From: "Bud P. Bruegger" <bud@sistema.it> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: meeting report: eHealth in Developing Countries Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 16:30:03 +0000 (UTC) ------------------------ meeting report ---------------------------- Joseph Dal Molin and I (both of the SPIRIT project, http://www.euspirit.org) were invited to give a presentation on open source at "eHealth in Developing Countries--The Future of Health Care?" (http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciditg/eHealth.htm). The meeting was organized by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for International Development (http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciddirector/) and took place on June 18 at the Kennedy School fo Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States. The presentation (http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciditg/Health/pres.html) introduced open source in a wider sense, applicable to all copy right products including software and (educational) content. It focussed on the benefits of the approach for developing countries including the following: * increase of activity and innovation * better adaptation to local needs * shift from remote intellectual property cost to local service cost * technology transfer and stimulation of local commercial activity * ease of collaboration and sharing between high and low cost areas * sustainability * cost-effective replication of best practice solutions The presentation also outlined the state of open source in health care and presented the SPIRIT project (http://www.euspirit.org) as an example of how to incubate open source activities (in health care) and how to accelerate uptake. Among the participants (http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciditg/Health/participant.html), there already seemed to be a relatively high level of awareness of open source and its benefit for sustainable development. Also the organizers gave open source a high priority by scheduling it as one of only three plenary session presentations (that then slipped to dinner). Also the presence of some very strong open source promoters seemed to be very encouraging. I came away with the impression that open source may well make inroads in developing countries where people have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Health care seems to be the way of least resistance (probably closely followed by education).