[Ubuntu-ZW] [ZOSS-General] Off Topic:I invite your interest

Wed Sep 7 08:46:59 UTC 2016

Hi Jeff,

May I meet you via video conference about this project.

You also expressed interest in the Linux Distro project started at UZ. Let
me know is you or any other person are interested in joining ASAP.

Regards,

K.

On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 at 00:10 Jeff Chivheya <jeffycee at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Guys.I would like your Computer Science expertise on this project that
> me and Xolani Ndlovu are working on during our spare time.You are free to
> dig in.Criticism especially constructive is very much welcome.This is a
> social enteprsie with no financial rewards expected.Only doing this for the
> love.
>
>
>
>
> *iLihlo: Open Source Assistive Technology to aid Visually Impaired
> Individuals identify pharmaceuticals (Creative Commons license:* CC
> BY-NC-SA 4.0)
>
>
> *1.0 Introduction*
>
> According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) about 285 million people
> are estimated to be visually impaired (VI) worldwide.246 million of these
> have low vision and 39 million are considered blind.90% of the world's VI
> live in developing countries.82% of people living with blindness are aged
> 50 and above. People living with Visual Impairments face a variety of
> challenges when it comes to fulfilling everyday basic activities such as
> navigating public transportation and buying groceries.
>
>
> To function effectively in these situations many blind and VI individuals
> rely on others typically friends, relatives and volunteers for assistance.
> This scenario however is not always ideal because in most cases VI
> individuals are not afforded the opportunity to access enough information
> to make informed decisions or choices.
>
>
> One area where VI individuals are being left behind despite the tremendous
> growth experienced by the sector is in health services. Over the past few
> years exponential knowledge has been gained in the medical world which is
> helping people live better and longer lives. Most of this knowledge is
> however made available in formats that are not friendly to VI individuals.
> This means an entire segment of the human population is being potentially
> left behind because they lack access to available information. We wish to
> highlight one area in the health services sector where action can be taken
> to alleviate the plight of the VI.
>
>
> *2.0 The Problem Statement*
>
>
>  Pharmaceutical packaging according to the WHO has five major functions
> which are:1)containment 2)presentation and information 3)compliance
> 4)protection of patients and 5) detection of counterfeiting.VI individuals
> face the most challenges when it comes to benefitting from the
> 'presentation and information'  function of packaging. Labelling of
> pharmaceuticals is indeed the privilege of those with above average visual
> acuity. Such a scenario where VI Individuals cannot access (or have limited
> to) information can result in the following challenges.
>
> 1)      Compliance is compromised-compliance can be defined as the extent
> to which a patient  sticks with the medication that they have been
> prescribed.VI individuals potentially have the greatest chance of not
> complying because it is problematic for them to identify drugs or
> combinations of drugs.
>
> 2)      Allergic reactions-taking wrong medication can result in severe
> allergic reactions. Such a scenario is probably heightened in VI
> individuals. This can be life threatening in some situations
>
> 3)      Antibiotic resistance-probably as a result of non compliance. This
> has serious repercussions for the pharmaceutical industry and the public
> health system.
>
>
>
> The above challenges and others which were not mentioned are reason enough
> for something to be done to help VI access vital pharmaceutical
> information.
>
>
>
> *3.0 What has been done to help VI individuals?*
>
>
>
> Verbal Counselling-pharmacists often come to the aid of VI individuals by
> providing face to face interaction explaining details on dosage, refills
> and potential adverse reactions that might come with each medication.
>
>
>
> Braille encoded packaging-Some countries in Europe has enforced that
> pharmaceutical packaging be made available in Braille.
>
>
>
> Magnifying glasses-some pharmacists provide magnifying glasses to assist
> some VI individuals.
>
>
>
> TalkPack-A pen shaped reader is used to access information and replay it as
> audio files. This technology was developed by Wipak Walsrode-GmbH- in
> Germany.
>
>
>
> NFC tags-NFC tags are added to any particular packaging enabling any NFC
> enabled mobile phone to download text, audio or web page production
> information.
>
>
>
> *4.0 Our Proposed Solution*
>
>
>
> *4.1 Objectives and Design considerations*
>
>
>
> iLihlo (Ndebele for eye) is a system that will allow a VI individual to
> effectively manage medications once the effort to acquire them from the
> pharmacy is accomplished (At the pharmacy the challenge of identifying
> which product to purchase is solved because a pharmacist is on hand to help
> assist individuals-VI and normal-get the correct material. The task
> function that this system will seek to address is managing these outside
> the confines of a pharmacy).iLihlo will allow a VI individual be able to:
>
>
>
> 1) Distinguish between different pharmaceutical packages
>
> 2) Access information about the name of the drug and or active constituents
>
> 3) Access information about dosage
>
> 4) Access information about expiry dates
>
>
>
> iLihlo will deliberately be made cost effective by leveraging Commercial of
> the Shelf (COTS) products, be practical and be intuitive to the end user.
>
>
>
> *4.2 Design and Architecture*
>
>
>
> iLihlo will be a system (software) that will utilise barcodes (QR,UPC
> etc).The software will allow a smart phone's camera to scan a barcode on
> the pharmaceutical packaging and retrieve a corresponding text value. The
> text value will subsequently be read out by the phone's text to speech
> program which is a feature of most smart phone's accessibility options.
>
>
>
> *4.3 Target Deployment*
>
>
>
> We propose a set up where software that generates simple barcodes is made
> available at pharmacies (VI friendly pharmacies).To assist a VI individual
> (with iLihlo software on their smartphone),the pharmacist will have to
> generate a barcode which will then be tagged with vital information such as
> name of drug, dosage and expiry. The VI individual would then be able to
> scan the barcode using iLihlo. iLihlo would then return the tagged
> information as a text which would then be read out using the phone's native
> text to speech software. This solution or set up was envisioned because
> (from research) it will basically be a challenge to get the pharmaceutical
> packaging to change their packaging to suit a niche (non profitable)
> market. It would be much more practical to have this done at the pharmacy
> level. Barcodes can be generated quickly and pasted on the VI individuals
> medications as and when necessary.
>
>
>
> *4.4 The Challenge *
>
>
>
> We 'hacked' a 'proof of concept' using an old Samsung smart phone running
> Android OS with the text to speech functionality enable. We downloaded a
> free app Codereadr which we used as our barcode scanning software. We
> initially generated a QR barcode which we then tagged with information. The
> phone was basically able to retrieve the information and read it out aloud.
> We thought this might be useful and be applicable to help VI individuals if
> a software system (iLihlo) was developed from the ground up which was
> stripped of unnecessary functionality. We therefore invite your interest,
> expertise and support in developing this system and researching how VI
> individuals can be helped to manage pharmaceuticals
>
> My project page is http://www.changemakers.com/project/ilihlo
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
>
>  --
> Jeff T Chivheya
> Skype:jeffycee
> Whatsapp:+263 773 962 299
> Bulawayo
>
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