global maternal mortality campaign

The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood

During 2008, significant steps were taken towards reducing maternal mortality and towards achieving the necessary improvements in provision of health services in developing countries. However, overall progress on maternal mortality has lagged severely behind Millennium Development Goal targets.

2009 presents important opportunities and the White Ribbon Alliance is involved in several strategies at different levels – global, national and community – to maintain momentum and maximize delivery.

The White Ribbon Alliance’s Global Patron, Sarah Brown, continues to champion a global Maternal Mortality Campaign with the support of wide range of actors within the maternal health community. As happened last year, the voices of people in developing countries can potentially be amplified through this mechanism, and a concerted call to action made at national and international levels.

Objectives

* Establish a major new innovative financing mechanism to fund health systems.
* 20 countries to have financed health plans in place by 2010, to meet the WHO recommended levels of 2.3 workers per 1,000 people by 2015.
* Appointment by the UN Secretary General of someone on Maternal Mortality.
* Appoint national champions to mobilize action at a national level.
* Agree on, and develop delivery plans for, a small number of high impact interventions (via the ongoing meetings amongst various groups and with regular circulated materials to all campaigning partners).
* Ensure maternal mortality is recognized as a key indicator of a functioning health system.

Maternal Mortality

The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood

Every minute of every day, a woman dies of pregnancy related complications, totaling more than one half million women each year.

MHTF MISSION

The Maternal Health Task Force contributes to shaping collective efforts to improve maternal health worldwide. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the MHTFt serves as a catalyst to address one of the most neglected areas in global health.

Million Mums – The White Ribbon Alliance

Rudd warns of massive hikes in health costs

Rudd warns of massive hikes in health costs – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

New Treasury figures predict health spending on Australians over 65 will be seven times higher than current levels in 40 years’ time.

Global Warming Studio – Key Aspects

The “global warming studio” requires you to develop your design of a ‘car’ over the course of a year.

Listed here are the 10 key aspects of the ‘Global Warming Studio’.

On Content
1. This studio is part of the Sustainable Pathway in the Industrial Design Program.
2. The studio will emphasize exploration of aesthetics – particularly Japanese aesthetics.
3. The studio is a Campaign Project – to make a difference  and to engage in a major challenge facing humanity.

Exposure and capability development
1. The studio has three key manufacturing Industry participants – Ford, GM and Toyota.
2. The studio offers industry visits and feedback sessions with designers in the auto industry.
3. The studio draws on research projects in Universities (RMIT Engineering and Monash University) in Australia.

Focus is upon
1. Radical Innovation.
2. Making a thing of beauty.
3. Setting clear goals and achieving them.
4. Developing confident independent thinkers.

Global Warming Studio

Read this stuff and do remember to follow all the links – the underlined stuff. There are some awesome links here. ( if you find this text too much you can go for a more sparse idea of the studio here)

1. Proposal of the studio and studio of 2009 here.
2. Library Subject Guide for Studio
3. Industry participation in studio: Ford, GM, Toyota

The Global Warming Studio is a Campaign Project

The goal of the Campaign Project is to participate in the global project of reduction of CO2 emissions to ’safe’ levels – such as 350 ppm. We do this in a design way – by developing alternatives! New Designs have the ability to influence people and Industry – to think differently!! Or so goes the thesis!! Read on …

Consider this: the act of driving a vehicle is the average person’s one regular activity that has the single largest impact on the earth regarding climate change. (Global Warming and Auto Manufacturers – Global Warming and Carbon Dioxide Emissions)

How can we cut global warming pollution? It’s simple: By reducing pollution from vehicles and power plants. (
NRDC: Global Warming Basics: )

All this means we need zero emission vehicles – thats one thing. Lets build than into the brief. Read on …

We are serious about Target 355 or Target 300

James has proposed an interim target of 350 ppm CO2 and the closure of the coal industry, the latter of which he mentions in a recent letter to Kevin Rudd.
“Prime Minister Rudd, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.”
James Hansen letter to Kevin Rudd 27 March 2008(Target 300)

Now lets say in this way – “We must solve the vehicle problem now!” only for us “no more private cars”.

Thats our Project then – we say ‘No to Private ownership of Cars’

Eh? No, listen.
If there were no private cars – and all transport was PT (Public Transport). If there were no cars being bought for status reasons – and all cars were for getting around. There would still be cars, possibly, or small transport modules for getting about. What would these cars look like?

The Global Warming Studio is looking for a small group of young, passionate, excitable minds ( uncomplicated by what can and cant be done) – to come on board and develop their visions of such cars, things, pods or such.

