Microsoft Co-Founder, Paul Allen To Supply 10,000 Smartphones To West Africa To Combat Ebola
In addition to the smartphones, Allen is said to give NetHope a grant that will boost its initiative in connecting people across Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. This is part of his $100 million commitment towards the fight against Ebola.
The data collected using these smartphones will help the government and private organizations in better coordinating their efforts to contain and stop cases of new infection as well as to better care for those already infected. Data collected will also be shared with the Humanitarian Data Exchange.
“We need reliable data to understand what is going on in impacted areas to get ahead of the Ebola crisis. NetHope is working closely with the UN and all of the large response organizations to identify the gaps in communications capacity.
Today, we are committing resources to boost communication and data collection capabilities to more effectively fight Ebola in West Africa.” – Paul G. Allen.
Allen joins a list of donors including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Samsung, who have contributed in one way or the other in the fight against Ebola.