MobileActive.org

Finding Some ICT Answers in Benin: A Guest Post by Linda Raftree, PLAN International

This guest post was written by Linda Raftree who is using social media and ICTs in youth and community development work in Africa and elsewhere. She works for the NGO Plan.  Her article is re-posted here with permission.

Over the past few months, I’ve been supporting the development of a mobile data gathering/ crowd sourcing and mapping workshop for youth in Benin.  The training is part of a broader initiative to reduce violence against children.  We’ve decided to use Frontline SMS and Ushahidi as tools in the project because we think (and want to test whether) mobile data collection/ crowd sourcing incidents of violence will allow for a better understanding of what is happening in this area.  We also think that geo-visualizing reports of violence against children may have an impact on decision makers and might allow them to better plan prevention and treatment programs and services.

HarassMap: Tracking Sexual Harassment in Egypt with SMS

For women in Egypt, sexual harassment is an unwelcome but all too common part of life. In 2008, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights released statistics stating that 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign women in Egypt reported exposure to sexual harassment. HarassMap, a project based in Cairo, plans to give women an outlet to report instances of haramessnt. Combining FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi’s mapping platform, HarassMap aims to be a voice for women. 

Mobile Benchmarks 2010: How Are Non-Profits Using Text Messaging?

We are releasing today the first-ever Nonprofit Text Messaging Benchmark Study (PDF) The study, sponsored by Mobile Commons and mGive, takes a look at how organizations in the United States are using text messaging and how subscribers are responding.  It reveals that mobile phones are becoming increasingly popular for advocacy with organizations.

Written by Michael Amoruso and Jessica Bosanko of M+R Strategic Services and Katrin Verclas of MobileActive.org, the report “provides benchmarks and metrics by which nonprofit organizations can measure their success with text messaging and illustrate the various ways in which organizations are using text messages.”

The earthquakes in Haiti earlier this year showed that SMS can be a powerful tool for fundraising (raising millions in just a few days); it’s clear that the time is ripe for non-profits to tap into the mobile market in order to engage their supporters. According to the Mobile Benchmark study (PDF), there are currently over 276 million wireless users in the U.S. and during the first half of 2009, users sent about 740 billion text messages. The report breaks down not only how non-profits can use SMS to interact with supporters, but also releases statistics on how specific organizations fared with their SMS campaigns.

Book Review - SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa

SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa is a new collection of essays and case studies examining how SMS has been used in Africa for acticism. Essays include Amanda Atwood’s report on Kubatana’s experiences in Zimbabwe setting up mobiles as a means of sharing news outside of government propaganda, to Bukeni Waruzi’s essay on collecting data on children’s rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2004.  SMS Uprising is published by Fahamu, a British-based organization with a focus on information services for Africa.

SMS Uprising provides the reader with a decent understanding of the state of mobile SMS usage in Africa today. The essays are written by writers, developers, activists, and researchers who are committed to Africa, and cover a multitude of ways SMS can be applied for advocacy work – everything from alerts about political unrest to sharing health information. The book is divided into two parts: context and case studies.

Soukari Ekine, the editor, notes:

SMS Uprising is significant for many reasons not least because it has been edited by an African woman activist. Often initiatives in Africa are studied by people who are quite distant from the continent or are academics who are remote from the grassroots of the subject under discussion. The book is also unique in giving an insight into how activists and social change advocates are addressing Africa’s many challenges from within, and how they are using mobile telephone technology to facilitate these changes...The intention is that the information contained within the book will lead to greater reflection about the real potential and limitations of mobile technology. 

Texting for Charitable Dollars: The Definitive Guide to Mobile Fundraising

This article was written by Jesse Feiler and edited by Katrin Verclas.

In the last few week, nonprofits in the United States have started to pay attention to fundraising via text - donations delivered to charities by donors simple sending a text message.

In aftermath of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake text donations to the Red Cross and other charities received enormous publicity, and generated a significant outpouring of donations. (SMS is an alternate term for text message – a160 character message sent over the mobile network)

Texting for Reform: SMS, Immigration and Civil Rights

In December 2009, US Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D – Illinois) introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009 in the American House of Representatives. The bill is a major step in overhauling the American immigration system, providing greater protection for immigrants while ensuring that employers use fair and legal hiring practices.

As the legislative debate about this hot-button issue heats up, interest groups are increasing their advocacy to protect the rights of both documented and undocumented immigrants. With reform on so many people’s minds, two organizations have been using mobile technology to spread the word.

