MobileActive.org wants to hire you! If you are a cracker-jack researcher and writer, we want you for research and stories from around the world about mobiles for social impact. Some data entry on organizations and projects around the world using mobile phones to make the world a better place are also part of the job. Online and telephone research, interviews, writing reports and blog posts.
Must be a thorough researcher, and persuasive and clear writer. Living and working experience in developing country/ies a must. This is an ideal position for journalism graduate student with a great interest in mobile tech, or for a technologist interested in the social implications of the mobile revolution. Location in New York preferred but could be done from anywhere IF it's the right person. Fluency in Spanish or Arabic a great plus. Some travel will be supported.
Send a resume, cover letter explaining why we should hire you, and at least TWO published pieces pertaining to this or a related subject matter of at least 300-500 words. Send your materials to katrin [at] mobileactive [dot] org. Search is open until we find the perfect candidate(s), so hurry.
Grameen Foundation's Village Phone program has long been touted as the poster child for using mobiles in the economic empowerment of poor women. The program gives villagers in Bangladesh-- and now in several other countries -- access to microcredit to buy a mobile phone that can then be rented to other villagers who do not have a mobile of their own.
Much has been written about Village Phones in the media and in research reports, often describing in glowing terms the economic impact and gain in social status that the women in the program have achieved. Yet, most of these studies are fairly old at this point, predating the exponential growth of mobiles around the world.
Now questions are being raised in some mainstream media about whether renting out minutes on mobile phones is economically beneficial to the so-called village phone operators -- at a time when mobiles have become so much more ubiquitous, even in remote rural areas.
Do mobile phones answer all our prayers? I’ve written about the role that mobile telephony can play in humanitarian assistance quite a few times now, without really talking about it directly. The one line I have consistently taken is that cellphone coverage is not reliable or secure enough to be used as the primary means of communication in an insecure environment.
Putting that to one side for a moment, however, it’s clear that mobile telephony really is the key communications technology for the poor - and that means it should be the key communications technology for the humanitarian community.
In the West African nation of Mali, back street vendors power the mobile phone market. The major players -- Ikatel, a division of France Telecom, along with the homegrown Malitel -- have official stores, but most of their sales come from the street. In West Africa, subscription service is rare. Instead, mobile phone users purchase plastic-wrapped cards of varying denominations, scratch off a silvery bar much like those found on an instant lottery ticket, and recharge their phones with the code hidden underneath. These cards can be purchased from tin-roofed convenience shacks, egg sandwich vendors, or random men walking down the street, stacks of soccer jerseys slung over their shoulders.
Mobile banking is taking off, with the potential to change entire economies where the majority of people currently are currently "unbanked," as the term goes. There have been been several very interesting reports and articles recently on the topic. On the Foreign Policy blog, World bank consultant Christine Bowers writes about the enormous economic implications that mobile banking has for the world's poorest:
A Participatory Designed M-Agriculture Solution for Rural Livelihood Promotion data sheet 756 Views
Author:
Dr.Rizvi, S.M. Haider, Dr. Andy Dearden
Publication Date:
Oct 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The paper is based on the findings and experiences of the Rural e-Services Project in India (ReSPI) which resulted in designing of Knowledge Help Extension Technology Initiative (KHETI).
ReSPI was an action research project to bridge the socio-economic divide digitally. The project has demonstrated that a right approach with appropriate mix of methodologies and social context could lead the designing of Information Communication Technology (ICT) solutions.
In the after math of the project and development of KHETI Technology, claims could be made that designing of Information Communication Technology solutions are very much possible with so called ‘less privileged groups’ using participatory interaction design methodologies and treating users as co-designers.
The paper describes strengths and challenges in the participatory designing processes of KHETI as an M-Agriculture system and examines how it addresses the problems of local poor farmers by recognising their socio-economic realities.
