Technology - Haiti Observer Blog

The National Police of Haiti has received tools that can help it prevent road accidents. Ambassador of France in Haiti Didier Le Bret handed over a set of speed radars and breathalyzers to the police. The devices are expected to help in the police's efforts to curb down the number of road accidents in the country.

The turnover was made at a ceremony that marked the end of a two-week road safety training conducted by gendarmes and the United Nations Police. During the training, Haitian officials were taught how to properly use the speed radars and breathalyzers which can help the authorities nab people driving under the influence of alcohol.

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Haiti's Cozy Joseph is a leading information technology specialist and philanthropist in both her mother-country Haiti and Florida. She is professionally an IT specialist for Florida Power and Light. Along with Dr. Serge Thys from the Psychiatry Department at Columbia Hospital in Florida, Dr. Ronald Romear, a pediatrician in Florida, and other Florida-based professionals founded the New York-based non-profit and humanitarian organization called the Gaskov Clergé Foundation. Named after the famous humanitarian Gaskov Clergé, the foundation aims to promote education, health, sports, and the sciences to make a difference in Haiti and the United States through acquiring donations.

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One excuse that the Haitian government has been spreading every time there is a kidnapping case in Haiti is that the government does not have control over the cell phones the criminals use to process their transaction such as contacting family members, requesting ransom, and actually getting compensation for the crime.

Is the Haitian Government soft on crime?

Hopefully a close regulation of the sale of mobile phones and SIM cards in Haiti will make it harder for these criminals. Actually, this is what the Secretary of State for Public Security, Réginald Delva, thinks. As a matter of fact, the Secretary of State for Public Security had for officials of the National Council of Telecommunications (CONATEL) that from now on to take the necessary steps to ensure that all sales of cell phones is registered and asked the National Identification Office (ONI) to help him identify criminals. Any operator of cell phone are now required to control the pre-activation of SIM cards.

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Is this for real? or furthermore, is this possible? The "Haitian Joudalist" has learned that the Haitian government promised to introduce a new biometric e-passport. What makes it strange to me is that the government promised that the new e-passport will be faster more secure and accessible.

The system will be connected with the FBI and Interpol in real time. Anyone who had any problem with "Uncle Sam" in the past or is thinking about not having a beautiful relationship with him, I have news for you. He will be looking at you.

According to the report, the way the E-passport will work is that each location will be connected to a central processing system. The central processing or Database will analyze the information and send back appropriate information to the the various locations.

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Haiti's aim for socio-economic development has paved way for both local and international bodies and institutions to cooperate in providing the country and its people different means to attain this. Through technology, these entities have found various innovative ways to assist most especially the poor sector of Haitian society. The Mobile Money initiative, which was launched in the country last 2010 by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), continues to offer promising results.

The Haiti Mobile Money Initiative organized by the Gates Foundation has recently reached a five-million worth of transactions. This resulted in Digicel and Voila, two of the country's mobile network companies, sharing an award worth 3.2 million dollars for this milestone, which marks the final award of the initiative's ten-million-dollar incentive fund. The growing success of mobile money assists Haitians with a more practical and easier way through their mobile phones in taking care of monetary transactions as ninety percent of them do not have bank accounts. Aside from the HMMI, the government has launched two projects involving mobile money called "Aba Grangou" and "Ti Manman Cheri". The "Ti Manman Cheri", otherwise known as "Dear Little Mother", aims to help Haitian youth that are facing extreme poverty.

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DHL Express has partnered with the One Laptop per Child Foundation to deliver more than 2,000 laptops to Haiti for use by students and schools hit by the Haiti earthquake.

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation of Cambridge was established with the goal of bringing the world's children a low-price laptop. Its founder is Nicholas Negroponte, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. The foundation offers its laptops for sale to governments of developing countries, which can then distribute the machines to poor school children.

Imagine each child in Haiti with a connected, rugged, hand-cranked or solar-powered laptop, to use at home and in school. This can provide a unique learning experience and make each Haitian child an agent of change.

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