Have you ever texted a fish? Or graffitied a wall with your mobile?
Thanks to the ever-present mobile devices and connectivity, artists and activists are experimenting with how we interact with each other, organize ourselves, and our surroundings.
We've written about interactive texts messages in activism before, and are very excited to devote our December Tech Salon to how artists and activists use mobile phones for expression.
RSVP here to join us on Thursday December 9th for "Mobiles + Art + Activism": an evening of conversation with artists, and live demos & exhibits of mobile art projects exploring public spaces, calls to action, crowd engagement and participation.
The Mobile Minute is here to bring you coverage on the rise of smartphone sales around the world, a crop insurance plan in Kenya that uses mobiles to process claims and distribute money, the effect of the 2010 U.S. elections on PBS' mobile web and app usage rates, a pilot in Zambia that uses SMS to rapidly transmit HIV test results between rural clinics and hospitals, and mGive's new mobile donation options.
Today at noon PST, Kentaro Toyama will give a talk from UC Berkeley on Ten Myths of ICT for International Development, a topic dear to our hearts as we continue to demystify mobile technology for social change.
A live broadcast is available here. Questions can be sent via Yahoo IM to username: citrisevents.
The past decade has seen incredible interest in applying information and communication technologies for international development, an endeavor often abbreviated "ICT4D." Can mobile phones be used to improve rural healthcare? How do you design user interfaces for an illiterate migrant worker? What value is technology to a farmer earning $1 a day?
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on an iPhone security hole, how mobile phones are used to transfer music in Mali, Facebook's continued mobile marketing strategy, and the Guardian's updated mobile web site.
Get ready for a month of mobile events with something for everyone! Interested in how ICTs can be used to help civil society organizations, or help manage crises? Or do you want to develop and monetize apps? This month, we've got you covered:
2 November, Global Pulse Tech Salon (New York City, USA): Interested in learning about how ICTs can be used during crises? The Global Pulse Tech Salon is hosting a gathering to focus on crisis management through data collection, citizen engagement, and the use of communications technologies.
2-4 November, Planet of the Apps(London, UK): This app-focused event is mainly for corporate brands and operators, with panels and presentations on building and marketing engaging apps.
As part of a pilot project in Uganda, Refugees United is using mobile tools to help connect refugees who have been displaced by war, persecution, and natural disasters.
Since the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January, thousands of internally displaced persons are living in camps, where it is often not easy to report incidences of violence. An ongoing project from Survivors Connect uses mobile phones to support camp managers and community leaders to protect women and encourage people to report incidences.
In today's Mobile Minute: The UN released a report on mobile penetration around the world and how mobiles can be used to fight poverty, Business Insider charted U.S. texting habits by age group, an Islamist group in Somalia banned mobile money transfers, Zimbabwe's first mobile money program prepares to launch, and the research group Akamai released data on the growth of the mobile web around the world.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you news about the continuous lack of Facebook privacy, the disagreement between IDC and Nokia on Nokia sales figures in India, a ranking of the top five free Android apps for journalists, a TNS study that found social media trumps e-mail as the most popular use for online mobile activity, and mapping indoor spaces with smartphone apps.
RBT Megakheir uses ringback tones to replace the normal beeping tone one listens to while calling someone with a piece of music or advertising tone that is chosen by the party being called. This RBT is content selected carefully with the aim of raising people’s awareness about NGOs and their projects and activities.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a server
Key Features :
Spreads the word about different NGO projects and activities.
Enables users of this tool to contribute to a cause they feel strongly about.
SMS SOS: Reporting Gender-Based Violence in Haiti data sheet 5450 Views
Since the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January, thousands of internally displaced persons are living in camps, where it is often not easy to report incidences of violence. An ongoing project from Survivors Connect uses mobile phones to support camp managers and community leaders to protect women and encourage people to report incidences. The project, called Ayiti SMS SOS -- Ayiti comes from the Creole word for Haiti -- allows individuals to submit reports via SMS.