ICTs for Agricultural Extension: A Study in the Indian Himalayan Region data sheet 458 Views
Author:
Kameswar, V.L.V, Devash Kishore, Vinita Gupta
Publication Date:
Jan 2011
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
This paper reports on the availability, use and information seeking behaviour of a farming community with specific reference to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). It fills a research gap by examining what people do with a medium when they have access to it, rather than looking at barriers surrounding the use of ICTs and digital divide issues arising due to differential access and capabilities. The study was conducted in a state in North India, and provides insights into intentions and factors surrounding the use of various media by farmers. It highlights the socio-cultural context within which information seeking and use
Asia Pacific Mobile Observatory 2011: Driving Economic and Social Development through Mobile Broadband data sheet 462 Views
Author:
Menon, Naveen and Christopher Firth
Publication Date:
Jan 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Asia Pacific is the largest mobile market in the world, and is continuing to show strong growth. Asia Pacific accounts for half of the total mobile connections in the world, with 3 billion lines. Looking ahead, the region is expected to continue its strong growth, adding a further 1.5 billion connections between 2010 and 2015 – similar in scale to the achievements of the last five years when 1.7 billion new connections were added. This growth and scale is encouraging for consumers and investors alike, as the industry has shown resilience through the global economic crisis by continuing to invest funds to improve the quality of mobile services across the region.
The 2011 Asia Pacific Mobile Observatory updates and expands on the first Asia Pacific Mobile Observatory carried out in 2009. With new data, analysis and insight it provides a comprehensive reference point for participants in the mobile industry, policy makers and other interested stakeholders.
This year’s report focuses especially on the positive economic and social impact of mobile broadband, which is having a transformative effect across Asia Pacific. The innovative Mobile Broadband Readiness Index aims to show how the AP17 countries compare against one another from a ‘readiness’ perspective and identify the means to sustain growth from a market, regulatory policy and corporate strategy perspective.
The Developmental Contribution from Mobile Phones Across the Agricultural Value Chain in Rural Africa data sheet 667 Views
Author:
Furuholt, Bjorn and Edmund Matotay
Publication Date:
Jan 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The most widespread information and communication technology (ICT) in developing countries today is the mobile phone. The majority of people in the least developed countries still live in rural areas and their livelihood depends on the primary industries. This study investigates the use of mobile phones among farmers in rural Tanzania in order to supply empirical data on the developmental role of this technology. The results show that the improved access to communication and information that mobile phones represent affects the entire cyclic farming life during the year and has resulted in considerable changes in the entire livelihood constructs, increased opportunities and reduced risks for rural farmer.
African Mobile Observatory 2011: Driving Economic and Social Development through Mobile Services data sheet 1777 Views
Author:
Page, Mark, Larurent Viviez, and Maria Molina
Publication Date:
Jan 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The Mobile Observatory series includes reports on the large and mature European market, the extensive and dynamically evolving market of the Asia-Pacific region and the fast growing Latin-American region. This is the first African edition in the GSMA Mobile Observatory series. This Observatory provides a comprehensive review of the African mobile communications industry. Included are the latest statistics and market developments, as a reference point for mobile industry participants, policy makers and other interested stakeholders. It covers the state of the industry, including the evolution of competition, innovation in new products, services and technologies and the industry’s contribution to social and economic development in Africa. The report integrates data from a wide range of existing sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the African mobile industry. These include public sources such as the ITU, World Bank and research by National Regulatory Authorities as well as commercial providers such as Wireless Intelligence, Informa, Gartner, Buddecomm and IDC.
The mobile industry in Africa is booming. With over 620 million mobile connections as of September 2011, Africa has overtaken Latin America to become the second largest mobile market in the world, after Asia. Over the past 10 years, the number of mobile connections in Africa has grown an average of 30% per year and is forecast to reach 735 million by the end of 2012. 3 Fierce competition has driven down prices and increased penetration. Price wars have been common across the continent as operators compete for market share with innovative revenue and pricing options - operators have reduced prices an average of 18% between 2010 and 2011, 4 making mobile connectivity more broadly affordable to the masses. 96% of subscriptions are pre-paid with voice services currently dominating, however the uptake of data services is increasing rapidly. For example in Kenya data revenues, including SMS, have increased at a remarkable 67% CAGR over the last 4 years and now represent 26% of total revenues.
For the mobile industry to continue to serve as a catalyst for growth, sufficient spectrum is needed for the provision of mobile broadband services. African countries have currently allocated considerably less spectrum to mobile services than developing countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Allocating the Digital Dividend spectrum to mobile services will enable the mobile industry to accelerate its efforts to bring connectivity and information to large swathes of rural Africa.
Editor's Note: This guest post is by Janet Gunter, a anthropologist and blogger, an ex-“aid worker” interested in communication, technology, and new economies. She is currently working as an adviser at @Verdade newspaper in Maputo, Mozambique.
