A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact.
The Stockholm challenge finalists have been announced. We here at MobileActive are content partners of the Stockholm Challenge, and are thus pleased to see that two of the nine finalist projects use mobile phones. The projects, selected from 119 entries, were "chosen by the jury as the best examples of in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development."
A new mobile application, mobGAS, can be used to track individual emissions of greenhouse gases. The application, developed by scientists in the European Union, tracks the emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane based on information on daily activities entered by the user. Users can enter the information on a website and then compare their emissions with national and international averages.
QR codes have been in the news recently, bringing news stories, animated zoo animals, and nurtrition facts from tiny barcodes to the screens of mobile phones worldwide. By linking print media with mobile phones, the codes are helping to bridge the connection between old and new media and have impliations for social mobile campaigns.
A QR -- or Quick Response -- code is a two dimensional bar code that can be used for tracking or link to information such as a website or text message. When a user scans the code with a camera phone the code then links to the destination URL or other information. The codes were first created by a Japanese corporation in 1994 for tracking parts used in car manufacturing, but today are found in everything from newspapers to business cards to advertisements. QR codes can hold several hundred times more information than conventional bar codes.
Several civil society groups in Africa are using SMS messages as part of the global "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." The campaign, hosted by the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGET) in collaboration with Women'sNet and APC-Africa Women (AAW), has the theme "Demanding Implementation, Challenging Obstacles: End Violence Against Women." The groups will send an SMS on each of the 16 days of the campaign with a message relating to gender-based violence.
The campaign website lists three ways to partipate:
The World Bank e-Development Thematic Group is hosting a global dialogue on the use of mobiles in government. The seminar, titled "m-Government: The Next Frontier in Public Service Delivery," will take place in Washington, D.C. and is part of the eGovWorld conference, from November 29-30 in New Delhi, India.
In the United States this Thanksgiving holiday, Americans can send an SMS to support military men and women serving around the world as part of the America Supports You (ASY) campaign. ASY, a program of the U.S. Department of Defense, allows mobile users to send an SMS to short code 89-279 (TX ASY) with a message of support or thanks for military troops. The program, "recognizes citizens' support for military men and women and communicates that support to members of our Armed Forces at home and abroad."
While initially intended to promote an exchange of messages from troops abroad to the senders, the DOD yesterday abruptly changed the program and now sends back only prepared thank-you messages rather than live messages from troops aborad.
Ricardo Dominguez calls himself an "artivist." Half political activism and half art, Ricardo's projects blur the boundaries between the aesthetic and the political. "We always view our activism within the frame of art and the poetic," said Ricardo. Ricardo was part of a team that was recently awarded the Transnational Communities Award for a Transborder Immigrant Tool that uses GPS-enabled mobile phones to help immigrants crossing the border between Mexico and the United States.
New Tactics, a community for people committed to human rights, is sponsoring a virtual discussion on "Using Mobile Phones in Action" from November 28 to December 4. MobileActive.org is partnering with New Tactics and is also participating in this online conversation. We all believe that "strategic and tactical thinking, long used by business and military strategists, is an effective means for the human rights movement to expand options and possibilities of what can be done." The discussion will focus on tactics for activism using mobile phones.
MobileActive07 is quickly approaching, and as we get ready, we bring you a series of sneak peaks of some of the interesting people, projects, and technologies that will be at the conference.
Brenda Burrell, who will be joining us from Zimbabwe, is one of founders of Kubatana.net. Brenda sat down with MobileActive for a discussion about her work using mobiles as an alternative media source in Kubatana and Dialup Radio.
A new software project called Loadstone-GPS provides navigational assistance to blind and visually impaired individuals. The software, which is open source and can be downloaded for free, uses screen readers such as Mobile Speak and Talks and can be operated on a Nokia phone with the S60 smartphone platform.
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