Technology has great potential for improving maternal and child health, reducing the number of preventable deaths, and diagnosing and treating the diseases of poverty such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

For decades, however, applying information and communication technology to address the world’s critical health problems has left much to be desired.

Proprietary legacy systems that do not communicate with other proprietary legacy systems and incompatible standards have not served global public interests.

The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is an ambitious project helping rural African communities in 10 countries lift themselves out of extreme poverty through community-led development.

MVP is now testing and building on Open Mobile Consortium tools in its health-related programs. Because MVP is focused on establishing infrastructure in the communities it serves -- both in terms of technological and human capacity -- the project can serve as a test-bed for mobile applications that advance the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).