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Deconstructing Mobile: Show Me The Data About Mobiles, Rape, and the Congo

We have been rather quiet in our "Deconstructing Mobile" series as other projects have taken priority. We are picking up the thread again to continue to demystify the many myths surrounding mobiles in development and shed facts, evidence, and data on many of the over-hyped projects and ideas. One area with much hype is the recent debate about "mobiles and rape" in the Congo. Laura Seay, an assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, recently wrote on her blog a great post that looks for actual evidence linking rape and mobiles. We wrote about this campaign a while back already but her post goes deeper in looking at the facts. It is aptly entitled:  Show me the Data. We are reposting it here with her permission. 

Show me the Data by Laura Seay

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Mobile Phones in Human Rights: Reflections from Open Mobile Camp

Mobile phones in human rights monitoring is still relatively rare and there are few examples where mobile shave been used successfully in this field. In this video from the recent Open Mobile Camp in New York, three experts are discussing their projects and thinking on the use of mobiles in human rights work.  Nathan Freitas discusses security issues in regard to using mobiles in this field and his project Guardian, Enrique Piraces from Human Rights Watch describes his thinking in regard to the use of mobiles in human rights work, and Emily Jacobi features Handheld Human Rights and the mobile tools that are part of the project.

Mobiles Hidden in Monks' Robes, Part III: Cracks in the Walls

This article was written by Emily Jacobi from Digital Democracy. We are publishing her extensive report on Burmese dissidents' use of technology in three parts.  Part I with an overview of mobiles in Burma is here and part II that describes cross-border dissident communications here. All names of individuals have been changed to protect their identity.

Cracks in the Fortress' Wall

It was May 2008 in Thailand,  and Win Tun was anxiously watching his phone. Early May marks the beginning of rainy season, and reports were coming in of a major cyclone hitting Rangoon. A couple of days after the initial landfall on May 2, residual rains had made it to Thailand, and it was clear that Cyclone Nargis - “butterfly” - had destroyed major swaths of land in the Irawaddy delta. Up to 140,000 were missing or dead. Win Tun was worried about his family in Rangoon.

A former political prisoner, he spent 5 years in the infamous Insein prison for democratic activities in university in the ‘90s. When we met in early 2008, he had a sad air to him. Twenty years have passed since since the uprising of ’88, in which he was too young to participate. The exhaustion of fighting for something that seemed so far out of reach was wearing on him. Worse yet, he missed his family but couldn’t return home without bringing undue attention to them or risking another prison sentence.

After Nargis he was lucky. It took three days for him to get through to his family on their mobiles, and he learned they were okay – just upset, like most Burmese, at the government’s negligence of the victims. In the wake of Nargis, international aid groups waited in Thailand and offshore as the government refused to grant entrance to most.

The first few days after the Cyclone, bewildered Burmese in Rangoon stumbled out of their houses to survey the damage. In the streets, monks helped residents clear felled trees and downed power lines. But there were much bigger problems in the delta. Entire villages had been destroyed, and farmland had turned into swamps, contaminated by drowned bodies.

Mobiles Hidden in Monks' Robes, Part II

This article was written by Emily Jacobi from Digital Democracy. We are publishing her extensive report on Burmese dissidents' use of technology in three parts.  Part I of her report is here.  Names of individuals have been changed to protect their identity. 

Internet crackdown

New technology had fundamentally changed the context inside Burma. Although access at 2007 was less than 1%, even such low penetration of mobile technology and Internet presented a challenge to the regime.

According to a Democratic Voice of Burma TV producer based in Thailand, in the days leading up to the military crackdown, the camera phones concealed in monks' robes and the footage groups like his smuggled out were the only barriers preventing the government from an all-out massacre of protesters.

On Sept. 29, 2007, faced with widespread international condemnation, the junta resorted to a tactic that other governments are increasingly daring in the 21^st century and pulled the plug on all internet and mobile phone use in the country, preventing news from coming in or out. The world was watching – and then the screen went blank.

Mobiles Hidden in Monks' Robes

This article was written by Emily Jacobi from Digital Democracy. We are publishing her extensive report on Burmese dissidents' use of technology in three parts. Names of individuals in this account have been changed to protect their identity. 

Burma – a modern anomaly

In September 2007, Buddhist clergy in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) led hundreds of thousands of citizens in peaceful protest against the ruling military regime. Armed with camera phones and limited internet access, they coordinated the largest protests the country had seen in 19 years, and broadcast the story to the outside world. These tools proved so threatening that the Burmese government responded by shutting off all Internet and mobile phone communications for five days. Why is this significant?

Globally, mobile phone penetration has reached an estimated 4.6 billion subscribers by the end of 2009, more than half the world’s population. Yet in Burma, mobile phone usage remains the exception rather than the rule. Government-imposed barriers and prohibitive prices have kept mobile penetration to approximately 1% of the population, a rate comparable to Internet access in the country.

