First Praxis, information-based developmental health project, launched by Cambridge researcher

I met Kenneth Lipp not long ago through a mutual friend in England and have already had occassion to be vastly impressed by the frenetic pace at which he works. As a junior research fellow at Cambridge specializing in cognitive ethology and prosimian genetics who just recently received a grant on primate research and is presumably expected to go do whatever that would entail, the fellow has a lot on his plate already but has nonetheless just launched a project with the purpose of applying various newly-viable communicational methods to a range of problems of efficiency of both aid and information within the context of Third World development programs and the agencies that implement those programs. Yesterday, I agreed to a partnership between Project PM and his newly-announced effort, First Praxis; more information is available at Lipp’s announcement, a bit of which I’ll excerpt below:

First Praxis is the project beta for an applied research and education network, designed to build  an interconnected system of highly skilled nodes for assessing  and responding to crises in human health and general well-being. Although still beta, or pre beta, in development, Praxis is as of this moment an active project, operations in motion commensurate with need according to our present limitations.

First Praxis is a network of scientists, academics, and activists based strategically worldwide where a thumb on the pulse is most in need.

Local experts will monitor health issues and social conditions in their region, providing routine updates on the general needs and strengths and positioned to sound the alarm in such cases where they anticipate impending crisis.

We have thus far added as affiliates (loosely) two institutions from theTHRiVE network.

We also have limited arrangements with the International Health Links Center and researchers at the Sanger Institute, UK.

I have spoken with writer Barrett Brown regarding ways in which FP can synergistically network with his think-tank ProjectPM as an information/investigatory resource, as well as with the Science Journalism Improvement Project to help disseminate information to the public. I asked Barrett to share a few words on the imperative of advancing information’s universality.

Thereafter I’m quoted threatening to overthrow various elected governments or something. At any rate, this partnership is fortuitous as one of Project PM’s two active sub-programs is the Africa Development Program, the members of which we’ll be putting at Lipp’s disposal in addition to the more communications-oriented work in which we specialize overall.

I’ve recruited several people from The League for the Science Journalism Improvement Program and would love to hear from anyone else who might be interested in joining up, having been very impressed by a lot of the commenters I’ve seen here. Although many of our participants are credentialed or otherwise have professional backgrounds in what they’re working on specifically, some of our most active and effective members have seemingly irrelevant backgrounds while also possessing a knack for understanding the nuances of information flow and the contexts in which it does so. If you have an interest in learning more about Project PM, we’d love to show you some materials and answer any questions you might have. Meanwhile, Lipp is also accepting participants from a presumably more academic background for First Praxis and his e-mail address may be found at his post to which I link above.

Update

As noted in the comments, you may also e-mail Emma about either project; she’s a Newcastle-based activist with a background in immigration law and human rights and helps me with a lot of my correspondence in addition to also being involved with First Praxis. She may be reached at emilieduchatelet8@gmail.com, and is better about getting back to people quickly than I am.

Update 2

If you only take in one parody this year of me and my propensity for Ross Perot-esque video demonstrations of my awesome ideas, let it be this one.