Mobile money arrived in Mozambique earlier this year, after the larger of the two mobile operators, the state-owned mcel, rolled out a service called mKesh (close in pronunciation to mCash). mKesh “soft launched” the service in 2009, but has intensified its efforts this year, with an official launch in September. The service now claims to have 41,000 registered customers and 2,700 agents across the country.
So far, however, the story of mobile money in Mozambique is a cautionary tale which provides clues about the adaptability of the lauded operator-led model.
Like with mPesa, Kenya’s Safaricom-led service, mcel’s 4 million plus subscribers can use the service, creating a “mobile wallet” which is designed to be used to collect cash from participating agents and make payments.
The Mobile Financial Services Development Report 2011 data sheet 860 Views
Author:
World Economic Forum
ISSN/ISBN Number:
2147483647
Publication Date:
Jan 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The Mobile Financial Services Development Report 2011 assesses the development of the mobile financial services (MFS) ecosystem in twenty countries. Its purpose is to provide a tool for decision makers to identify relative areas of strength and weakness and to prioritize opportunities for collaborative action to build scale in mobile financial services. The Report defines mobile financial services development in terms of the key drivers across the institutional, market and end-user environments that lead to adoption and scale. Measures of mobile financial services development are captured across seven pillars:
1. Regulatory proportionality
2. Consumer protection
3. Market competitiveness
4. Market catalysts
5. End-user empowerment and access
6. Distribution and agent network
7. Adoption and availability
The Report thus takes a comprehensive view in assessing the factors that contribute to the long-term development of mobile financial services. It includes mobile payments and transfers within its scope but also the development of other vital financial services such as savings, credit, and insurance.
Are Mobile Phones Changing Social Networks? A Longitudinal Study Of Core Networks In Kerala data sheet 908 Views
Author:
Antony Palackal,Paul Nyaga Mbatia,Dan-Bright Dzorgbo,Ricardo B. Duque,Marcus Antonius Ynalvez,Wesley M. Shrum.
Publication Date:
Mar 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Mobile telephony has diffused more rapidly than any Indian technology in recent memory, yet systematic studies of its impact are rare, focusing on technological rather than social change. We employ network surveys of separate groups of Kerala residents in 2002 and again in 2007 to examine recent shifts in mobile usage patterns and social relationships.
Results show (1) near saturation of mobiles among both the professionals and nonprofessionals sampled, (2) a decrease in the number of social linkages across tie types and physical locations, and (3) a shift towards friends and family but away from work relationships in the core networks of Malayalis.
We interpret these findings as support for the bounded solidarity thesis of remote communication that emphasizes social insulation and network closure as mobiles shield individuals from their wider surroundings.
Conditional and unconditional cash transfers have been effective in improving development outcomes in a variety of contexts, yet the costs of these programs to program recipients and implementing agencies are rarely discussed. The introduction of mobile money transfer systems in many developing countries offers new opportunities for a more cost-effective means of implementing cash transfer programs.
This paper reports on the first randomized evaluation of a cash transfer program delivered via the mobile phone. In response to a devastating drought in Niger, households in targeted villages received monthly cash transfers as part of a social protection program. One-third of targeted villages received a monthly cash transfer via a mobile money transfer system (called zap), whereas one-third received manual cash transfers and the remaining one-third received manual cash transfers plus a mobile phone. We show that the zap delivery mechanism strongly reduced the variable distribution costs for the implementing agency, as well as program recipients’ costs of obtaining the cash transfer. The zap approach also resulted in additional benefits: households in zap villages used their cash transfer to purchase a more diverse set of goods, had higher diet diversity, depleted fewer assets and grew more types of crops, especially marginal cash crops grown by women.
We posit that the potential mechanisms underlying these results are the lower costs and greater privacy of the receiving the cash transfer via the zap mechanism, as well as changes in intra-household decision-making. This suggests that m-transfers could be a cost-effective means of providing cash transfers for remote rural populations, especially those with limited road and financial infrastructure. However, research on the broader welfare effects in the short- and long-term is still needed.
