Question Box in Deutsche Welle

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Question Box gets written about in Deutsche Welle.

Excerpt:

“Maher founder Sister Lucy Kurien, 54, said Question Box was useful for students who need help with homework and want to find out about exam results. Although that information has been available online, students couldn’t access it – until now.

‘It has been very difficult for them, unless they get (the information) from the newspaper or the radio,” she said. “And we have a simple television program, but we don’t have a television cable connection. It has been very difficult.’ ” Read full article

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Question Box featured on Deutsche Welle Radio

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Deutsche Welle DW radio QB – It’s in English!

DW reporter Michael Atkin was present at a Question Box inauguration at Maher home for women and children. Hear his firsthand reporting of what he saw and experienced live, and how Question Box became accidentally involved in a competition between two local political parties when each claimed Question Box was their initiative!

Link to Deutsche Welle

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Interview with Rose Shuman on WomanzWorld

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

logo300x300 Founder and CEO Rose Shuman recently was interviewed on WomanzWorld, a blog for women entrepreneurs. Rose shares her experience in building Question Box and advice on how to move the organization forward.

Read Complete Interview on WomanzWorld

Social Entrepreneur Rose Shuman Thinks Outside Of The Box

Interview by Natalie Sisson

I was fortunate enough to meet the phenomenal Rose Shuman in Santa Monica, LA over my Christmas break. Over coffee I got to learn more about this human ball of energy and inspiration. A TED Fellow and Social Entrepreneur, Rose is incredibly engaging and her enthusiasm is infectious.

What I admire most about Rose is that she cares passionately about every aspect of her enterprise. She describes herself as very opinionated and uppity as well as strongly motivated and unafraid of challenging situations..

Question Box is no exception. She knew that 4 billion people in the world aren’t online but increasing numbers have mobile phones. She asked how do you take the promise of the internet and deliver it to people speaking obscure regional languages? Her answer – why not build something that does it for you and uses the networking ability of GPS and mobile phone network infrastructures that even Grandma could use?

She spent three years incubating it and 5 iterations of software and produced a brilliant yet simple innovation. Literally a box with a big button on the front that’s hooked up by mobile phone, it helps users ask for exactly what information they want, when they want it, and how they want it – live, in their local language.

It’s currently being used in Pune, India and piloted last summer in rural Mbale and Bushenyi, Uganda. Callers ask about anything they wish – agriculture, education, sports, health.

As Founder and CEO of Open Mind, she’s on a mission to bring Internet information to everyone who lacks access. On a daily basis she handles major strategy and company vision, investor relations and fundraising, business development, marketing/collateral development, complex international project management, research, operations management. What’s more she directs 15 team members on three continents, including engineering staff!

Read Complete Interview

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Google in a box? Just an out-of-the-box idea

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Pranav Kulkarni , Uma VishnuPosted: Sunday , Nov 22, 2009 at 0353 hrs

Pranali Kalbhor stands on her toes and peers into the little box outside her father’s kirana store. Then, she presses the green button on the box like she has seen her father do, clears her voice and asks in Marathi: “Bharatache pahile pradhanmantri kon (Who was the first Prime Minister of India)?” The voice at the other end says “Jawaharlal Nehru” and Pranali preens. The nine-year-old’s teacher had asked the class to find the answer to the question and now she knows….Read More

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Question Box on VOA Special English Development

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

UPDATE- Voice of America features Question Box for listeners of its Special English program. Interestingly, we have just received news that a German publisher is using this same recording to teach English in Germany!

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Learn English AND About Question Box!

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Voice of America recently interviewed Open Mind – Question Box Founder Rose Shuman.
The piece was broadcast on Voice of America all around the world, including India and Uganda. Its target audience are people learning English, which we find very cool.

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Question Box Featured in NextBillion.net!

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Mark Beckford of nComputing wrote a great article about Open Mind – Question Box.
Essentially, he explains how Question Box vaults over the slow bandwidth speeds found in most of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the original post, or read it after the jump:

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Question Box Featured in New York Times!

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Dialing for Answers Where Web Can’t Reach

By RON NIXON

Published: September 27, 2009

KAMPALA, Uganda — The caller was frustrated. A new pest was eating away at his just-planted coffee crop, and he wanted to know what to do. Tyssa Muhima jotted down notes as the caller spoke, and promised to call back in 10 minutes with an answer.

Each day, Ms. Muhima and two other young women at this small call center on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital city answer about 40 such calls. They are operators for Question Box, a free, nonprofit telephone hot line that is meant to get information to people in remote areas who lack access to computers.

The premise behind Question Box is that many barriers keep most of the developing world from taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge available through Web search engines, said Rose Shuman, the service’s creator. That could be a drag on economic development.

“So I was thinking, why not bring the information to them in a way that’s most convenient and useful to them?” said Ms. Shuman, who is based in Santa Monica, Calif.

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CEO Rose Shuman Made TEDIndia Fellow!

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Rose Shuman has just been named a TED Fellow. Joining the ranks of a hundred distinguished innovators, Rose will be attending TEDIndia in November. Jon Gosier, Open Mind – Question Box CTO, is also a TED Fellow.

Rose will make an announcement about an exciting new Question Box development at TEDIndia. Watch this space!

TED CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES 103 FELLOWS FOR TEDIndia 2009

NEW YORK, Sept. 14, 2009 — Organizers of the TED Conference will bring 103 TEDIndia Fellows to Mysore, India, to participate in TEDIndia, the first-ever TED in Asia. TEDIndia, “The Future Beckons,” will take place Nov. 4-7, 2009, on the high-tech campus of Infosys Technologies Ltd.

The TEDIndia Fellows are a diverse group of men and women, representing not only India, Pakistan and Bangladesh but also Indonesia, Canada, Tajikistan, the United States, China, Nigeria and Oman. TEDIndia Fellows include engineers, environmental scientists and pollution experts, human-rights activists, musicians, athletes and filmmakers. One is a female Olympic-class sailor. One runs an innovative rickshaw business. One is a robotics developer. All are committed to the spread of great ideas.

“As the world’s influence moves to the East, the TEDIndia Fellows program is proud to showcase the work of 103 visionaries born or working in South Asia, especially in India, but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and the rest of the world,” says Tom Rielly, TED Fellows Director and TED Community Director.

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