The Foreign Service Journal, September 2009

zon.com. More recently, Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, You- Tube, Wikipedia and Twitter have given rise to the phenomenon of so- cial networking, communities and user-generated content. No techni- cal skill or expertise is required to use these services. They are easy to per- sonalize and, in fact, so simple to use that consumers do not even think of what they are doing as “computing.” It is no surprise that this model is catching on in the business world. Companies are using Web-based services to manage operations as di- verse as finance, logistics, customer relations and human resources. The software for these services resides in remote data centers, not on each em- ployee’s computer or on company servers. Recently, companies have also started using Facebook -like social networks on the Web for their cus- tomers, business partners and em- ployees. In addition, companies are chang- ing the way in which they buy and uti- lize hardware and IT equipment. Instead of purchasing or leasing racks of servers or data-storage equipment, companies can now buy computing power — server and storage capacity — as a service that can be used over the Internet. In this way, a company pays only for the amount of capacity it uses and can expand or shrink usage, on the fly, as its needs change. Of course, under this “utility” model, companies need to be comfortable with the notion that their data will not reside within their own four walls but on remote infra- structure shared with others. In fact, however, these mega data centers generally have more sophisticated, state-of-the-art security, disaster re- covery and service reliability capabil- ities than any individual company is able to deploy. As with consumers and businesses, cloud computing holds tremendous potential for development organiza- tions, including agencies and NGOs in developing countries. These organiza- tions already use the Internet by hav- ing Web sites that provide information on their activities and programs. Rural communities are also using the Internet to advance their economic prospects. A case in point is an initia- tive in India called “e-choupal,” which provides vital information on crop prices, weather conditions and scien- tific farming practices to 3.5 million farmers across 31,000 villages. It also allows them to use an e-trading service to get the best prices in selling their crops over the Internet. More recently, the Internet has also become a communication channel to deliver higher-quality social services to people in rural areas. Telemedicine, which allows people to connect over the Internet to receive medical advice from specialists thousands of miles away, is just one example. While laud- able, such efforts are still largely rooted in the “ownership” model of informa- tion technology. Cloud Computing for Development By contrast, cloud computing en- ables development organizations to de- ploy sophisticated information tech- nology solutions without the cost and complexities of purchasing and setting up IT systems. In the same way that companies are now using Web-based services to manage their business op- erations, development organizations can improve the efficiency of their in- ternal operations by using software so- lutions offered as a service over the Internet. In addition to using prebuilt soft- ware over the Internet, development agencies and NGOs can use online services to designWeb-based software programs for their own specialized needs — ranging from fundraising and grant management to volunteer pro- grams and project management — with little coding or technical resources, similar to the way individuals create personalizedWeb pages on Google and Yahoo! with point-and-click ease. Just as mobile phones enabled com- munities with no access to landline phones to become connected to the rest of the world, cloud computing can enable disadvantaged communities to leapfrog into the next generation of in- formation technology. But in order to fully exploit the benefits of this new IT model, the development sector must invest in training local stakeholders with the skills and expertise to take ad- vantage of it. This will also have a pos- itive impact on the broader knowledge base in developing countries. Health Care. Advancing the qual- ity of health care is a key development objective. In fact, three of the eight MDGs adopted by the U.N. pertain to health care — combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; improving maternal health; and reducing child mortality. One objective of health-care NGOs in developing countries is to improve the level of expertise among medical professionals serving these communi- ties. While it is common practice for doctors in developing countries and rural areas to refer to health informa- tion Web sites, these doctors also re- quire a knowledge-sharing service in order to tap into the expertise of their peers and top medical professionals. This would take the practice of tele- 48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 9 This new model involves simply tapping into computing power over the Internet — that is, over the “cloud.”