A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact.
MIT is the first university to offer a graduate class exclusively focused on how mobile phones are used for social action. Call4Action!, the brand-new seminar, asks: How can mobile networked devices be used for social change, politics, and expression? From the course description:
Each week we will review existing tools for social change, cover techniques for mobile hacking, and piece together new experiments. International speakers ranging from Zimbabwean activists to telecommunication experts will discuss the problems with existing ICTs, and suggest parameters for new systems. We'll review protocols, systems, and packages like VOIP, GSM, SMS, and PBX to look at how they may be reused or reconfigured, and explore handset development and alternative communications systems. We will learn to set up, develop for, and hack with systems and open source packages like Symbian Series 60, Android, Openmoko, Django, Asterisk. Through hacking and technical exercises, we will demystify the field and build springboards for future work. By the end of the class, we hope to collaboratively create new repertoires for social change and technical activism.
On November 3, 2007 Pakistan's President Musharraf declared a state of emergency and martial law in Pakistan, suspending the Pakistan constitution. During the next three months, during the short-lived emergency rule, Bhutto's assassination, and the general election in February of 2008, there was an unprecedented outpouring of citizen media, organizing and information sharing facilitated by new media -- blogging, mobile phones, and online video.
Huma Yusuf, an astute and eloquent journalist based in Karachi, has reported now on the convergence of old and new media during the 'Pakistan emergency,' as it is most often referred to in the country. It is a must-read document for anyone interested in citizen media, particularly in times of political turmoil, for the wealth of insights it provides on the current uses of digital media and the opportunities for future work in this area.
The Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley is announcing the Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge. The deadline for submission of applications is March 13, 2009. Winners will receive cash awards of $15,000 (first place), $10,000 (second place), and $5,000 (third place) to implement their ideas.
While there have been few implementations of mobile technoogy so far in human rights work, recent innovations have the potential to be used to expose war crimes and other serious violations of human rights, and disseminate this information in real time throughout the world. Mobile phones, combined with GPS, cameras, video, audio, and SMS are transforming the way the world understands and responds to emerging crises. Handheld data collection devices, such as PDAs, provide researchers with new ways of documenting mass violence and attitudes toward peace, justice, and social reconstruction in conflict zones.
Allyson Kapin from Women Who Tech asked me to respond to some excellent questions about mobile campaigns for advocating for specific social issues. As I just received two text messages from NARAL and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America promoting two campaigns they are running, I thought I take the opportunity to answer Allyson's questions publicly, drawing on my experience and observations of the last few years of mobiles in advocacy, illustrating what works and what is better avoided in using mobiles in advocacy campaigns. This is, by nature of the question, somewhat US-centric. A follow-up article will focus on mobile campaigning in the Global South to differentiate some of the key issues.
How can integrating mobile technology benefit online advocacy campaigns?
Data from Informa indicates that by 2010 half of the planet's population will have access to the Internet through a mobile device. Should you make your website mobile? We have heard recently from a number of organizations contemplating whether they should build a mobile site. Following is an overview of some points to consider and resources to draw on as you consider a mobile web presence.
A bit of background: There are now 4 billion mobiles phone subscribers around the world, according to the ITU, far outpacing Internet users worldwide. GSMA, the industry group for telecom companies, reports that more than 80% of the World population is currently covered by a GSM network.
This means that mobiles have become the most ubiquitous communication device in human history. It also means that a majority of the world's population will access the web via their mobile phones. And this means that organizations around the world need to think about what this means for their users, audience, and websites.
Our field has discovered that mobile phones are useful tools for collecting data in the field. As a result, there is an abundance of mobile data collection applications and projects.
Unlike bulk messaging and general information services that are targeting the general public as recipients of standardized messaging, mobile data collection applications are often used internally in an organization, customized to fit with existing organizational processes.
This may mean using services or applications that are not part of most people's day-to-day experience of mobile use. Add a liberal sprinkling of jargon (and the mobile world's plague of acronyms) and you have a recipe for much technical confusion.
We are very privileged to co-host MobileTech for Social Change New York, a barcamp on February 21, 2009 in New York. We are especially pleased to co-organize the event with Hunter College's Integrated Media Arts Program.
The second in the MobileActive barcamp series, we'll explore mobile tech to advance social development and social change goals. Expect this to be highly participatory and interactive, and cover anything you wanted to know about using mobiles for social change. MobileTech for Social Change New York is open to anyone with passion and interest in the topic and since it's a barcamp, bring your ideas, innovations, products, tools, projects, and organizations!
And if you want to be an angel and sponsor the event, contact us at info at mobileactive dot org!
There is a fascinating discussion about the fuure of mobile apps going on over at Change.org. Nathanial Whittemore started it all with a hopeful and visionary blog post on how mobiles will be changing the world. The discussion thread turned into a thoughtful discussion on mobile appplications and how this emerging eco-system of tools scales and interoperates to maximize resources.
Isaac Holeman, working on (and twittering about) MobilizeMRS, points out that "interoperability is a very important point..where it's not necessary for any one installation of anything to scale completely because data can move into or out of any system. Mobile health stuff is so new that interoperability of medical data has hardly been considered, to my knowledge. With MobilizeMRS, one of the primary reasons we want to interface with medical records systems is that a huge amount of work has already been done to promote medical record interoperability with standards such as HL7."
Jonathan Donner, Kentaro Toyama, and I recently wrote a paper -- "Reflections on the M4D Landscape" -- in which we critically examine the current diversity of projects and approaches in M4D.
We identify four common choices facing individual projects in mobiles for development: who are the intended users, how technically accessible the solution is, whether the project links to other platforms or content, and what the project requires from handset manufacturers and operators.
We think that these choices collectively mark aspects of the current landscape of M4D. We also think that these choices made at the project level may create different M4D landscapes with implications for the breadth and depth of the technology’s impact on development.
MobileActive.org welcomes on staff Patricia Mechael, an expert in mobiles for health, and mobiles for development. I am personally so pleased to work with Patty!
Here is a bit more: Dr. Patricia Mechael has been involved in the field of International Health for over 12 years with field experience in over 25 countries with a special focus on Africa. She holds a Masters in International Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Hygiene, and a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she examined the role of mobile phones in health in Egypt.
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