How can we use data science to aid third world countries?
Thanks for a A2A.Data science can undoubtedly add a lot of value in the aid of third world counties. There are already a lot of success stories can you can find online.Targeting is definitely one activity all relief programs should concentrate on. With limited budget the relief program of an NGO must know what’s the most vulnerable set of people who need help. Analytics can be of great help here in ranking the people and then relief targeted to the the ones who need it the most.Data is quite important for data science and in a lot of case its not available or is not analysis ready, but there are ways (e.g. using public data) to tackle that or maybe marry public data with the data collected for the program.These blog posts should give you a lot more clarity.5 Top Jargons That Will Help You Make a Big Social ImpactWe don’t need no automationHow to impact lives of 12 million children through data and tech enabled analytics
Are there more poor countries than there are rich countries?
As stated, a meaningless question. Depends on where you draw the lines and how you count. Are there only poor and rich or are there also a group in the middle? As the other post mentioned, does each country get equal weight or do they get weighted by population? In 2000, the median income (half the people in the world) was $1,700 http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/globalincom... The world mean income is about $7,000 Are you going by a country's mean income of median? As a rough estimate of mean income, we can use per capita GDP (though it is a very rough estimate). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou... Of the 180 countries in the world, just over half has a per capita GDP of over $7000, so there are more rich countries. http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/globalincom... On the other hand, China and India were below this level so by population weighting, there were more poor countries. But if you split on the basis of median income rather than mean income, China and India are on opposite sides of the divide. Or you can choose poverty levels. What percentage of the population has to be living on under $2/day for the country to be considered poor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty
How can a computer scientist help in developing countries?
Here are a few ways:Build systems that exploit existing infrastructure. For example, in much of Africa, there is no internet, but even the poorest village might have at least one smart phone thanks to certain government programs. Computer scientists can build banking, micro-loan servicing, health care, and mail services on top of that technology (small screens, slow CPUs, limited access, pay-per-megabyte / pay-per-message) to raise the standard of living.Model things effectively, whether irrigation systems or epidemics or population or wildlife migration or likely spots to find natural resources, to help the governments of those countries manage what they have and avoid exploitationStart a computer-related business using local people. This could be a call center, but it could also be some kind of outsourced content creation or data validation task that can be done after a short period of training.
Why are babies prone to vitamin a deficiency in poor countries ?
the only vitamins babies get in poor countries comes from the food they eat. poor countries have poor nutrition and poor nutrition means poor vitamin intake. not many kids in haiti take one a day vitamins.
Do Free Trade agreements really help poor countries?
I do not believe that free trade agreements really help poor countries. There are no concrete data for example to prove any reall positive effect of WTO in developing economies. You may find some reports claiming that WTO increased the standard of living but I believe these reports are really manipulated.
Environmental science help:)?
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the universal law of increasing entropy, stating that the entropy (randomness) of an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. What that has to do with being a vegetarian, I don't know. As for the bumper sticker... google it!
How do scientists help the poor? If they don't, aren't they immoral?
The list is mind-bogglingly long. Off the top of my head, these three have changed the world.Golden rice - Huge swaths of the world use rice as a daily staple. This GMO rice strain adds Vitamin A to the rice to treat a common vitamin deficiency. Seed is available for free to any farmer that makes less than $27 per day (>80% of the world's population).Smallpox vaccine - Eradicated the smallpox disease.The Green Revolution - Fed a Billion people.The book Whole Earth Discipline has some fantastic stuff on this, even though it's not the book's main topic.That leaves your second question. Is it immoral to not help someone in need? I've struggled with this. There can be stunning unintended consequences of helping. "Free" food from anti-famine emergency relief programs can and does put local farmers out of business. With less farmers, the famine becomes perpetual. In the US, anti-poverty programs with the best of intentions created victim-dense slums. Other anti-poverty programs incentivized breaking family bonds and unintentionally propagated multigenerational poverty and dependence. Our supplemental income for the elderly program has destroyed most worker pension programs and disassembled the loyalty between companies and their workers. It has replaced the idea of saving for retirement and creating wealth with dependence. In the process has created a liability that will, within my lifetime, consume 1/4th of an average worker's income.If helping is often harmful, how can it be immoral not to help?