The Internet has enabled people from all over the globe to communicate and share information. Yet over two-thirds of the world’s population remains disconnected from the Internet, and many of these people live in poor, remote areas in the developing world. Organizations struggle to cross the last mile to these communities that are difficult to reach geographically, are often only fluent in local languages, lack reading and writing proficiency, and have limited experience with information technology. Unidirectional broadcast media such as the radio, television, and written periodicals can be localized to a region or community, but they are not micro-local, demand-driven, and do not offer transparent space for feedback and community discussion. Local people may seek information from experts or others in their personal social networks, but misinformation abounds and advice is fragmented across multiple sources. There are few comprehensive, on-demand sources for relevant, high-quality knowledge. This is precisely what the Internet provides for those who have access.
Awaaz.De (“Give your voice”) is a software platform enabling organizations to engage with poor, remote, and marginal communities by providing on-demand, many-to-many information access through mobile phones. People access Awaaz.De applications by dialing regular phone numbers to create, browse, and share voice content through automated voice interfaces. Voice makes it easy to provide services in local languages, overcomes literacy constraints, and offers a low barrier to content creation: one only needs to know how to speak into a phone. Organizations use Awaaz.De to host voice-based information portals, discussion forums, Q&A services, classifieds, and more. For example, rural development organizations can offer demand-driven agricultural extension through a farmer Q&A service, broadcast market prices and weather reports targeted by crop and location, or perform real-time data collection on availability of farm inputs and outputs. In this way, Awaaz.De helps organizations reach previously disconnected people with on-demand, locally relevant information, in their language. Most importantly, Awaaz.De is a social platform that supports people to give their own voice and participate not just as passive consumers, but active producers of knowledge.
Currently Awaaz.De serves eight social development organizations and enterprises across six states in India working in agriculture, education, women’s empowerment, labor rights, and rural products. These organizations serve as content providers, and use Awaaz.De to disseminate their informational content in real time, as well as collect input from the community through interactive features. These organizations have proven the value of Awaaz.De through willingness to pay; partners pay a recurring monthly fee to host their customized voice information service with Awaaz.De
The other demonstration of Awaaz.De’s value comes through the response from the communities of users. To date, Awaaz.De has served over 100,000 calls from over 10,000 unique callers. People rate content highly whenever ratings are solicited; in one deployment, the average rating was 2.8/3 from 325 individual ratings. A bit more anecdotally, unsolicited messages of praise and gratitude come in regularly from people. In a study where an Awaaz.De partner sent agricultural information broadcasts to farmers and then prompted for a question or comment, 37% of the recordings posted were simply comments of praise for the service, compared to 41% posts asking technical agricultural questions. To us, these are small indicators of Awaaz.De's potential for not only building knowledge capital, but social capital. Here’s another good anecdotal example.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Key Features :
Awaaz.De’s technology platform consists of two components. First, the voice application lets end-users access content through regular phone numbers. After calling in, they navigate automated message boards with touchtone to create, browse, and respond to voice messages posted by others. A “personal inbox” option plays the caller’s own messages, identified by their phone number. Message boards are configured with a number of policy settings. A message board can be listen or post-only, moderated, and allow community response. It can also define sub-message boards based on hierarchical categories. Awaaz.De’s second component is a web interface that lets community managers moderate the voice forums, annotate and categorize content, route messages to specific experts for responding, conduct voice-based surveys, collect ratings, and broadcast the best content to wide (e.g. last 1,000 callers) or targeted (e.g. all callers who have posted messages related to wheat) audiences. Taken together, the two components of Awaaz.De provide an “Internet for the few, voice for the many” model, where the mostly Internet-less community members access content and communicate through mobile voice interfaces, and community managers with access to the Internet administer the system through the web interface.
Main Services:
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Voting, Data Collection, Surveys, and Polling
Mobile Social Network/Peer-to-peer
Information Resources/Information Databases
Display tool in profile:
Yes
Tool Maturity:
Currently deployed
Release Date:
2010-09
Platforms:
All phones -- Voice
Program/Code Language:
Java
Python
Other
Organizations Using the Tool:
Awaaz.De is currently being used by eight organizations across six states in India. For their project descriptions, visit this page.
Sauti ya wakulima, "The voice of the farmers", is a collaborative, multimedia knowledgebase created by farmers from the Chambezi region of the Bagamoyo District in Tanzania. By using smartphones, farmers gather audiovisual evidence of their practices, and publish images and voice recordings on the Internet.
