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.
The Myanmar military continued to suppress demonstrations in Burma/Myanmar today with harrowing pictures of tear gas, guns, and beatings directed at the monks and many more civilian protesters, estimated at 70,000 people. We wrote earlier about the use of mobile phones in transmitting information. The BBC today has an update on the use of the Internet in getting information out of Burma, as the country is called by democracy supporters and dissidents. The article notes that mobiles were used to get information out of the country, but also as a tool by the military junta to disseminate rumors and false information. This is something that we have seen elsewhere - mobiles as a disruptive rumor and propaganda mill -- most recently in Sierra Leone.
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.
We are pleased to welcome Bart Lacroix to MobileActive.org. He will be writing an occasional blog on AfricaNews' Voices of Africa project, an experiment in mobile citizen reporting. AfricaNews currently has three citizen reporters covering stories in their using mobile countries, phones to produce video footage, written reports and photographs.
Using GPRS-enabled phones, on-the-ground citizens reporters don’t need an internet connection at all - only mobile coverage - to send video, voice, and text. The Voices of Africa is deploying reporters in Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya to date who are using Nokia E61i phones to send in their stories. These countries have, admittedly, better mobile coverage than others, so are good for this pilot project. Bart will tell us how it's going, what citizens are reporting on, and what they are learning about content and technical production before sacaling up the project.
A bit of background from AfricaNews' press release:
In Sierra Leone's national election today, 500 election observers at polling stations around the country are reporting on any irregularities via SMS with their mobile phones. Independent monitoring of elections via cell phone is growing aqround the world, spearheaded by a few innovative NGOs.
The story starts in Montenegro, a small country in the former Yugoslavia. On May 21, 2006 the country saw the first instance of volunteer monitors using SMS, also known as text messaging, as their main election reporting tool. A Montenegrin NGO, the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), with technical assistance from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in the United States, was the first organization in the world to use text messaging to meet all election day reporting requirements.
MobileActive is announcing the third MobileActive Guide, profiling strategies and civil society organizations using mobile phones in their work to make the world a better place. The MobileActive Guide focuses on using mobile phones in fundraising campaigns. It features case studies from around the world, strategies for using mobile phones in fundraiaing, and a how-to section for organizations considering using mobile phones to support their causes.
Mobile phones have become a powerful emerging tool for participation in civil society. This five part series looks ways nonprofits have used mobile phones in their campaigns and the effective strategies deployed, and shares lessons learned.
In addition to Twitter and mobile phones as a vehicle for economic development, mainstream press and the avant garde public are fascinated with ringtones for good. It is the one topic in mobile campaigns for a cause that consistently get press and attention from mainline journalists. A case in point is the recently featured endangered species ringtones which have the press all, well -- ringing.
Greenpeace Argentina, as part of Greenpeace's global Whales Campaign, in a protest action yesterday delivered cans of fake 'whale' to the Danish Embassy in Buenos Aires. The action was recorded clandestinely by the activists on mobile video. According to Greenpeace, the Danish government is part of the pro-whaling meetings held in Japan. The cans were inscibed with "Whales Canned thanks to Danish support."
Gerry Jackson reports on Media Helping Media about the radio station SW Radio Africa outsisde of London that is sending sms headlines about news in Zimbabwe to it's subscriber base of about 2,000 mobile users. Jackson writes:
"We generate news headlines on a daily basis anyway - so this is just another way of using what already exists.
It’s nice and cost effective for any additional donor because there is only the one cost, actually sending the texts. In two months we’ve built up an address database of about 2,000 mobile phone numbers. Like many, Zimbabweans truly love their mobile phones and of course what we’re banking on is the virus effect.
We also get up to 100 requests a day to be added to the service so it’s growing rapidly. What becomes interesting is what business model to use?
Amnesty International announced yesterday that it will accept payments on the UK via mobile phone that will get more money to the charity. Billed as a "digital wallet", LUUP, the mobile payment vendor that Amnesty uses, will " make it easier for people to make donations. Says Amnesty: "It will also enable the human rights organisation to receive up to 15 per cent more of the money than via PSMS methods such as regular text."
The UK arm of Amnesty ruled out premium rate text messages for donors as too costly. In Europe and in the US, network operators take a significant percentage of the revenue of premium texting -- up to 50% in some cases, and donations are limited to what are essentially micro contributions. Using LUUP, however, means that donors can give up to £800 in the UK to Amnesty International, for example.
