zmq
Posted by CorinneRamey on Sep 22, 2009
In India, especially in rural areas, men are often in charge of the family mobile phone. But Subhi Quaraishi, CEO of ZMQ Software Systems, thinks that phones are a great way to reach women as well.
"The goal of our program is to use technology to empower women," said Quaraishi, of ZMQ's new pilot program.
ZMQ is currently running a program to provide women with information on prenatal care via SMS. The messages, which are all in Hindi, contain information on vaccinations, exercise, diet, medication, and how to deal with emergencies that arrive during pregnancy. This is the only program of its kind in India, although other programs -- like a Grameen Bank sponsored program in Ghana -- also use SMS to give advice on prenatal care.
Posted by CorinneRamey on Jun 02, 2008
Within the next few months, ZMQ Software Systems will be launching new mobile games to educate people about climate change as part of its Connect2Climate initiative. The first three games that ZMQ will release are called Polar Teddy Quiz, Mission Lighting, and DeCarbonator. On their website, ZMQ explains why they choose to use mobile phones for the games:
Posted by CorinneRamey on May 10, 2008
In a mobile phone game in India, a cricket match is played between the teams Demons XI and Safety XI. A report about the game describes it as a “cricket-based game involving balls in the form of condoms, faithful partners, information on HIV and the symbolic AIDS red ribbon.” A team wins by avoiding “googlies and doosra balls - unsafe sex, infected blood transfusions, infected syringes and the company of bad friends.”
The game is part of a growing market of "edutainment" mobile phone games -- games that are designed to provide entertainment and be educational at the same time. MobileActive interviewed Hilmi Quraishi, project director of ZMQ Software Systems, to learn more about the project. Hilmi said that when ZMQ was founded in 2003, it wasn't with the intention of developing games for mobile phones. "Initially we were focused on designing technology solutions for the Internet, but then we realized that in order to expand our reach we need to use technology that is reaching the common man," he said.
