Open minds / Open source / Open health

[Guest guest]

Greetings, on the eve of AIDS 2010. (apologies for cross-posts)

Welcome to the first IMAXI mini-newsletter, a quick hi-energy snack

for people hungry for innovations in public health. We're a new

ative (NGO / SCIC) of people living with HIV and/or TB, health

advocates and IT experts combining decades of experiences to develop

innovative new mechanisms to increase civil society participation in

public health issues and institutions.

http://www.imaxi.org/content/about-imaxi

Our first 75 days (Sharpening social media for social mobilization)

Since our start-up on the first of May, a half dozen volunteers have

dashed ahead and organized successful trials of three new tools which

allow greater involvement of the wider community. One is 'Opening'

high level meetings — IMAXI organized the first World Open Health

Assembly (WOHA) during the WHO's World Health Assembly in May, and

then worked with the NGO Delegation to the PCB of UNAIDS to connect

the community to this policy-making meeting. Using a open source

Drupal platform which integrates Twitter, SMS, You-Tube, Facebook with

our lively interactive website, a few hundred 'non-usual suspects'

were able to participate, and activate, through UNAIDS4ALL and WOHA.

http://www.imaxi.org/content/world-open-health-assembly-woha-2010

http://www.imaxi.org/content/ready-set-go-open-unaids-all

Facilitating Participation (Customizing communications for convenient

collaboration)

Rolling forward from Geneva to Vienna, we're now organizing

AIDS2010ForALL. Reaching out to PLHIV who can't physically be at the

International AIDS Conference in Vienna, our comrades are warmly

welcome to come via IMAXl. The ative has registered as an

Independent Conference Hub, and invites public participation in dozens

of various sessions and events, either online or through an

individualized two-way SMS messaging system for those with limited

access to the Internet.

http://www.imaxi.org/content/aids2010forall-welcome-plhiv-not-going-vienna

Taking the Pulse of Greater Involvement ( " What doesn't get measured,

doesn't get done " )

Following a brief meeting at WHA/WOHA with Dr Margaret Chan, Executive

Director of WHO, another new tool is now going into service — the

IMAXI 'PulseTaker', a web-based system for conducting rapid research

studies to measure how key elements of public health policy are

actually being implemented on the ground. The first of a series of

studies on the 'Stake of the Stakeholding' is now beginning,

commissioned by the Stop TB Partnership, and will increase

understanding of how public health providers and users can better

collaborate to turn noble words at the top into realities on the

ground. The IMAXI ative has been sub-contracted to provide the

'i-tools' required for this community monitoring exercise, and has

designed an exciting cross-media system of Outreach for Input of the

1500 key actors in ten countries in Africa and Asia.

http://www.imaxi.org/content/after-vienna-join-us-10-other-hot-spots

Open minds / Open source / Open health

You are warmly invited to be part of this new approach to increasing

Civil Society participation in public health. Every month, new

innovative tools are being forged, and quickly put into action by a

growing band of impassioned and happy volunteers. First step, sign-on

to our monthly mini-newsletter, and enjoy some tasty food for thought

and action.

http://www.imaxi.org/lists/?p=subscribe

Looking forward,

Celina DCosta Menezes, Case Gordon, Maxime Lunga,

Mark , Tala Bintu, Joe ...

The iMAXi ative (Open to all)

www.imaxi.org

Skype: imaxi.org

Tweeter: imaxicoop

Facebook: imaxi.cooperative