And for this cold February day, something lighter: The nonprofit New York Philharmonic is selling ringtones of its performances on its brandnew site. Ringtones cost around $3 US, and include well-known works by Brahms, Mozart, and Dvorak. Cute.
I am part of a research project for the Gates Foundation on the future of global online advocacy, where I have been adding data and commentary on mobile content. One of the ideas we have floated is a global SMS hub – a commercial aggregator for low cost global SMS campaigns. Why is this needed?
SMS is a critical tool for e-advocacy in the global south. Given the high rates of mobile phone penetration in large parts of the world compared to Internet access, SMS allows a much wider reach than email. However, mass SMS campaigns are not feasible option for many NGOs in the global south because of cost – costs that pertain both to the NGO itself and to potential campaign participants who must pay to text. Sending an email message (or a thousand) entails no excess cost for an NGO above the cost of an internet connection (which admittedly, can be formidable in some parts of the world). However, if an NGO sends an SMS, it must pay per message (the global average cost is .10 US $), making mass texting thousands of messages prohibitively expensive. In addition, SMS is in some countries still relatively expensive for consumers, making it somewhat unlikely that they would send an SMS message on behalf of an advocacy campaign.
What would reduce the cost of SMS for social causes and allow for mass sms campaigns to become a reality for NGOs engaging their constituents?
What is needed is a global SMS hub for civil society organizations, and possibly even one with toll-free numbers for SMS that would not charge participants. With a toll-free SMS short code, the sender would not have to pay to send the SMS to a particular number or better yet short code. This would require short code requisition for many countries and agreements with all telephone operator in the country (or countries) in which the service is to be offered -- short, a global aggregator service with a twist, a Clickatell for Good.
How far off from being a reality is a global SMS hub for civil society?
The GSM Association recently completed trials of a hub-baed interoperability structure. From it’s press release:
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:
Amnesty's campaign to close Guatanamo using SMS has been bothering me ever since I opted in to the mobile action network. Don't get me wrong - the web campaign is great and the pictures and stories on the blog are effective.
But the mobile campaign is all wrong. Yes, mobile campaigns are a new medium, only beginning to show a return, and not well understood. This is even true for big commercial campaigns that are only now sticking their toes into the mobile marketing waters.
But come on, advocacy organization, you are smarter than that. Mobile marketing is not rocket science, there is already a lot we know, and even as you experiment, use some common sense and pay attention to what you already know about engaging users and constituents.
So in order: 1. What's happening in the mobile marketing market that advocacy organizations should pay attention to (caution: this is US-centric!)
Carriers in the US are loosening up their previously tight restrictions on mobile advertising. Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, and AT&T are now allowing banner ads on their landing pages
More and more Americans have WAP-enabled phones, allowing them to do more and more on their cell phones, including watching video and photos, browsing the web, and of course, ubiquitous text messaging. rich media mobile messaging for greater brand and communication impact. Marketers now have at their disposal MMS (define), WAP push (clickable links to WAP-based multimedia content incorporated into SMS messages), and video shortcodes (consumers receive a video stream directly to their handset in response to texting to a shortcode).
Altogether more than 74% of US adults have cell phones -- and they do not leave the house without them (and their keys and wallets - the three things most adults walk around with at all times.)
Sms/texting is growing by leaps and bounds with more than 64.8 billion SMS messages sent in the first six months of 2006, up 98.8% from 32.6 billion in first six months of 2005.
Mobile marketers are salivating, with polls, contests, coupons, and even mobi-sodes, short sms serial stories hitting the commercial market. Pepsi, Ford, Toyota, Burger King all have mobile campaigns, and more and more marketers are allocating hard dollars to "mobile marketing" budgets.
Visa announced its mobile payment platform, allowing cardholders to use their mobile phones to make purchases or conduct other transactions by tapping them against readers. Think 'just in time' fundraising.
But what's the ROI for mobile marketers - such as advocacy organizations?
Everyone agrees, the medium is young, it is risky when poorly done, and it'll take time to judge payoffs. MobileActive's research of existing campaigns shows some interesting returns with sizeable opt-ins, and rather impressive open and forward rates for campaigns conducted by IFAW and Oxfam, for example. We will be publishing more details from specific campaigns in the next MobileActive Guide on Mobile Advocacy.
