BATON ROUGE La.
Victor Mbarika envisions Louisiana
doctors serving the sick and needy in Africa without
having to leave their American offices.
As director of Southern University's new International Center for Information Technology and Development, Mbarika is setting up infrastructure in developing countries to provide greater health care access there through "telemedicine."
Telemedicine allows doctors here to use patient photos and lists of symptoms sent online to make diagnoses and prescribe treatments through village nurses to patients on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, said Mbarika, a Cameroon native.
Information technology, or IT, is the equipment and expertise that links computer-based information systems.
Mbarika, a Southern e-business assistant professor specializing in information technology, said the deplorable health care situation in Africa is a nightmare.
"Coming from a developing nation myself, I feel obligated to contribute back," he said.
The international center intends to impact much more than health care, he said, by helping to set up IT infrastructure and to spur business growth.
"You can't run an e-business if the phone lines aren't working well," Mbarika said. "So we're trying to set up more fiber optics and satellite Internet."
It is very much part of the old "teach a person how to fish" adage, he said.
The business aid is more than just building a Web site, he said. It is developing continued Internet presence and controls from ordering raw materials to ensuring post-delivery customer satisfaction, Mbarika said.
When Mbarika came to Southern University in 2004, he and his students helped set up Web sites for small businesses such as barbershops near the university.
Now he is setting up technology infrastructure in poor African nations like Cameroon, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Eritrea.
Citing the many corrupt African governments, Mbarika said he is hopeful the growth of "e-democracy" in developing nations can put open political discussion and open political practices online for all to see.