Burma’s technological isolation accompanies the country’s greater political isolation. Ruled by a military dictatorship since 1962, the nation has become increasingly estranged from the global community. Even the name, changed from Burma to Myanmar by the military government in 1989, is disputed around the world as well as among Burmese political groups. Economic sanctions have been leveled against the country by the US and EU for its human rights abuses, and The Economist ranked Burma163 out of 167 countries in its 2008 Democracy Index.

Burma’s ruling military junta does maintain business deals with neighboring countries including China and Thailand, but the nation lags far behind its neighbors economically and technologically.  While there were only 610,000 mobile users in the country at the end of 2008 (1% of the population), India and China were expected to account for a quarter of global mobile penetration – approximately 1 billion subscriptions - by the beginning of the year, according to the ITU. In neighboring Thailand, meanwhile, approximately 92% of the population is covered by mobile telephony.

Compared to its neighbors, Burma’s mobile access seems woefully behind. Despite this, mobiles have played a critical role in crisis moments, such as the monk-led protests in 2007 and in coordinating recovery from the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.  Additionally, mobile availability in neighboring countries has been effectively harnessed by Burmese groups operating in the bordering countries, where an estimated 3.5 million Burmese have been displaced.

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Put up a Billboard and ask the Community: Using Mobile Tech for Program Monitoring and Evaluation

Guest post by Christine Martin, Tufts University.

The potential for mobile technology to impact development has been researched and reported on in areas ranging from job matching services to financial inclusion.  More and more development agencies are adopting mobile communications in their programmes in innovative ways. However, there is a lack of research on how mobile technology is being used to monitor and evaluate programs in the field.

November Mobile for Development (or just techie) Event Round-Up

After the hectic month of October where there were way too many events focused on mobiles for social impact, November is a bit more technically focused. To help you find your way in this fast-moving world, we’ve compiled a round-up of some key events that are taking place throughout the month of November.

DroidCon Nov. 2-4 (Berlin, Germany) DroidCon is the first Android business and developer conference in Germany. It covers everyting you want to know about the Open Handset Alliance mobile platform. Not focused on mobiles in social impact, but an indication that Android is starting to hop.

iPhone Developer Summit Nov. 2-4 (Santa Clara, CA, USA) Technical sessions explore web development opportunities on the iPhone, including building social applications and developing high-quality, iPhone-style web-based GUIs for applications.

Dreams of Increasing Connectivity: Virtual SIMs in the Cloud

People in the developed world consider the phone a very personal object, something that is always on and always with us. In many developing countries, that's not always the case. People share phones, and many don't own handsets because they are too expensive.

A new company, Movirtu (with a catchy tag line: "Mobile for the next Billion"), wants to extend coverage to so-called bottom-of-the-pyramid customers  by using a handset-independent way to connect to the mobile network.  The company's goal is to "expand the use of mobile communication by the rural poor communities in Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia living on less than $2 a day" - in order to improve their livelihoods.  The method for doing this is to detach owning a phone number from owning a handset--and to allow users to own numbers without owning handsets. And its gaining attention: CEO Nigel Waller was awarded a PopTech Social Innovation fellowship this year, and Movirtu has been shortlisted for Africom's Changing Lives Award.

The idea

Vodafone Launches Betavine Social Exchange, Matchmaker for Mobile Solutions

After months of work, Betavine Social Exchange, a matching site for mobile solutions in development and for social impact, launched yesterday.  Supported by Vodafone, Betvaine Social Exchange hopes to connect NGOs seeking mobile solutions to their challenges with developers and community partners. 

NGOs are invited to post a challenge that outlines their specific problem.  According to Steve Wolak, Betavine's principal manager, after a challenge has been posed, "everyone in the community is welcome to join in the discussion. When a mobile developer comes up with a technological solution, he or she uploads it into a solutions page. Organisations who have registered as BSX Support Partners may then step in to assist with deployment."

Open Data Kit (ODK)

NEW: A Guide on How to Set Up an SMS System

In our ongoing series of How-To Guides, here is the newest:  an overview on how to set up an SMS system. 

SMS is everywhere, in an amazing diversity of applications. From enabling 'instant protest' in the Philippines, Spain and Albania, to election monitoring in Ghana, Lebanon, and Sierra Leone to HIV/AIDS education and support in Mexico and South Africa, we've seen that 160 characters can make a difference. This article covers the basics of setting up an SMS campaign system, looking at different approaches to suit your goals, budget and technical expertise.

Read the full How-To Set Up an SMS System here.

How to Set Up an SMS System

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