Thomas Abraham speaking at HKU last week has called for the reform of global health programs to save more lives.

Global health programmes aimed at specific diseases fail to meet the broader health needs of the local communities they have been set up to help, according to the Director of the JMSC’s Master of Journalism programme.

“The same children who need to be vaccinated against polio also need to be reached by other immunization programmes, receive bed nets from the malaria program, and benefit from nutrition and safe-water initiatives.  It is cold comfort to save a child from polio if the child later succumbs to malaria or diarrhea from dirty drinking water,” says Thomas Abraham, who runs the Health Risk Communication programme at the JMSC and is writing a book about the worldwide effort to eradicate polio.  Abraham’s warning appeared in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on November 19.

Abraham was the team leader for the Communications Department in the Director General’s Office of the World Health Organization during the swine flu pandemic in 2009, and is the author of Twenty-First Century Plague: The Story of SARS (HKU Press, 2004).  He said in an interview that a single-disease focus is typical of NGOs and governments because that is how they raise money. Each disease becomes a brand that is easier than overall health to market to donors.

“The amount of money, the number of vaccines, the number of people vaccinated – donors fund projects on this basis”, Abraham said. “And it is far easier to administer because it creates clear chains of command, clear outcomes, deadlines, targets. They can set deadlines for the eradication of a disease and then measure the progress”.

Since each programme has different goals and deadlines, integration is difficult. And while many members of the global health community agree that their efforts need to be more closely aligned, there is little initiative to actually make it happen.

“There is a lot of dysfunction in global health programs”, he said, “but their target is the same – healthy people. So surely there must be a way that they can be integrated to be more effective, and made to address all of the health problems in a region, not just one. There needs to be a more comprehensive way of thinking. Hopefully it won’t take a large scale health crisis to get it”.

Abraham first became interested in health issues while living in Hong Kong during the SARS outbreak in 2003.  “SARS made me realize that health is more than illness and sickness and medicine”, he said. “It is really fundamental to the way we conduct our lives. The way that we fight a disease is a key element in the way we organize our society…How we see health issues is something that’s reflected in who we are and how we do things”.

Abraham’s blog on polio and information on his forthcoming book about the Global Polio Eradication Initiative may be found here.

A flexible copyright licence enables anyone to study Ivy League courses online free of charge, writes Elaine Yau

Always wanted an Ivy League education but were afraid that, a) you weren’t smart enough, b) wouldn’t be able to afford the fees, or c) both? Fret no more. Thousands of courses from institutions such as Stanford or the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT) are available to anyone with internet access – and they are free.

Former civil servant Peter Ma King-man plugged into programmes at Yale to become a lay expert on evolutionary Darwinism and health care systems. Now, the retiree is also helping to share the knowledge as a volunteer translator, producing Chinese versions of some 20 courses for MyOOPS (http://www.myoops.org/main.php), a Taiwanese portal for free courses. His latest project: translating lectures on evolutionary principles by Professor Stephen Stearns at Yale.

Ma spent the first years of his retirement earning a master’s in development studies at the University of Birmingham in Britain yet remained hungry for more learning. Now he has set up a site (http://www.self-learning-college.org/forum/) to share his translations of supplementary material such as a biography of Charles Darwin.

“One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t read much about popular science when I was young. Some concepts are so esoteric that even an avid reader of science books like me has difficulty. But I look up references online and, after digesting the ideas, present them in laymen terms in my site.”

Web advances and a more flexible US copyright system called Creative Commons have inspired various platforms for free courses. Most are college-based – MIT, for example, offers some 2,000 courses gratis through its open courseware portal. Others, such as Education For All (http://www.edforall.net), are set up as aggregators, one-stop centres that pull together courses and seminars from respected institutions, mostly in the US.

With lectures by renowned professors (streaming videos or downloads), exhaustive reference lists and course notes, the programmes allow anyone with an inquiring mind to tap into this cornucopia of knowledge.

Civil servant Michael Law Kwan-hei is a keen follower of Harvard professor Michael Sandel’s pithy philosophy lecture series on “Justice”, a surprising viral hit on YouTube. “He explains abstract concepts in a way that is interesting and easy to understand,” the 23-year-old economics graduate says. The Sandel talks have so piqued his interest, Law is now dipping into philosophy texts. Lucifer Chu Hsueh-heng, the Chinese translator of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, set up MyOOPS six years ago using HK$2 million he earned from the assignment. The portal has since registered 6,000 users and relies on about 2,700 volunteers to translate free English courses. But he still spends about NT$100,000 (HK$25,000) a month to maintain the site, most of which goes towards salaries for six full-time staff, including Web designers, editors and engineers. “Editors are needed as not all volunteer translators are linguistic experts,” Chu says.

Courses on MyOOPS run the gamut from the abstruse (the acoustics of speech and the psychology of serial killers) to the practical (photography tips) to the quirky (how to achieve orgasm).

“Some people are put off by the more academic material, so videos on the site serve as appetisers which pique general readers’ interest and prompt them to delve further into the subject,” Chu says.

For cat-lover Wendy Tso Wan-ting, what began six years ago as an attempt to learn about feline procreation has since developed into a business venture. The six-month online course on animal genetics through Cornell University inspired her to set up as a breeder of pedigree Persians and exotic shorthairs.

The concept has yet to take off among top British universities. Oxford has a set of video lectures (http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/), most of which are CC-licensed. Cambridge, though, has yet to develop an open online system, though individuals contribute video lectures (http://videolectures.net/).

It’s perhaps not surprising that aggregate portals have been set up by people with a passion for learning, and they’re keen to tap the power of the Web to give others that kind of enthusiasm.

