MobileActive.org

The simplicity of new mobile platforms requiring only a basic mobile phone with SMS capacity has allowed their adoption all over the world — from South Africa, to India, to Mexico — to monitor elections, track violence and crime, provide logistical support in natural disasters, and oversee inventories. The portability and ubiquity of mobile phones have helped them become an important tool for civil society, enabling local mobilization and networking among geographically dispersed people.

This report looks at early evidence of the role mobile technologies can play in developing countries, particularly related to democratic governance. Within mGovernance, the report analyzes mobile technology in inclusive participation, responsive institutions, poverty reduction, the environment and energy. The report analyzes ways to create a fruitful environment for the growth of mobile technologies for mGovernance. Points are further illustrated through case studies.

Reliable communication systems are one of the key success factors for a successful first response mission.
Current crisis response communication systems suffer from damaged or destroyed infrastructure or are just
overstressed in the case of a large scale disaster. We provide an outline for a distributed communication
approach, which fulfills the requirements of first responders. It is based on a layered network topology and
current technology used in research projects or already established products. In addition, we propose a testing
framework for the evaluation of a crisis response communication system