FAQs
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How does the De Novo Group differ from the original TIER project at Berkeley?
How does the De Novo Group differ from existing NGOs?
Where do the De Novo Group innovations come from?
Does the De Novo Group work with universities other than UC Berkeley?
What experience does the De Novo Group have with real-world ICTD projects?
What capabilities will the De Novo Group provide to its partners?
What is the operating model for the De Novo Group?
For what is the De Novo Group seeking funding?
Will the De Novo Group charge money for the technology it releases?
Why aren’t other nonprofits or NGO’s doing what the De Novo Group does?
- How does the De Novo Group differ from the original TIER project at Berkeley?
- TIER at UC Berkeley continues as a research group that creates and pilots new technology options for development. The De Novo Group is an independent non-profit that readies and supports successful research prototypes, from Berkeley and elsewhere, for large-scale deployments that can positively impact millions of people in developing regions.
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- How does the De Novo Group differ from existing NGOs?
- The De Novo Group works with NGOs and country-specific groups to design and deploy novel technology solutions to solve critical development challenges. The De Novo Group is small and aims to facilitate the projects of others through development and engineering of ICT applications and infrastructure, with a particular focus on novel technology solutions. The De Novo Group will work in-country as needed but will partner with others when a large or extended presence is required, as is often the case. In the past TIER students at UC worked with ICTD non-profit Inveneo to facilitate technology transfer. While Inveneo is focused on deployment, the De Novo Group is focused on technology solutions development. The De Novo Group looks forward to working with Inveneo and other NGO partners to deploy new ICT solutions to alleviate poverty and improve the quality of life in developing regions.
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- Where do the De Novo Group innovations come from?
- Although the initiative for the De Novo Group came from UC Berkeley, the De Novo Group will work with researchers worldwide to help them grow their successful pilots into large-scale long-term deployments. The De Novo Group does not conduct research itself and expects that most of the key research questions and risks have been resolved prior to our involvement.
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- Does the De Novo Group work with universities other than UC Berkeley?
- Yes, the founders of the De Novo Group have close working relationships with researchers around the world including Carnegie Mellon University, University of Colorado, MIT, NYU, University of the Philippines, and University of Washington.
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- What experience does the De Novo Group have with real-world ICTD projects?
- Through UC Berkeley’s TIER, the founders of the De Novo Group deployed projects in several nations including award-winning work with the Aravind Eye Hospital in India and several projects in Africa. In India, TIER members installed long-distance WiFi technology, new capabilities for remote management and deployed high-quality doctor-patient videoconferences in tens of centers. This deployment has served over 100,000 patients, is financially and operationally sustainable, and has led to functional vision for more than 20,000 people.
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- What capabilities will the De Novo Group provide to its partners?
- For researchers: We provide product development resources, fund-raising, project management discipline and financial management. Additionally, we offer help identifying and managing partners, and considerable experience deploying technology worldwide.
- For NGOs: We offer state-of-the-art technology designed for developing regions. In addition to further development of research prototypes for scale and robustness, the De Novo Group can help with system architectures, replication into new contexts, and integration with existing ICT projects and capabilities. Finally, we can find, create or enhance technologies and create new capabilities and opportunities to match the vision of the NGO.
- For funders: The De Novo Group provides technical assistance for existing or new projects. In many cases, funders would like to use a particular technology that is either not ready or does not work quite right for the target usage; the De Novo Group can bridge this gap.
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- What is the operating model for the De Novo Group?
- The De Novo Group is a non-profit organization consisting of a small management group and a portfolio of successful projects. Operationally, the De Novo Group follows the successful project-based model of the Apache Foundation: lean and focused.
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- For what is the De Novo Group seeking funding?
- The De Novo Group will primarily seek funding on a per-project basis, working with (typically) predefined researchers and deployment partners. We will also seek general operating funds, both to support management and to seek out new projects and partners.
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- Will the De Novo Group charge money for the technology it releases?
- All work produced by the De Novo Group is available to anyone, anywhere, 100% royalty free and under an Open Source Initiative or Creative Commons approved license. Software will be typically be released under the Apache License, Version 2.0, while written works will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.
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- Why aren’t other nonprofits or NGO’s doing what the De Novo Group does?
- With very few exceptions, most nonprofits and NGOs lack the technical capacity and product development focus of the De Novo Group. Because of its close ties with university research, the De Novo Group has a unique ability to discover and mature promising innovations into replicable solutions. Additionally, by focusing on both the supply and demand side of its technical solutions, the De Novo Group is able to match promising innovation with real world problems, and find the best partners to deploy its innovations.
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