. The bottle had punched a hole in the leaded window and then exploded over my head once it made it through. Cool, huh?
No one was hurt, so I shrugged off the glass and everyone else shrugged off the incident. Just another night at shelter, I guess.