“Learning should be self-motivated and magical,” says Chu. Study has become sheer drudgery for many students in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, which is why they are overjoyed when summer holidays come round. “It’s like being released from jail for them,” he says.

By injecting fun and flexibility into learning, Chu hopes to change that.

Software developer Tan Wooi Tong, whose one-year-old portal Education for All now features 170 courses from seven leading institutions, sees it as an avenue to aid informal learning at the university level.

With speedy internet connections, he says, there is not much difference between viewing videos of lectures online and physically attending the classes. “In a big lecture theatre for 200 people you have minimum interaction [with the teacher] anyway.”

Even so, Tan leans towards courses with lecture videos. “I think to be able to view lectures recreates the classroom experience and helps students absorb the content even without live interaction.”

Where videos aren’t available, he picks programmes with substantial lecture notes, assignments, reading lists and the like. The goal is to evolve into a free virtual university, with structured courses for various disciplines and seminars on special interest subjects. For now, Tan is finding it a challenge to sustain his one-man venture. The site doesn’t benefit from existing ads, which are diverted through Google, so he will need to secure some advertisement or sponsorship, he says.

Openware courses can’t replace conventional ones, not least because there are no tutorials where students can raise questions or discuss ideas. “Students need physical interaction with the faculty,” says Tan, who holds engineering degrees from MIT. “There is videoconferencing but it needs a lot of resources [to set up the infrastructure].”

You can’t earn credits through openware courses, so they are not an avenue to certification or professional qualifications. For a degree, you still need to go to a university with accreditation mechanism.

It takes a determined self-starter to get the most out of online courses, paid or otherwise, especially if they are busy professionals who find it difficult to get to class.

Balancing a personal life, work demands and study is a struggle, but Tso’s perseverance has paid off. She earns around HK$20,000 a month as a cat breeder. More than money, Tso says online learning has helped her realise a childhood dream.

“I have always been curious about the propagation of animals and bred my first school of [aquarium] fish in primary four. Now I have turned my interest into a job.”

Hu Shuli, one of mainland China’s most influential journalists, rejected widely held Western perceptions that the Chinese media are a monolithic state-dominated institution.

Photo of Hu Shuli by Alex Hofford

Delivering the keynote speech at “Reporting New Realities in Asia and the Pacific” on April 27 and at a subsequent Q&A session, Hu presented a much more nuanced picture of her homeland’s media sector.

Hu was addressing the International Media Conference, co-sponsored by the East-West Center’s Asia Pacific Center for Journalists and the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre.

Hu Shuli earned her nickname “the most feared woman in China” as editor-in-chief of the Beijing-based Caijing magazine. She led critical investigations into economic malfeasance in China, exposed a government cover-up of the SARS epidemic and reported shoddy building construction after the Sichuan earthquake.

“I don’t think the media in China now is still an instrument of the state,” she said. “The media environment now is very diversified. You can’t take the situation as if there is just one voice. Maybe 30 years ago, but not right now.”

Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre, Professor Ying Chan said Hu became the “most discussed woman in China” when news of her pending resignation from Caijing began to circulate late last year.

The resignation prompted a mass exodus of staff from the widely respected business publication. Hu said 140 newsroom staff departed with her, including the chief editor, deputy editors, desk heads, all senior reporters and numerous business staff.

Hu declined to elaborate on specific reasons why she resigned from the magazine, citing a difference of opinion in the future development of the publication.

“Some Western media reports said our departure was a major setback for independent journalism in China, but it’s not true,” she said. “We are back. We chose to leave because we wanted to continue what we had done. Not because we wanted to give up.”

During her luncheon speech, Hu discussed the history of Caijing, her new projects, and the challenges facing Chinese media in the global transition away from traditional media market models.

She shared a personal anecdote that placed her career within a seemingly optimistic momentum in Chinese media.

Hu was a Knight Fellow in the 1990s at Stanford University. She told a favourite professor that she wanted to continue her career in the mainland. He warned that, “Chinese journalists will never be part of the mainstream.”

Hu proved otherwise with Caijing. She established the magazine in 1998. It received widespread acclaim within three years, she said. By 2009, the magazine had become one of the mainland’s most reputable sources for journalism with an enviable balance sheet.

“On the business side, it was the number one in terms of ad revenues and probably one of the most profitable magazines in China,” she said.

She joined her new company, Caixin Media, in December 2009 and began publishing Century Weekly in January 2010. She is now involved in numerous other media ventures: caing.com, the monthly China Reform, and she is developing multimedia products for iPhone and Kindle. She also joined the faculty of Guangdong-based Sun Yat-sen University as Dean of the School of Communication and Design.

“Caijing’s success in the past decade parallels with the development of professional journalism in China,” she said. “In those 10 years, we grew rapidly and the Chinese newspaper people and the media industry as a whole grew as well. The dynamics were particularly exciting in the finance sector and our market-oriented audience.”

Hu said factors that supported the changing media landscape included a “rapid opening up” and the Internet. Now, she said social networking and new technology had transformed traditional media to such an extent that “it may be necessary to redefine professional journalists.”

However, Hu emphasized that a foundation of good journalistic ethics remains equally important in today’s media industry. This ethical concern prompted Hu to establish an independent advisory board for her new publications.

Relating to questions about her business model, Hu explained that her media income remains based on the traditional advertising model. She said the mainland advertising market is still booming in contrast to Western media ad revenue.

She acknowledged that the advertising market might not remain indefinitely robust in China. Caixin Media is exploring new electronic revenue models. “I hope we find it before too late,” she said.

During the bilingual press conference, Hu took questions in English and Chinese. Professor Chan occasionally provided spot translation for the non-Chinese speaking members of the audience.

Edited by Jonathan Sharp