While a lot of metrics are still elusive, Brandweek reports about a commercial campaign: For the "Everydayrocks" text initiative, some 13,000 people opted in. And more than 75% of the entrants responded to SMS messages from the brand and/or redeemed mobile coupons. Only 4.8% opted out. Most telling, however, was that mobile emerged as the conduit with the best market reach; mobile outperformed radio by more than 64% and billboards by 24%. Overall, the mobile redemption rate was 28%, making it by far the most effective component."
We have seen positive other PR as well - a clever campaign, especially one that goes viral, will get earned media coverage and word-of-mouth exposure
What are advocacy organizations concerned about?
According to Brandweek, there still is considerable "consumer resistance, the main reason behind the carriers' historic refusal to open the gates to ad content." Brandweek goes on: "Studies have shown that consumers are less than thrilled with the idea of receiving ads on their cells. While early adopter teens are among the biggest targets, three-quarters of cell phone users ages 10 to 18 said they do not think it's OK to be marketed to on a mobile device, according to a study of 2,000 users conducted by Weekly Reader Research, Stamford, Conn., on Brandweek's behalf. Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., found 79% of consumers are turned off by the idea of ads on their phones and a mere 3% of respondents said they trust text ads."
There are now strict guidelines, drafted by the Mobile Marketing Association, on opt-in and opt out procedures.
It's my phone! Be scrupulous about your opt-in practices, absolutely meticulous in following the mobile marketing code of ethics, and make your vendors follow them to the T. Your brand is at stake, and people will get very annoyed if they perceive you spamming them.
But this is not stopping mobile marketers who are chomping at the bit.
So, what do we know about effective mobile marketing?
Can we talk? 1. Mobile messaging should be about interaction, do not just pitch. A hard notion for advocacy organizations used to pushing email messages by the millions. Mobiles offer a unique opportunity for interaction. Advocacy organizations need to think about mobile marketing as a conversation, a way to interact two-ways with their constituents. 2. Trust is key here as the mobile medium is so very personal. Gain permission and offer relevant and timely content. 3. Pull people to mobile interaction through other media -- ads, billboards, the web and offer, in turn, mobile interaction with those media. 4. Be careful about targeting your demographics and make your ask accordingly -- asking an older constituency to upload mobile photos is probably not going to be very successful. 5. Be relevant. Offer timely news and functional updates that are of interest to your audience-- and be clever. Just by way of an idea: The American Lung Association could offer air quality updates via sms for where I live, for example. In Amnesty's case, I would like to know how many others are signing the petition and how it's going -- what are others saying and how successful is the campaign? Send me an sms with an update since signing on -- I have not heard a lick from Amnesty since I signed the petition two days ago. 6. Mobile marketing works best when it's pull, not push, and there is an opportunity for people to express themselves - to 'talk' back, to suggest, to respond. Humor works here! 7. Be multi-media. Integrate your mobile marketing and messaging into your entire media and messaging campaing; do not let mobile be an add-on - it shows, and it costs you if not done well.
This is a world that is rapidly evolving. Bandwith and technology improving al the time, we will see Internet- and TV-style ads, search, and much more branded content.
For advocacy organizations, mobile marketing is used most effectively for facilitating a dialogue with their constituents. This 'third screen' can create extended conversation, creating connections across online and traditional media exposures.
So what should Amnesty have done better here?
1. Do no ask me for my email to sign the petition, let me do it via sms. 2. Show what people are saying on the petition via sms, in real time on the blog, in ads, in public interest announcements -- in your other media campaign. 3. Tell me back how it is going -- what other people are saying, what is happening. 4. Communicate regularly with me VIA text, BUT remind me of how to opt out. 5. Ask me to forward a note, ask me to make a call, ask me to express myself in a some way in a poll, in a 160 character message, poem or statement. 6. Use humour, allow for humour -- it may be gallows humour in the case of Gitmo, but hey...
Overall: engage me, and do not let me feel that I am sinking in your typical advocacy 'push' hole that benefits you organizationally, but in the end has no impact on the issue, nor engages me in any way.
In the end, because mobiles are so personal, there is a huge opportunity for a conversation that few advocacy organizations used to messaging OUT have any idea how to do effectively. Mobiles are very much a read/write medium in the web 2.0 fashion and only those organizations willing to hear back and engage in 'it's the conversation, stupid' will end up running catchy, creative, engaging, and innovative mobile campaigns.