Survivors Connect is an organization that works to enhance anti-trafficking movements around the world through the use of new media and connective technology. Survivors Connect partners with grassroots organizations to incorporate new technology to help improve on-the-ground efforts toward protection, prosecution, and prevention.
Since MobileActive.org was founded five years ago, this community has grown tremendously. We wanted to know from you - the insightful, smart, and innovative community - what’s been helpful, what you want and need, and what we should be doing more (or less) of.
With 5 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide and NGOs large and small adopting mobile tech in their work, and with governments jumping on board as well, this seems to be the year where we collectively broke through an adoption barrier.
In a quick word cloud of responses, mobiles, obviously, were the greatest topic of discussion, but "people," "work," "technology," "information," and "community" made strong showings as well. (We like that people was the second-most used word!)
Three Questions. Many Answers
Our first question focused on where we’ve been, asking: “What are the two most important changes that you have seen in the field of mobile tech for social impact over the last five years?”
In New York City's East Village neighborhood last Friday, anyone with a mobile phone could have their words heard across Tompkins Square Park. An art exhibit called "Urban Speaker" allowed participants to call a mobile phone hooked up to an amplifier and loudspeaker, and the resulting messages were immediately broadcast.
Designed by artist Carlos J. Gomez de Llarena, Urban Speaker is a mix of technology and performance art – participants could either call the number printed on a sign, or use a QR code to get more information about the project. Anyone could call the number and had 60 seconds to speak into a voicemail service, and then the message was sent out over the loudspeaker. Watch Gomez de Llarena explain the project below:
As we continue the MobileActive 5-Year Birthday Celebration & Community Hurrah, here are some ways to interact with and contribute to the community. MobileActive.org is YOU - a network of people using mobile tech for their social change work. It is powered by the contributions of individuals and organizations working across the interdisciplinary world of mobiles for social impact and development, and this website and resources are here to support you in your work.
So, here are 10+ Ways to Get Involved with MobileActive.org:
1. Keep up with the latest: Twitter, Facebook & RSS Feed
Find us on Twitter (@mobileactive) and on Facebook. We regularly distribute news and information about latest resources and information through these channels. Connect with others in the community and share news about events, resources or opportunities that you hear about. Leave your feedback/comments on what resources have been helpful, and what you’d like to see more of.
You can also subscribe to our RSS feed for full and instant gratification of everything we post, including new research which is added to the m-Directory.
2. Read our monthly newsletter
Get the monthly newsletter by signing up! They are fun and easy to read (even on your mobile-device!) and chock-full of useful resources, latest news, and roundups of upcoming events around the world.
Starting this Fall we’ll also be publishing quarterly thematic round-ups dedicated to latest news, research and information on targeted topics. The first one will be focused on mobile data collection tools and resources. Sign up!
3. Participate in conversations about M4D by joining the MobileActive Discuss list
There are now 700 MobileActives on the Discuss list. They are researchers, practitioners, NGO staff, students, telcom employees, donors, and tech vendors who all have a passion for and an interest in mobile tech for social impact. The group shares ideas and knowledge, answers queries, and posts grants and job opportunities. Click here to join.
4. Comment/give feedback on our content
We want to know what you think. Did a blog post, report, or How-To raise more questions for you as a practitioner, or inspire you to think of other concerns/questions you think your peers should be asking? Have additional information about a given topic? Leave us a comment.
5. Contribute to the Mobile Minute by tagging articles with #mobilemin
You may have noticed our new feature called the Mobile Minute - a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds.
If you see an article of interest that you think should be incorporated, tag it #mobilemin
October is here, and so are plenty of events to keep your M4D calender full! Let us know in the comments or via email if you have an event you'd like to have included here.
7 October, Tech@State: mWomen (Washington, D.C., U.S.) Tech@State's latest event focuses on women and mobiles. Topics at the conference will cover the digital gender divide, mobile opportunities and benefits for women, and how to increase mobile access for women around the world.
