Remote Education

Background

The life expectancy of an indigenous Australian is 15-18 years less than that of the non-indigenous population.  Major causes of this are cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, endocrine disease and accidents and injuries.  All of these factors can be attributed to a lack of education.

Much of the indigenous population of Australia live in remote areas of the country where they have low /no access to computers or internet so cannot reap the benefits of the information revolution, and makes education a difficult process.

Challenge

Giving the people in these remote areas of Australia access to the information they need and educating them in the importance of a healthier lifestyle is made very difficult due to the remoteness of these communities.   The added challenge is to provide this information in a culturally appropriate and engaging manner so once it is available people will actually use it and adopt new habits and a healthier way of living.

Solution

HITnet approached NeoProducts to produce a tailor made interactive kiosk that could withstand the conditions of the remote environments in which they would operate.  The kiosks had to be rugged, highly reliable, and require little servicing.

Hitnet, working with the communities, developed a contextually and culturally sensitive, relevant health education portfolio which was loaded into the kiosks.

Neo continues to provide servicing for these units, amongst which, it is believed, is the most remote kiosk in the world.

Benefit

The 75 kiosks throughout the most remote areas of Australia enable HITnet a platform to provide an intuitive learning experience which educates these communities on the relevant health issues concerning them.