Since March 2011, the participants of Sauti ya wakulima, a group of five men and five women, gather every Monday at the agricultural station in Chambezi. They use a laptop computer and a 3G Internet connection to view the images and hear the voice recordings that they posted during the week. They also pass the two available smartphones on to other participants, turning the phones into shared tools for communication. The smartphones are equipped with GPS modules and an application that makes it easy to send pictures and sounds to the Internet. The farmers at Chambezi use them to document their daily practices, make reports about their observations regarding changes in climate and related issues, and also to interview other farmers, expanding thus their network of social relationships.
Despite possibilities of scaling projects with technology, many technology-based initiatives in social and economic development have failed to make it past early pilot stages or grow to scale. This study by Hystra, in collaboration with Ashoka and TNO, examines what successful ventures within four sectors can teach us about models for scaling Information and Communications Technology (ICT) -based applications and projects aimed at reaching bottom-of-the-pyramid customers (referred to as Base of the Pyramid in the report). The researchers focused specifically on these sectors: education, health, agricultural services, and financial services.
What Did the Study Review?
Initially considering 280 projects as promising models, researchers found that over half were not worth researching because projects lacked sustainability or replicatibility. Many of the projects were dead pilot projects or were small with no sign of the possibility or intent of scaling in size or reach.
From there, researchers homed in on 16 groundbreaking cases. These projects had reached scale (defined as having 10,000 clients or more) or had the potential to do so. All projects were assessed against three criteria: Is the solution solving the (specified) problem? Is the project economically viable? Is the project scalable and replicable? The researchers grouped projects into specific clusters based on business model type. All projects researched were value-added or market-based, because of the researchers’ belief that such models increase project sustainability and client investment in the project.
The models that the researchers looked at varied. For instance, researchers asked whether end-users accessed the technology themselves as opposed to being delivered trough an intermediary.
Mobile phones may be one mechanism to increase effectiveness and efficiency for agricultural extension in low-income countries. Agricultural extension, broadly defined as the delivery of information to small-scale farmers, was developed to counteract information asymmetries suffered by farmers with limited access to information sources like landline phones, newspapers, radios and TV programming. This has meant that farmers have not been able to take advantage of innovations in agricultural production (from seed types to information about pest control or crop rotations) and have been largely unable to increase their yields and hence incomes.
While agricultural extension programs have tried to counteract this lack of information, they have also been long plagued by lack of scale, sustainability, relevance and responsiveness. Mobile phones, with their low-cost and capability for quick communication, may resolve many of these obstacles.
Half a century ago, extension programs were conceived to fill the glaring gap between agricultural innovation and crop yields. Despite great advances in agricultural innovations in the latter part of the twentieth century, farmers in Latin America and especially Sub-Saharan Africa have only seen slight increases in yields. Extension programs,which have largely taken the form of in-person visits and training, have consistently suffered from questions of cost-effectiveness.
Dial "A" for Agriculture: A Review of Information and Communication Technologies for Agricultural Extension in Developing Countries data sheet 1529 Views
Author:
Jenny C. Aker
Publication Date:
Mar 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Agriculture can serve as an important engine for economic growth in developing countries, yet yields in low-income countries have lagged far behind those in developed countries for decades. One potential mechanism for increasing yields is the use of improved agricultural technologies, such as fertilizers, seeds and cropping techniques. Public-sector programs have attempted to overcome information- related barriers to technological adoption by providing agricultural extension services.
While such programs have been widely criticized for their limited scale, sustainability and impact, the rapid spread of mobile phone coverage in developing countries provides a unique opportunity to facilitate technological adoption via information and communication technology (ICT)-based extension programs.
This article outlines the potential mechanisms through which ICT could facilitate agricultural adoption and the provision of extension services in developing countries. It then reviews existing programs using ICT for agriculture, categorized by the mechanism (voice, text, internet and mobile money transfers) and the type of services provided. Finally, we identify potential constraints to such programs in terms of design and implementation, and concludes with some recommendations for implementing field-based research on the impact of these programs on farmers’ knowledge, technological adoption and welfare.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on the future of QR codes in the upcoming U.S. elections, a GSMA study on the effects of cutting mobile taxes in Africa, a look at how Americans prefer to use their mobile phones, the growth of mobile money transfers in Uganda and the world, and a roundup of whom to follow on Twitter for ICT4D and M4D news.
Mashable investigates how QR codes could be used in the upcoming 2012 U.S. elections. Ideas include organizing field operations, soliciting donations, encouraging celebrity endorsements, cross-promoting the election through merchandise sales and social media, and using QR codes to reach out to new voting blocks during get out the vote drives.