Following on the heels of the BBC feature on the revolutionary growth and availablity of mobile phones in Kenya, OmyNews features a new project-to-be in South Africa's KwaZulu Natal province. The UmNyango Project of Fahamu, a MobileActive participant, equips rural women in the Province with free text messaging to report on violence against them and their children, and report other abuses. The project coordinator, Anil Naidoo, says: ""This is the first time in KwaZulu Natal that we know of, where SMS technology has been used to directly empower women in this way.
In today's New York Times there is a full-page ad for Amnesty's Close Guantanamo campaign -- complete with a short code for a text-in campaign. Text believe to '30644; to opt in to the Amnesty campaign. This is the frst time that a major campaign is using a text component in their work here in the US. Of course, it's par for the course elsewhere in the world, but organizations have been cuatious here for fear of annoying supporters, and unsure of the ROI of the investment.
Great idea: The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity offers free ringtones of rare and endangered animals. Download their haunting hoots, sensational songs and crazy croaks to your cell phone. Available are calls of the blue-throated Macaw, Beluga Whale, Boreal Owl, Mountain Yellow-legged Frog, Yosemite Toad, or any one of over forty other endangered critters. Ringtones are free and available here. Nice way to build a list as well.
We are interrupting our usual programming on MobileActive.org for an important message on the future of the opennness of the Internet. Civil society groups from around the world have signed on to an open letter to the International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Dr.HamadounTouré, objecting to the lack of openness and inclusion in recent attempts by the ITU to increase its control over the Internet. MobileActive.org is one of the signers of this letter.
The background is this:In December 2012, the International Telecommunication Union will convene a meeting of the world’s governments to renegotiate the ITU’s underlying treaty, the International Telecommunications Regulations. Currently, these ITRs do not address Internet technical standards, infrastructure, or content. However, some states, notably China and Russia, are advocating for an expansion of the ITRs to include Internet regulation.
The emergence of the ITU as the primary regulatory body for the Internet would represent a sea change in Internet governance and could undermine the success of the Internet as an open platform for innovation, economic growth, human development and democratic participation.
We believe that there is a lack of opportunity for civil society participation in the World Conference on International Telecommunications meeting in December. We also believe that this does not bode well for the future of an open Internet. We urge all civil society members of MobileActive's community to review the key issues at hand and become involved.
We are indebted to the Center for Democracy and Technology which is circulating this open letter. A PDF of it is here. For more background on the WCIT, see the post by CDT on why Civil Society Must Have Voice as ITU Debates the Internet, and for even more, see the ITU resource page. If your organization is interested in signing the letter, please contact signon@cdt.org.
17 May 2012
To Secretary-General Dr. HamadounTouré, the Council Working Group to Prepare for the WCIT-12, and ITUMember States:
The undersigned human rights advocates, academics, freedom of expression groups, and civil society organizations write to express our desire to participate in the preparatory process undertaken for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The current preparatory process lacks the transparency, openness of process, and inclusiveness of all relevant stakeholders that are imperative under commitments made at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). We ask that the Secretary-General, the Council Working Group, and Member States work to resolve these process deficiencies in several concrete ways.
The continued success of the information society depends on the full, equal, and meaningful participation of civil society stakeholders (along side the private sector, the academic and technical community, and governments) in the management of information and communications technology, including both technical and public policy issues. Indeed, WSIS outcome documents recognize the need for a multi-stakeholder approach in technical management and policy decision-making for ICTs. The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society urges international organizations “to ensure that all stakeholders, particularly from developing countries, have the opportunity to participate in policy decision-making … and to promote and facilitate such participation.” And such participation depends on transparency and openness of process at every stage of substantive and procedural dialogue.
Yet there has been scant participation by civil society in the Council Working Group’s preparatory process for theWCIT so far, even as media reports indicate that some Member States have proposed amending the International Telecommunication Regulations to address issues that could impact the exercise of human rights in the digital age, including freedom of expression, access to information, and privacy rights. Under the current process, civil society participation is severely limited by restrictions on sharing of preparatory documents, high barriers for ITU membership (including cost), and lack of mechanisms for remote participation in preparatory meetings.
