Associated Press - July 28, 2007 7:44 PM ET
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - An assistant professor whose main area of expertise is e-business is working to help sick and needy people in Africa get medical care from doctors in Louisiana over the Internet.
Victor Mbarika -- a native of Cameroon -- is director of Southern University's new International Center for Information Technology and Development.
He says it will let village nurses send their patients' photographs and symptoms over the Internet to doctors who can make diagnoses and prescribe treatments.
Mbarika says the health care in Africa is a nightmare. And he says that, since he's from a developing nation, he feels obliged to give back.
He says the center also helps to spur business growth in Africa, by setting up fiber optics and satellite Internet for e-business.
When Mbarika came to Southern University in 2004, he and his students helped set up Web sites for small businesses such as barbershops near the university.
Now he is setting up technology infrastructure in poor African nations like Cameroon, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Eritrea.
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