PDAs are saving lives in Africa

Remember the low-powered Palm PDAs that were so popular and fashionable around the late nineties till 2004? Most of us have moved on to more powerful devices running on Windows Mobile and Symbian, but the original Palm OS PDAs are now used in Africa as data entry devices for healthcare. More details here.

Interestingly, the cost of developing data gathering applications for the Palm OS PDAs was kept low by using a free, open source software solution. Unfortunately the software solution doesn't work on Windows Mobile and Symbian devices yet. More details here.

So if you're thinking of discarding an old Palm OS PDA, why not find out if any non-profit organisations would like to use it.