Giving Compass' Take:

• Devex profiles how parts of Nigeria got on the grid through satellite technology, enabling health workers to access patient data more efficiently and pinpoint potential outbreaks of disease more quickly.

• InStrat Healthcare Solutions is the primary driver of this tech initiative, run by a Nigerian-born former pharmaceutical director named Okey Okuzu. Is it sustainable? Okuzu says the project may be able to pay for itself if they collect enough data that will be useful to outside organizations, plus the innovation Instrat used to connect villages that don't have electricity or running water is worth studying.

• Humanitarian aid organizations could also find a lot of use for satellite image mapping. Here's how.

It takes nearly an hour to drive from Akure, the Nigerian capital of Ondo state, to the remote, palm-flecked village of Aseigbo. That’s on a clear day. During the wet season, the narrow dirt road leading to the village turns to churning mud, virtually cutting off the small community from the outside world for months at a time, until the season changes and the ground dries. Phones don’t work here; it’s outside the range of any cell tower. Nor do most homes have electricity or indoor plumbing. In case of emergency, or an outbreak of disease, it might take the central authorities weeks — or even months — to mobilize a proper response.

At least, that’s how things worked before the satellite receptors came. Today, thanks to a new partnership, not only is Aseigbo on grid — allowing local health care workers to contact central authorities at the touch of a button — but they are able to record patients’ health data via tablet, which can immediately be uploaded to a cloud. In a country where the vast majority of health data are still recorded by hand on registries, if taken to scale the project has the potential to revolutionize health coverage in Nigeria.

When people think about the many applications of satellite technology, improving health care delivery in the developing world is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But the new International Partnership Program aims to do just that. By combining satellite networks with tablet technology, the project partners hope to launch Nigeria’s health system into the modern digital world.

Read the full article about how satellite tech can help public health at Devex International Development.