ARTICLES

USING ICT FOR PUBLIC HEALTH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION IN AFRICA

The Department of Women and Gender Studies (DWGS), at Makerere University with support from I-Network, has hosted the second in a series of Gender and ICT for Development Seminars aimed at enhancing women's participation in gender and technology initiatives for Uganda.

The guest speakers were co-founders, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka (Chief Executive Officer) and Lawrence Zikusoka (Director, ICT for Development) who set up Conservation Through Public Health, a grassroots non-profit organization, with a mission to promote conservation and public health by improving primary health care to people and animals in and around protected areas in Africa.

Their presentation entitled, "Using ICT for Public Health and Wildlife Conservation", has articulated how the organization intends to facilitate further research on interrelated human and animal diseases, develop local content to improve education and access to information, and strengthen the delivery of health services in local communities surrounding protected areas.

Gladys is a former Veterinary Officer for the Uganda Wildlife Authority. She used a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit to collect and analyze data for a field study on tuberculosis at the human/wildlife/domestic animal interface at Queen Elizabeth National Park in 2000/2001, with funding as a Charlotte Fellowship Conservation Award from African Wildlife Foundation.

Lawrence is a former United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) volunteer in Orissa, based in UNDP, India. He was nominated by the Board of Directors, World Summit Award (WSA) as one of 36 international multimedia and ICT expert panel members on the WSA Grand Jury, involved in the selection of the world's best e-Content to be showcased in the framework of the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2003 in Geneva.