LINDA LEONARD

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Linda Leonard is Field Services Manager at the INFO Project, Center for Communication Programs, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is responsible for developing programs and strategies for INFO's country level activities. Currently she is spearheading the development of www.sehetna.org, the first web based Arabic language public health site in Jordan; www.sharegmr.org, a private community based portal for NGO’s working in the Greater Mekong Region on HIV/AIDS issues; and assessing the potential for a family planning portal in Bangladesh. She has worked for many years in the field of information and technology for development. Prior to coming to INFO she was Vice President for Development Information at the Academy for Educational Development, where she was project director for LearnLink, a USAID funded project to introduce communication technologies into the development process; was the Team Leader for end user needs for the Leland Initiative, which introduced the use of the Internet for development in sub Sahara Africa; and was also Director of the Development Information Service, the USAID supported research and information service supporting AID in Washington and the field. She published the book Digital Opportunities for Development, which provides models, and lessons learned from LearnLink's experiences in the field (http://ict.aed.org/). She is especially interested in participatory processes for developing a knowledge resource for and by a non profit community, as well as how information creates action. Just providing information is not enough. How do you encourage individuals to act on this new knowledge? What role does information play in behavior change?