EpiSurveyor Creator Selanikio Shakes Up International Development

He’s not so much boasting as marveling at the power of mobility and the Internet to break down barriers in the disjointed, occasionally frustrating realm of international development.“The only thing that’s been amazing about EpiSurveyor is that it’s in international development,” Selanikio tells MobiHealthNews. “In Silicon Valley, there would be nothing amazing about it.”

Countless billions of dollars have been spent trying to improve living standards and health in developing countries, but much of the money falls into the hands of corrupt regimes, wasteful organizations and jet-setting diplomats who, according to Selanikio, “fly around the world first class and stay in 5-star hotels,” undercutting their mission.

Until perhaps a decade ago, Selanikio says, there was a thought that Africa was too hard a problem to tackle with technology since there had been just one example of technology taking hold globally in all of human history: Radio. But then cellular phones started showing up in some of the poorest corners of the globe.

“We’ve got this enormous, runaway success with the mobile phone being able to scale down to the village,” Selanikio says. “It’s the most successful tech product in the developing world since the radio.”