Mthatha students in UK

The students from the MSc in Health Informatics that CHIRAD are running at Walter Sisulu University in South Africa (www.chirad.org.uk/mthatha.htm) are currently on a visit to the UK. They are attending the EFMI STC 2008 in London over the next few days, and have had a variety of visits and activities over the past few days.

EFMI STC 2008 starts this evening

The EFMI Special Topic Conference on Open Source and Healthcare in Europe starts this evening (www.chirad.info/efmi_stc), with an opening ceremony and welcome reception.

CHIRAD is one of the sponsoring organisations for the event, and CHIRAD members have been active in organising it.

I hope to do some blogging from the event, here and on other blogs that I contribute to.

April 2008 must be South Africa

Graham and Peter will be in South Africa for about 3 weeks in April 2008. WE will be teaching on the MSc in Health Informatics (www.chirad.org.uk/mthatha.htm) , meeting with colleagues from SAHIA and the MRC, and adding in some holiday.
We will try to do some 'on the road' blogging, including uploading photos. As a starter, here are some photos from the January 2007 visit:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chirad.blog/SouthAfricaJanuary2007

Some viral videos

You have probably seen the 'Machine is us/ing us' video that shows the movement from text to hypertext to today's social networks - if not, you can find the latest version on YouTube at >>> There are plenty of other versions around too, and it was produced by Michael Wesch and his 'Digital Ethnography' group at Kansas State University, USA.

It has spun off many similar videos, the most recent one I have come across is called 'A vision of students today' - it is by Wesch and his students and is also on YouTube >>>. Interestingly, it has provoked widely differing reactions from colleagues, from "sad and left me not knowing what to do to reach these individuals" to "Pretty powerful stuff". Decide for yourself - you might also be interested in the transcription and discussion at http://www.mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/

This week must be Vienna

Peter Murray, and a number of other members of CHIRAD and BCS Health Informatics Forum, wil be in Vienna, Austria this week for the 'World of health IT' event (www.worldofhealthit.org).

I will be blogging the event, although probably mainly on a couple of other blogs, so keep an ee on them - or you can check the 'uCru6' widget that aggregates posts from our various blogs. As BCS are funding the trip, many of the posts will be on the 'Release Zero' blog.

More later in the week; this post from Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.

IMIA Web 2.0 taskforce

Peter Murray is co-leading the new IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association - www.imia.org) Web 2.0 Exploratory Taskforce.

See the post of Informaticopia for more information ( >>> ) or go directly to the Taskforce portal - http://www.differance-engine.net/imia20/

South Africa and London

CHIRAD members Graham Wright and John Bryant are teaching this week in Mthatha, South Africa, on the MSc in Health Informatics (>>>) (>>>).

Today (17 September), Peter Murray is attending the KIDMM 'Metaknowledge mashup' day at BCS HQ in London. He will be blogging 'live' throughout the day - posts can be found on the BCS blogs site at his 'Release Zero' blog - http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConBlog.6