9-10 October, The Media Consortium: Independent Media Hackathon (Chicago, U.S.) This event brings together programmers and journalists for a two-day coding marathon. The event is designed "to develop apps within the frame of “News + Fun + Community," that creatively integrate delivery of news/commentary with game mechanics (including gaming, fun, interaction, calls to action)."
MobileActive.org turns five this fall. We think that this is a perfect time to highlight the creative and amazing practitioners in the m-4-change field. Our community of developers, organizers, advocates, field staff, researchers, donors, and many more is what makes this peer network so strong and vibrant.
We wanted to hear from you on where the field of 'mobiles for change' has been, where it's going, and how a community like MobileActive.org can help along the way. So we called people around the world who have been in the field for a while to hear their thoughts.
Last week's tech salon, "Mobiles for Women and Women in Mobiles," brought together practitioners, researchers, and mobile developers. The event highlighted both the amazing women working in the field of mobiles, and also showcased the promise that mobiles offer to improve the lives of women and girls around the world.
Designed to encourage discussion, the tech salon featured both presentations and an open marketplace, where attendees mingled and shared their work and experiences.
In late September 2005, a group of 40 innovators and activists who were exploring the socially beneficial applications for mobile phones as more than just a personal communication device, convened in Toronto for a 3-day meeting.
From that meeting, MobileActive.org was born.
Today, five years later, MobileActive.org is a growing international digital community of 20,000 highly skilled practitioners, technologists, campaigners and strategists like you.
In 2005 there were just over 1.5 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. Today, we have already cleared the 5 billion mark. And thanks to the visionary work of the people in this community, the idea of leveraging mobile technology to improve people’s lives, is at top of mind.
The Mobile Minute is back with the latest mobile news. McKesson Foundation's president is interviewed about its $1.5 million grant for m-health research, Zimbabwe begins to roll out per-second mobile billing, NTEN shows non-profits in the United States seven ways to incorporate mobile donations, Apple publishes its guidelines for submissions to the app store, and Twitter releases new figures about their mobile access numbers.
We have been very keen on exposing the security issues related to mobile communications for activists in insecure environments. To that end we have, to date, produced a number of how-to guides that evaluate some of the tools available.
We will continue to pay close attention to this space as there are not enough tools and resources yet for activists and journalists to communicate securely via mobile. If you are aware of other projects or resources, please add a comment!
The Mobile Minute is here to bring you coverage on Sierra Leone's crackdown on unregistered SIM cards, Wall Street firms' move away from BlackBerry, Tim Berners-Lee's concerns about the mobile web's privacy, accountability, neutrality of networks, and accessibility, and a how-to guide for taking the best photos with your Android phone.
Want to use mobiles for data collection? Don't know where to start your research or where to read evaluations of existing and past mobile data collection efforts? You're in luck! We've produced the resource guide you've been waiting for.
Recently, MobileActive.org collaborated with UN Global Pulse to crowdsource an inventory of mobile data collection projects around the world. While this growing inventory shows there is enormous interest to leverage mobile technology for data collection, technical reports and evaluations of deployments and pilots are scattered.
So, we took the lead and compiled the existing literature (as best as we could) in an easy-to-use spreadsheet here.
Today's Mobile Minute's coverage will feature release of the data-aggregating program SwiftRiver, feature phones' allure in developing countries, Nokia's entrance into the dual SIM card market, a new book that investigates how ICTs will have an effect on politics and culture in the Muslim world, and how RIM's response delayed India's proposed ban on BlackBerry services.
The Mobile Minute is back with the latest mobile news. What's happening today? FrontlineSMS now supports MMS via email and offers scheduling features, an infographic breaks down the overlap between social networks and mobile phones, non-profits are ramping up their use of mobile giving campaigns, and Google introduces a new computer-to-phone voice service.
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