Past Studios
We have been working on this project for some time now. And quite a bit of the past work can be found on the internet quite easily – google ‘car sharing RMIT’ or ‘audi avatar’ and click on images to see some of the projects. Similarly you can see some of this work in youtube. Try it!

The Global Warming Studio is a five year project to develop alternatives to the idea of the Car as we know it. The team teaching this studio has some experience is getting students to deliver really astounding outcomes. See some examples of past student work. You may be able to develop a similar project.

2008 Studio: Cars for Car sharing. The question was ‘If you were to design a car for a car share company like Felxicar – what would your design be?’

(Share Car by Gautam - Upper Pool Studio 2008, RMIT Industrial Design)

2009 Studio: Car of the Future. In this studio the goal was to propose designs for the ‘car of the future’. The work in this studio was highly commended by the designers from the Auto Companies – Click here to see the Video where you hear the comments by the experts. As one of them said – ’spectacular!’

(Car of the Future by Edwin – Major Project 2009, RMIT Industrial Design) This is the Audi Avatar concept – and is all over the internet. Even Tree Hugger commented on it.

Future Studios
The future studios are all significantly about SMART CARS! We have proposed three sepcific themes for exploration over the next three years.

2010 Studio: Share Car. Imagine a world with no private ownership of Cars.

2011 Studio: Energy Module. Imagine a world in which the car is an energy source (a power generator like a Honda gen-set that moves about), and also a transportation device.

2012 Studio: Intelligent Space. Where the computer in the car is your PC or your lap top. Where you plug your home terminal into your car. Always connected is the vision.

Studio Tutors
The studio will have three tutors – Marcus, Soumitri and Simon – to create a really supportive environment. To help you come up with and realise a truly great project.

Marcus Hotblack – Many years of experience with Ford, was former head of Interior at Ford (see image below and text here), totally loved by 4th year students of 2009 studio. Will be overall the main tutor.

Soumitri Varadarajan – Passionate about sustainability and design solutions to big problems. Dips back into the time he lived in Japan to get students excited about Japanese Aesthetics. (see also http://soumitri.com)

Simon Curlis – Passionate about motorbikes, knows heaps about things with wheels, great guide for CAD. In the image below he is astride a student project – from the Green Speed Upper Pool studio. This studio (GreenSpeed) is being offered again in sem 2 of 2010.

Technorati Tags: global warming, global warming studio, car design

AUTO CRC

AutoCRC – Smarter Safer Cleaner

The Auto CRC website with some useful material on Electric vehicles and vehicles of the future.

Foresight

Some very good tolls for scenario thinking and on the Future!

Foresight Home

Foresight’s role is to help government think systematically about the future. We use the latest scientific and other evidence combined with futures analysis to tackle complex issues and help policymakers make decisions affecting our future.

Our work makes a critical contribution to meeting important challenges of the 21st century – such as food security, flooding, and obesity.

* Foresight Projects are in-depth studies examining major issues 20-80 years in the future.
* The Foresight Horizon Scanning Centre does short projects looking at discrete issues across the entire public policy spectrum.
* Our Toolkits and Networks look to strengthen futures thinking capacity and share best practice within and across government.

Car of the future

5 year long design projects. Industrial Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Campaign Projects 2009

7 projects, as campaigns and products

On Australia and Indians

Anant’s blog: Of Melbourne and of jingoism | Indian advertising media marketing digital opinion analysis debate – Campaign India online

My daughter is one of many Indian students who have or are studying in Australia.

How difficult would it have been for Indian media to talk to her? She would have been easy to find, studying as she was at Melbourne’s premier university. As would any other Indian student.

So how is it that I saw, read and heard no experience like my daughter’s in Indian media? How is it that I was fed hate and hostility? How is it that all kinds of issues such as racism were dragged into it?

I’m angry. Because Indian news media caused me (and hundreds of parents like me) to be afraid and worried rather than relaxed and happy that my daughter was doing well and having the best five months of her life.

Industrial Design Melbourne

This year, like every year at this time, a whole bunch of design students will leave university to enter the profession. And as with this time every year the prospect of making a living from design is scary!

So I said to myself I would do something about it. But what?

I could visualize projects – write grant applications and generate jobs myself. September saw me submit a grant application – to redesign a glucometer. A simple project – that can use fresh design talent. October saw me dream up a rash of design projects – and I realized I had missed the deadline for many grants – thats okay I said to myself, I could ask the graduating students to work with me writing grants. That is my solution.

