A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact.
In our ongoing and ever-expanding series of how-to resources for NGOs and grassroots organizations using mobile technology in their work, we are releasing a new primer on "Mobile Surveillance." Our reviewer, Melissa Loudon, gives an overview of mobile surveillance risks and tips and tools on how to prevent surveillance for secure communications.
The Open Mobile Consortium, a working group of developers and organizations engaged in open source mobile applications for social change, is meeting in New York at UNICEF today and tomorrow. The Open Mobile Consortium was founded at MobileActive08 to build an open source community for collaboration and shared development between relevant organisations engaged in mobile development for social good.
The goal of the meeting is to assess the landscape of tools, and begin to develop a technical roadmap.
The Open Mobile Consortium believes that it is critical to overcome frthe current agmentation in this field, and to align existing projects that are developing and implementing mobile tools. A longer-term vision is to work as an open source consortium, with funding for coordination and project management, as well as code integration, refactoring and producing documentation for training and support.
MobileActive.org will participate in tomorrow's portion of the event, and report back on key discussions.
Kutoma Wakunumadid a great presentation at MobileActive08 on her research that investigates whether women are benefitting from mobile technology. In this interview, shot by ICT4D.at at MobileActive08 in Johannesburg this year, she discusses how women are using mobile tech, what some of the barriers are, and social implications of mobile communications for women. A blog post about the discussion we had at MobileActive08 about women and mobile phones is here.
Take a look also at the notes from a session on participatory design for mobile tech with and for women here and an earlier article we wrote about women and mobile technology -- Who Will Join This Standing Up.
Thank you again to all who came out for Mobile Tech for Social Change barcamp in San Francisco! We had a great day at Google.org which graciously hosted us. Two highlights for me: A live video conversation with Tim Berners Lee who talked about the need for making the mobile web accessible to all people around the world, and his new Web Foundation. (Some video from the conversation is here.) It was wonderful to see that Tim understands the importance of mobiles in the next generation of the 'web' when the majority of the world is already accessing the web throught their mobile screens.
The second thing that thrilled me was the enthusiasm, interest, and knowledge displayed at the barcamp where the 80 participants enthusiastically delved into key topics. We hadmore than 24 session, all user-generated, and many more conversations.
A few key themes that have been emerging again and again:
On day two of MobileActive ’08, Benjamin Brandzel of Avaaz.org led a session on cross-border mobile engagement. Avaaz.org is an international network of activists who work through the Internet to directly influence policy issues such as global warming, poverty, peace, democracy, and human rights. They have made use of internet and email to reach out to people. There is still plenty of room to grow with that, but now a growing segment of the world’s population uses mobiles and not the Internet.
Avaaz.org wants to transfer its model of issue advocacy across global boundaries. Brandzel asked if it is possible to engage folks through mobiles simultaneously across many different nations. To do so, we must deal with political issues, legal issues, and technical issues –- for example, there is no global shortcode. There are also language issues. In Zulu, it’s hard to say “Call me” in 160 characters.
Brandzel said, “Trying to set up a shortcode across a number of African countries is a nightmare. It would be nice to get a platform to make it easier.”
On day two of the MobileActive ’08 conference, I attended The Humanitarian Technology Challenge: In Search of Innovative Solutions presented by Claire Thwaites, who heads the technology partnership between Vodaphone and the UN Foundation.
Thwaites said that their goal is to find technology solutions to humanitarian challenges. The IEEE lists five key challenges which Thwaites presented:
Reliable Electricity
Needs: Power availability for electronic devices, including low power stationary facilities, rugged mobile power supplies for emergency settings, mechanical transducers, passive generation devices that charge as you walk. Renewable energy hubs are preferred, as well as the use of intermediate field offices as data relay points.
Data Connectivity of Rural Health District Offices
Needs: Exchange data between central health facilities and remote field offices. Two-way transmission – upload/download, data could be batched for daily transfer, also useful for emergency alerts and outbreak alerts, less expensive service and higher bandwidth needed, maps of existing connectivity
We are very privileged to co-host MobileTech for Social Change, a barcamp on 4 November 2008 in San Franciso from 10 am - 2 pm. We are especially pleased to co-organize the event with Dan Appelquist from Mobile2.0, Mobile Monday UK, and Vodacom. Registration is here!
Fresh back from MobileActive08, 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 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! Registration again: Go here!
Three hundred and eighty people gathered from all over the world in Johannesburg last week to discuss how mobile phones might be used for social and political purposes in developing countries. The event crackled with the kind of energy that happens when people gather on a topic for the first time. Russell Southwood, a prominent researcher and analyst in South Africa, looks at the issues raised by the event. Excerpts follow.
At the core of all this energy was a very simple notion. The technology device of choice for the majority of people in developing continents like Africa is the mobile phone. If you want to deliver messages to people or get them to respond then SMS or voice is an obvious route to go down.
Two great blog-posts wrap up MobileActive08. Ismail Dhorat from ignite^2 gives an overview of one of the best sessions on ReadWriteWeb:
I found this presentation by Tino Kruetzer, a researcher at the University of Cape Town, extremely interesting. It was based on the interim results of a pilot study on mobile internet usage by low income youth in Cape Town. Some of the key findings were:
Here are some of the main actions people would like to take as a result of collaboration and learnings at MobileActive '08.
1. Mobile Bill of Rights
2. Open Source Consortium
3. Global Mapping Project for Global SMS Interoperability
4. Enhanced Mobile Project/Vendor/Tool Directory
5. Communicability Strategy Research Group
6. More sharing and collaboration on social mobile projects
7. Mobile web wiki
8. OpenContent - especially HIV content including content, terminology, translation.
9. Group formed to collect cross-country comparisons of interventions using mobile technology
10. Group for agriculture and mobile technology
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