The GSMA recently released their preliminary findings from research on mobile phone taxation in Africa. The research is still ongoing, and will have a global focus when the final results are released, but the information from Africa shows how lower taxes on handsets can lead to an increase in mobile ownership – in Kenya, after the value added tax on handsets was cut by 16%, sales increased by 200%.
CNN reports that the popularity of SMSs as the primary means of mobile communication in the United States is rising, while voice call preference is dropping. From a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 53% of Americans still prefer voice calls to SMS, while 31% prefer SMS to calls, and 14% said their preference was flexible depending on the situation. The study also found that 27% of mobile owners never use SMS, so voice is still the leading way to communicate via mobile in the US despite the growing popularity of SMS (only 4% of survey respondents said they only use their phones for SMS and never voice calls).
In Uganda, mobile payments and mobile money transfers are taking off. According to Business Week, Ugandan telecom MTN reported that they passed more than $200 million in mobile money in August 2011. In related news, The Times of India reported on a new projection from the Ernst & Young consultant firm that estimates that by 2014, roughly $245 billion will be transfered via mobile payments systems worldwide.
Interested in global development and want to learn more through Twitter? The Guardian has a roundup of twenty Twitter users who tweet about global development, ICT4D, M4D, global change, and good aid practices. If you're looking to follow some new people on Twitter, this is a good start.
[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.]
The Impact of Mobile Phones on Profits from Livestock Activities. Evidence from Puno, Peru data sheet 1666 Views
Author:
Barrantes, Roxana
Publication Date:
May 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Besides the work of Jensen (2007), there is little quantitative evidence on the impact that mobile telephony has had on household welfare. In considering the rural household welfare, the possibility is open of finding impacts of information that is accessed via mobile phone in several markets where rural households are usually inserted: agricultural product markets, agricultural services markets, agricultural byproducts; but also in labor markets that often supplement income diversification strategies of these households.
Using a database collected to measure the impact of mobile telephony in the welfare of rural households in Puno, Peru, this paper seeks to focus attention on the markets for agricultural products and by-products. The aim is to measure the contribution that has the use of mobile telephony in the profits resulting from the development of agricultural activities, using econometric techniques associated with quasi-experimental methods of impact assessment. How much does the mobile phone contribute to agricultural earnings? What is the differential impact of mobile phone use vis-a-vis scale variables such as farm size or the number of cattle, or diversification, as the total number of crops, or vertical integration, as the production of agricultural products, on the results of farming?
We expect to find different impacts depending on the type of use of mobile telephony, ie if used for information to affect the agricultural production function or is used to make marketing decisions. The results can help justify public policy efforts to include mobile telephone service as a basic service as well as the development of specific mobile livelihood services for farmers from the mobile communication technology, yet absent in Latin America.
SMS in Action is an interactive crowdmap that allows users to submit and search for SMS-based systems that aim (or claim) to have a social impact. The map can be filtered by categories including Agriculture, Health, Emergency/Disaster Services, Banking, Economic Development, Information and Media, Education, and Governance with many of these categories dividing into further subcategories. Reports may also be filtered by report date.
Corresponding markers on the map can be clicked giving the user the option to zoom in/out or get more information. While clearly still in its early stages, the map has a lot to offer. A quick search for disease programs under medical/health returned over a dozen hits across the map. Additionally, users may subscribe to receive location-specific email alerts whenever a report is posted within 20 miles of a designated area.
ICT4D and M4D projects often focus on how mobiles can be used in developing countries, but the success and usefulness of these projects depends on the value mobile users place on their phones, and how they use them. "We Use It Different, Different: Making Sense of Trends in Mobile Use in Ghana," looks at how Ghanians use mobile phones in their day-to-day lives, mainly focusing on why survey participants started using a mobile phone, how they use it, and how they view the value of mobile phone ownership.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on a new mobile frequency breakthrough, comparisons between mobile devices and PCs, the results of a mobile-based South African youth sex survey, the growth of apps in the Asia-Pacific region, and a look at the future of the global mobile payment industry.
Researchers at Rice University have developed a new technology that allows mobile devices to use the same frequency to both talk and listen to cell towers. Normally, two frequencies are needed to transmit and receive wireless data; the new technology could allow operators to double the capacity of their towers.