But all this is a long term strategyl and what if I dont get the grants. OK – this problem needs a solution that has many parts to it.

So here is what I came up with – my short term strategy:

1. If I focus my attention on only 10 of them or so – I could ask around and find them work: But shouldn’t they do this themselves? This is training for work as a freelance designer – to hustle for work is a skill that is invaluable, and has to be acquired the hard way. Still I can pitch in – and ask people over email or by calling hem up. So I did this. It may work for one or two of this bunch of students. I have to remind myself to keep the pressure on the agencies.

2. Some of the students have not done so well in their last year. Life intruded. I realise they may want time to sort things out. Or a design place to be in for a bit.

3. I think some of the students would be better off starting a business. But they do not have the necessary confidence. I realise they may want a sounding board.

4. I think some of them would be better off going overseas. But they want to live in Melbourne.

So then I realise I could do things to help 10 students. And this is best done on a case by case basis. So I said to them all – ‘okay here is the thing, I am going to support you for a year will you find your feet’.

But this left quite a few of the others out. And this is when I went off and had a conversation with Design Victoria. I came away from that conversation understanding DesignVic’s agenda and role much better. It wasn’t about work availability for Industrial Designers. I mulled about talking to State of Design – then came across the Australian Design Unit – also being done by Propeller. So they were doing something else – which was part promoting design in Melbourne and part resource for designers. Neither answers the problem – how do you employ the hundred or so fresh design graduates?

What if you dont? Well (a) its not fair, and (b) its back to the retail sector for the graduates, and of course with some more options which may be employment elsewhere – not design! I have for decades heard the comment that this is an okay situation – that we train our students will a tool kit – ‘the design way of thinking’. I wish I thought like that. I cant. My predicament is that in my previous job I looked after placements – and campus recruitments. That was in India. It doesnt happen here.

So I am back to my hole – I need to do something that will work for everyone.

This is when I thought to rectivate a NING social network we had set up last year for a course. I did that and sent off the info to the whole student community. Now in my next post I will talk about the vision for this project.

So remember the project is called – “Industrial Design Melbourne“.

Its a social innovation project.

And the NING network is here if you want to join it.

And if you have a suggestion of a solution to the problem – let me now through a comment here.

In the recession

Barry Katz – writing in ARCADE says:

But what of the legions of unemployed designers? Happily, in a truly restorative world there would also be more design. A lot more of it. But design of a different sort, practiced by a new breed of designer according to principles now only dimly perceived.

The first new design specialty to blossom will be un-design. Under the guidance of trained and dedicated professionals, un-design students will study methods of fabrication but starting from the back end of the textbook. Forget Derrida. They will practice applied deconstruction. During their summer recesses, they will intern with un-design studios and gain practical experience excavating junkyards, strip-mining department store shelves and clear-cutting rooftop satellite dishes. Upon graduation they will hang out their shingles and begin practicing un-design for an array of corporate and municipal clients: Architects will be put to work un-designing dilapidated, underutilized and just plain ugly buildings; Graphic un-designers will set out to neutralize billboards, web pages and corporate identity systems; Industrial un-designers will start by dismantling handguns and cigarette machines and move on to assault rifles and SUVs. They will have more work than they can handle.

As legions of un-designers gradually clear away the appalling detritus of the Design Century, a guild ofimmaterialists will emerge who specialize in “mining urban industries,” in the phrase of the Worldwatch Institute, transforming industrial waste into a new generation of building and manufacturing materials: Used tires will be more sought-after than virgin timber, empty soft-drink bottles and salvaged copper wire more valuable than oil wells. Just as the raw engineering of the first industrial age had to be softened by the designer’s touch, so the processed materials of the post-industrial age will cease to look like used egg cartons and become shimmering, sensuous and superb.

who do I want to be as a professional?

Tales from an Unemployed Interior Designer

Now I’m faced with yet another problem (in addition to all those associated with searching for a new position in this economy); if my job is not coming back in any way, shape or form… then what do I want to do and who do I want to be as a professional?

on Design Forums

Why has the level of discussion in “design forums” degenerated so quickly? Maybe because they’re not populated by “designers.” Greenfield explains …

A List Apart: Articles: The Bathing Ape Has No Clothes (and other notes on the distinction between style and design)

I admit it: I’m one of those poor souls who likes to indulge myself in the fiction that there’s something called “the online design community.” And (in what is probably a still greater admission of my own naivete) I believe in both the possibility and the worth of associating with this diverse and international scatter of people on message boards.