As an important step towards fulfilling WSIS commitments for building a more inclusive information society, the undersigned request that the Secretary-General, the Council Working Group, and Member States:
Remove restrictions on the sharing of WCIT documents and release all preparatory materials, including the Council Working Group’s final report, consolidated reports from all preparatory activity, and proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations;
Open the preparatory process to meaningful participation by civil society in its own right and without cost at Council Working Group meetings and the WCIT itself, providing formal speaking opportunities and according civil society views an equal weight as those of other stakeholders. Facilitate remote participation to the extent possible; and
For Member States, open public processes at the national level to solicit input on proposed amendments to the International Telecommunication Regulations from all relevant stakeholders, including civil society, and release individual proposals for public debate.
We welcome Secretary-General Touré’s commitment to creating a more inclusive information society and ensuring equitable access to ICT around the world. Collectively and individually, the undersigned human rights advocates, academics, freedom of expression groups, and civil society organizations work to fulfill this vision through a range of national and global institutions and we call for the same opportunity to engage at the WCIT, consistent with WSIS commitments. We urge you to ensure the outcomes of the WCIT and its preparatory process truly represent the common interests of all who have a stake in the future of our information society.
Sincerely,
Access
Article 19
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
Eduardo Bertoni, Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión y Acceso a la Información (CELE), Universidad de Palermo, Argentina
Bytes for All, Pakistan
Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Technology and Society (CTS/FGV), Brazil
Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), India
Consumers International
Digitale Gesellschaft e.V.
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
Electronic Frontier Foundation
European Digital Rights
Freedom House
Global Partners & Associates
Global Voices Advocacy
Human Rights in China
Human Rights Watch
Internet Democracy Project, India
Internet Governance Project (IGP)
Kictanet, Kenya
Rebecca MacKinnon
MobileActive Corp
New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute
ONG Derechos Digitales, Chile
Open Rights Group
Panoptykon Foundation, Poland
Public Knowledge
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
We just came across this video, posted by our ever-innovative colleagues at LIRNEAsia. In partnership with Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka's largest development organisation, LIRNEAsia recently conducted research on how to best use mobile technology in emergencies.
With ubiquitous and affordable mobile technology a reality not just in Asia but the world over, LIRNEAsia set out to ask a number of important questions: Can talking on the phone help those responding to emergencies to be better organized? How can voice services be used more efficiently in alerting and reporting about disasters than other channels? Where can computer technology make a difference in crisis management?
The video details how LIRNEAsia is experimenting with the open-source Sahana disaster management platform, and with Freedom Fone's interactive voice response system to investigate whether voice-based reporting can fit into globally accepted standards for sharing emergency data. LIRNEAsia found that while the technology isn't perfect, there is much potential for crisis and disaster management. Give it a look - well worth your while.
As someone working with sensitive information, mobile communications are inherently insecure and expose journalists and citizen reporters working in sensitive environments to risks that are not easy to detect or overcome. This guide is designed to help you navigate these challenges.
We outline the risks and offer tips to help mitigate them. SaferMobile's primary goal is to help you make better decisions about using your mobile phone as a journalist, rights defender, or activist. SaferMobile is a project of MobileActive.org.
The Mobile Security Survival Guide is written with the workflow of a journalist in mind and covers Mobile Network Basics, Prepping for Assignment, Reporting with your Phone, Filing the Story, and considering for Social Media use on your phone. Check it out.
There is much more at SaferMobile - resources, apps, and training materials to make you and your mobile communications more secure.
In Syria, activists and citizen journalists fill a media void and strategically inform the global conversation on the uprising by capturing and sharing their own footage. They are organized, trained, smart, strategic, and promote media - much of it mobile - with a purpose.
Mass demonstrations and continued state violence continue in Syria. Authorities are largely banning foreign reporters and have arrested Syrian journalists and bloggers. Outside of the country, news outlets report on the major events there citing “Syrian activists” as the source of information. Day-to-day events in cities around the country come to our attention largely because of the activists and citizen journalists who are systematically providing information to news outlets worldwide.
Perhaps the way the term citizen journalism has been used to date is a misnomer in the context of recent events in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain. Activists on the ground and online do not ‘just happen’ to capture and record media because they are in the "right place at the right time" but instead systematically gather, and strategically disseminate media. It may be time for a new term - ‘activist media' who are reporting from the frontlines - that describes the organized media campaigns waged by these activists in a place where traditional media is largely absent.
The election in Senegal has been contentious with election monitors reporting numerous violations at the polling stations but also noting where the process went well. A new online system, SeneVote2012, developed by One World, maps incidences and poll reports by the accredited election reporters of the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations for Elections (COSCE).