A new study from the International Data Corporation predicts that mobile Internet users will outnumber PC Internet users by 2015. Read Write Web reports that although smartphones are a big part of the shift, the release of tablet devices like the iPad give the predictions of mobile-dominance more credence.
The Praekelt Foundation recently released the results of its "Youth Sex Survey," which received more than 130,000 responses via the mobile platform Young Africa Live. The survey asked users of the social portal questions about their sexual health and opinions about sex and relationships; AudienceScapes reports on some of the responses: "Findings included a high percentage (44 percent) of South African youth admitting they are sexually active at the same time that they are significantly concerned about HIV/AIDS – 81 percent of respondents indicated they equate 'not telling a sexual partner that you carry the virus' with outright murder." (Read more about the Praekelt Foundation and Young Africa Live here.)
Mobile applications are huge in the Asia-Pacific region; a study by the analyst firm Ovum estimates that "total number of mobile apps downloaded could reach 14 billion in 2016." TechCircle reports that the region already anticipates 5 billion app downloads for 2011, and that estimated revenue from paid mobile applications could reach $871 this year.
If you like charts, check out this graphic depicting a prediction of the global mobile payments market (based off data from Juniper Research) by the year 2015. Divided into eight worldwide regions, the graph (and research) shows how the world will use mobile payments (including near field communications, mobile payments/transfers, and regular purchase of goods).
[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.]
biNu’s mission is to deliver mobile web services that are fast and easy to use. For most people, using their mobile browser is not a pleasant experience. The HTML browser architecture of the web works well on PCs but does not work well over mobile wireless networks and small handheld mobile devices.
biNu is designed from the ground-up to work within these limitations and deliver a superior and more efficient mobile data experience by providing access to internet services such as search, wikipedia, education, religion, messaging (chat,SMS).
77% of the world’s population, or 5.3 billion people, are mobile subscribers. However:
feature phones outnumber smart phones 4 to 1
3.9 billion mobile subscriptions are in the developing world
many mobile-web users are mobile-only
soon more people will access the web from their phones than PCs
biNu enhances the feature phone user experience by improving Internet access speeds, social media and app availability. biNu delivers content in any language to any phone, irrespective of the installed language capabilities of a mobile device.
biNu offers Google Search & Translate, Wordnik English Dictionary, Wikipedia, news and blogs, weather, live sports scores, exchange rates, job listings, health information, the Bible and Quran in multiple languages, SMS services and more.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Key Features :
biNu is a cloud-based software platform that delivers mobile internet services:
in any language
to mass-market and smart phones
with ultra-fast (10x) response times,
a simple, minimum key-click interface
and low data bandwidth.
Main Services:
Mobile Payments
Mobile Social Network/Peer-to-peer
Information Resources/Information Databases
Stand-alone Application
Display tool in profile:
Yes
Tool Maturity:
Currently deployed
Release Date:
2010-09
Platforms:
Android
Blackberry/RIM
Java ME
Current Version:
3.2
Program/Code Language:
Java/Android
Java
Organizations Using the Tool:
biNu is used by consumers.
Number of Current End Users:
Over 100,000
Support Forums:
www.developer.binu.com
Languages supported:
English, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, French and 150 others.
Handsets/devices supported:
All feature phones 2500 + devices and models
Andriod
Black Berry
Mobile banking is taking off, with the potential to change entire economies where the majority of people currently are currently "unbanked," as the term goes. There have been been several very interesting reports and articles recently on the topic. On the 
end-users access content through regular phone numbers. After calling in, they navigate automated message boards with touchtone to create, browse, and respond to voice messages posted by others. A “personal inbox” option plays the caller’s own messages, identified by their phone number. Message boards are configured with a number of policy settings. A message board can be listen or post-only, moderated, and allow community response. It can also define sub-message boards based on hierarchical categories. Awaaz.De’s second component is a web interface that lets community managers moderate the voice forums, annotate and categorize content, route messages to specific experts for responding, conduct voice-based surveys, collect ratings, and broadcast the best content to wide (e.g. last 1,000 callers) or targeted (e.g. all callers who have posted messages related to wheat) audiences. Taken together, the two components of Awaaz.De provide an “Internet for the few, voice for the many” model, where the mostly Internet-less community members access content and communicate through mobile voice interfaces, and community managers with access to the Internet administer the system through the web interface.