Stimulus Program For Unemployed Designers

Job Stimulus Program For Unemployed Designers – jobs.roanoke.com

With unemployment at a 25-year high, and an estimated 3.3 million jobs lost in the last five months, a leading design software company has created its own stimulus package-providing unemployed engineers and designers with the opportunity to learn valuable new career skills.

The program gives free software licenses, training videos and tutorials, networking, certification and potential job leads to any job seeker living in the United States, Canada or Europe-helping candidates stay current with the technology while upgrading their skills for an ever-changing job market.

Behind The Scenes

Don’t give in to shamefaced cringing and glum, hand-wringing humility

Product Panic: 2009

In 2009 you might be unemployed, like those moguls at the top of the financial food chain, so it’s necessary to look busy, preferably at some advanced and exotic activity. Don’t give in to shamefaced cringing and glum, hand-wringing humility. You’ll be getting plenty of humiliation from crazed market forces, which behave in ways that make no sense to anyone. So why not be out there, zanily extravagant? Are you losing anything the whole world hasn’t lost already? Ask yourself, “What would Maurizio Cattelan do?”

Unemployed Print Designers

This is a story about adapting to change. What is ID today – you may well ask.

An Open Letter to Unemployed Print Designers | Chopped Fresh

Poor, poor little print designer. You have been working exclusively in Quark, InDesign and Illustrator for the last ten years, and you haven’t bothered to advance your skillset to accommodate new mediums, like this Internet fad. And now you can expect to compete for lower paying jobs with a lower title. But you really have nobody to blame but yourself. You probably should have spent some of your free time learning how to do some basic HTML or Flash, or perhaps even learning what information architecture is and what it is used for. Instead you have resisted the changing landscape, and you’ve banked on companies always needing business cards or stationery or whatever.

Don’t shoot the messenger, but it’s too late for you to catch up now. A new generation of visual designers is coming into the workplace, and they are not only trained in interactive mediums, they understand them because they use them every day. The younger crowd understands what a “tweet” is, recognizes the importance of wireframing a user interface, and knows how to properly construct a web page. They even grasp the importance of keeping their skills up to date. And they’re hungrier and more innovative than you are.

Fit for work?

I was looking up ‘unemployed designers’ and came across this.

Unemployed Anonymous – Support group for recently graduated industrial designers | LinkedIn

Unemployed Anonymous is a ’support group’ created for and by recently graduated industrial designers from the TU Delft, but hey! we’re all ears for anyone out there who can give a hand or a good tip!

We’re here to share experiences and hopefully also tips on how to get a nice job as a designer after your graduation.

Tamil and Australian aboriginal languages

I sat and watched Ten Canoes the other day. The language in it sounded like Tamil. Which was a surprise. Just like years ago I realised that Japanese and Tamil words were interchangeable in a sentence. So I went looking for research where others may have found this too. I came across this:

Perhaps most similar to Australian languages are the Dravidian languages of southern India. Tamil, for example, has five places of articulation in a single series of stops, paralleled by a series of nasals, and no fricatives (thus approaching the Australian proportion of sonorants to obstruents of 70% to 30%). Approaching the question from the opposite direction: according to the latest WHO data on the prevalence of chronic otitis media (Acuin 2004:14ff), Aboriginal Australians have the highest prevalence in the world – 10-54%, according to Coates & al (2002), up to 36% with perforations of the eardrum. They are followed – at some distance – by the Tamil of southern India (7.8%, down from previous estimates of 16-34%), … (from http://www.flinders.edu.au/speechpath/Manly%20final.pdf)

Then I started to look at other linking the tamil and the Aboriginal. And here I encountered a lot of material. I big proportio of this has to be discounted as it is typically in the vein of the Indian or Tamil suprematist. Quickly – that vein is one that claims that Tamil is the original language – and the class of languages called Dravidian ( an unfortunate appellation?) is huge and spread all over the world. Some claim the flaw in this na,ing has given rise to the feeling that Tamil ( as dravidian) is the original language. Still now we can start to read about DNA evidence. See this:

Dr Rao and his colleagues sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of 966 people from traditional tribes in India. They reported several of the Indian people studied had two regions of their mitochondrial DNA that were identical to those found in modern day Australian Aboriginal people. (http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/2011921/1/)

Also – http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/9/173/abstract/

Then there is the Human Genome Project and here is what that has to say:

During his own journey in pursuit of the Y chromosome story in the late 1990s, Wells took blood samples from males of Dravidian ancestry in southern India. The Dravidians were among India’s earliest colonists; they now live among the descendants of a later wave of Sanskrit speakers — like Latin and ancient Greek, Sanskrit is an a branch of the Indo-European ‘mother tongue’, more closely related to modern English and French than to Dravidian.