According to One World, COSCE, the on-the-ground partner, deployed 500 trained observers reporting on the voting process at 1500 polling stations around the country. The observers sent data directly from the polling stations via SMS. By the time of this writing there we more than a 1,000 reports, both indicating peaceful conduct at the polls as well as irregularities. COSCE is an independent election monitoring colaition that regularly publishes its findings in order to help strengthen the electoral process. COSCE election monitors are accredited by the Senegalese Election Commission.
SMS-powered election monitoring has been deployed numerous times, most recently in Nigeria where 8,000 trained monitors systematically reported on the conduct and results of the election via SMS.
What is new here is the close-to real-time mapping of the monitor's reports.
As One World points out, the COSCE reports and map should not be confussed with citizen reporting:
(The New America Foundation recently hosted "Mobile Disconnect: Can Mobile Solutions Really Combat Global Poverty?", an examination of the potential benefits and pitfalls of mobile technology in the developing world. The following is a guest post from Kevin Donovan touching on issues raised during the very lively discussion. It is reposted here with permission.)
The unprecedented diffusion of mobile connectivity around the globe has caused much excitement from development practitioners, especially those seeking to advance financial inclusion. And as with any excitement, there is bound to be detractors. Jamie M. Zimmerman and Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation have put a forceful stake down in that camp with regard to mobile money. They have sparked undoubtedly a useful debate but their cautionary piece on why mobile money “is hurting huge swaths of the developing world” ultimately missteps.
Zimmerman and Meinrath argue that despite having significant benefits to users, mobile money is out of reach for broad swaths of the world’s poor because (a) connectivity is not universal and (b) mobile money has “remarkably high fees”. Taking Kenya as one of the countries on the avant garde of mobile money availability and adoption, they fear that mobile money “may, in fact, be driving a new wealth divide… leaving [Kenya’s] poor in even more dire straits.”
However, their well-intentioned but dour speculation misses key features of the financial landscape in developing countries and misinterprets fundamental characteristics of mobile money.
Legislation such as SOPA and PIPA directly affect sites like ours that curate, aggregate, and report on innovation initiatives worldwide. SOPA and PIPA would censor the web, do nothing against illegal piracy, and are job and innovation killers.
Editors Note: We started Failfaire almost two years ago to create a space where it was ok to be honest in our field of "tech for social change," and admit that many projects that we all undertake do not succeed. Today is yet another Failfaire here in New York where practitioners come together to discuss how and why our projects failed. We will be writing about this tomorrow to give you more on the #fails presented, but in the meantime were absolutely astounded today to see the following blog post from Daraja about their Maji Matone project. It takes guts (and foresight) to admit so publicly that this project has not succeeded. We wrote about Maji Matone here before. The project was designed to provide local accountability for water services by way of local, grassroots monitoring via SMS. The post below was oroginally published on Daraja's blog here and is reposted here with Daraja's gracious permission. We are grateful for the post, and for the honesty.
It is no secret that Daraja's Maji Matone programme has not lived up to expectations. In particular, despite considerable resources spent on promotional work - printing and distributing posters and leaflets, as well as extensive broadcasts on local radio - we haven't had the response from the community that we had hoped for. A six month pilot in three districts resulted in only 53 SMS messages received and forwarded to district water departments (compared to an initial target of 3,000). So we've made a decision - to embrace failure, learn and share lessons from the experience, and to fundamentally redesign the programme.
Admitting failure in this way is easy to support in theory, but much harder to do in practice. It may be accepted practice in the for-profit world, but it's uncomfortable for a donor-dependent NGO. Would it be easier to continue half-heartedly with a programme that isn't working or close it down quietly and hope that nobody notices? Of course it would. But those approaches would not benefit anyone, wasting money and missing out on valuable opportunities to learn. So we're taking a different tack, embracing and publicising our failures, and trying to make sure we (and others) learn as much as possible from the experience
I am part of a research project for the Gates Foundation on the future of global online advocacy, where I have been adding data and commentary on mobile content. One of the ideas we have floated is a global SMS hub – a commercial aggregator for low cost global SMS campaigns. 
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 
Amnesty's campaign to close Guatanamo using SMS has been bothering me ever since I opted in to the mobile action network. Don't get me wrong - the web campaign is great and the 