Wells was looking for a genetic marker called M130, the most ancient, non-African, Y-chromosome marker. It is rare in Dravidians, but quite common in Australian Aboriginal males — and, intriguingly, in the Na Dene peoples of the Pacific north-west of North America.

The Na Dene peoples are descended from a second, later wave of immigrants into North America, who were ultimately of Sino-Tibetan stock — M130 is both the oldest non-African Y-chromosome marker, and the most travelled.

Wells’ suspicion that M130 might have survived, at very low frequency, in southern coastal regions of India, was proven correct

The first African emigres left a durable calling card on the coastal migratory route between Africa and Australia.

(http://www.lifescientist.com.au/article/131860/dr_wells_genetic_crusade)

Which is of course mystifying and a bit thrilling. Do I carry M130 I wonder. If yes what would that mean to me? Or should I just learn the (which) language?

AIATSIS

About AIATSIS

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is the world’s premier institution for information and research about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, past and present.

National Archives link

Muslim Journeys

From the Afghan camel drivers who helped open the continent’s vast interior, to the Turkish families who answered a call for willing workers in the 1970s, Muslims have contributed much to Australian life. They journeyed to an unfamiliar land, bravely seeking opportunities in a culture inclined to view them with suspicion. Some, like the herbalist Mahomet Allum, found achievement and acclaim. Others, like the pearl diver Samsudin bin Katib, became embroiled in controversy. Many more simply made a home, building lives and communities. Their surprising stories of adventure and adversity can be explored through the rich collections of the National Archives.

Reconciliation Australia

Who is RA? – Reconciliation Australia

Reconciliation Australia is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that was established in 2000 by the former Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. We are the peak national organisation building and promoting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians for the wellbeing of the nation.

January 26, 1938

Image from – File:Dayofmourning.jpg – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blog psipunk

Future Transportation -

You don’t stand gawking at a taxi, unless it’s an Enzo, but the Mazda Taxi concept could make you stare every time you see it. The concept, developed as a taxi, keeps the specific requirements of the vehicle in mind. The first thing that comes out is, that the ways of approach to a taxi are different for the commuters and the driver; while the driver enters and leaves the vehicle from the street side, the commuters do that from the curb side. This allows the passengers’ luggage to be kept towards the street side, rather than putting it in the trunk. The approach makes for quick and easy ingress and egress for the passengers.

Sketch for a Course

Design and the Indigenous: Exploring contemporary Aboriginal Australia

The title took some constructing – but I am happy with this, and the fact that the title does not commit to a position or angle.

The next task is to establish the need for this exploration. I began an exploration titled ‘Great Civilizations’ in 2005. The idea at that time was to privilege an exploration of China, India and Australia. My aim there was to make these three the sites of interest and potentially the centres of design exploration. I was in those days arguing against the privileging of Europe/ European Design as the centre and Australian Design as a remote periphery. This distinction is not so much about the primacy of European Design as its relevance in Australia. Its one thing to design here and then go off and exhibit it in Europe to acquire an international reputation – which is a valid practice in a particular way especially for an individual. Its another thing entirely when the curricula in design schools is orientated this way. So I was arguing for local relevance, regional relevance and a completely different cultural discourse. Now the cultural is not done in an overt fashion by design in Australia – as my mother in law said it; “the Australians do such practical stuff”. That statement was probably inspired by a visit to IKEA. But I do agree on one thing – the cultural is missing. The symbolic is absent!

Design in India and China is symbolic. Quite significantly so. And it is ,my call that so is the Aboriginal – in the manifestation of the symbolic as the story. I realise the unpacking of the Indigenous Australian culture into modern language is done though English – which sets up a particular way of constructing meaning. The realisation is at this stage a feeling of dis-satisfaction with the texts I am reading. Chatwin was a good read but a bit shallow in retrospect.

So in this way I am saying that the ‘cultural’ is the key to navigating materiality in these ‘great civilizations’. A tinge of the sacred, heaps of proscriptions and the ever present malevolent force have to be given form and shape.

Lurking in this is the exploration – design and the indigenous.

What this may not be – is a visual appropriation (that would be at the surface) of the aboriginal as a surface pattern or motif. And a big challenge is in the area of ‘adoption or adaption’ where traditional artefacts are transformed by a process of migration. Indigenous Australia is a bit light on artefact culture.