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.
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.
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.
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!
The guys of ICT4D.at shot some great videos of the two key people at Souktel and at Ushahidi -- Jacob Korenblum and Eirk Hersman -- describing their respective projects. Even though filmed a few months ago, both describe vividly how they are using mobiles in their work. Well worth watching!
Al Jazeera launched a new site today for citizens in Gaza to report incidences of various kinds in Gaza via SMS and Twitter. The deployment is using Ushahidi and Souktel's SMS gateway, one of the few able to deliver SMS in Gaza. In this latest citizen journalism effort, Al Jazeera is both mapping reports from its own journalists and incidences reported by the public. So far, there are few citizens texting in, however; the majority of the content consists of Al Jazeera news reports for now. Al Jazeera and its new media team are doing a great job, however, in their labs -- very impressive innovations coming from the Arab satellite news service and its New Media folks like Ryaad M, for example.
Some people are claiming that the conflict in Gaza is a "social war." But so far, social media is used mainly for propaganda and there is a marked absence of voices from people affected by the conflict, and of useful applications of mobile and other social media. As the Israeli bombing of Gaza is continuing and is now in its third day, mobile communication is beginning to make the news but is not playing the dominant role in citizen reporting and aid communications as it has in other conflicts.
A few examples that have not been reported anywhere else: Souktel, an organization in Ramallah that is known for its SMS-job matching service connecting Palestine youth with work, is running a Palestinian "SMS Blood Bank" program for the Red Crescent.
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."
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.
I just came from the Global Forum for Media Development an Athens, Greece, where there is a lot of interest in how to use mobiles in media and journalism trainings, and in supporting citizen media efforts. I presented briefly our most recent work, A Mobile Voice, that describes how mobiles are used in citizen media. The dicsussions were lively and there were lots of ideas to take this work further. Specifically needed are journalism trainings and better toolkits and how-to materials that detail what tools and approaches work where. Security was also of great concern, and participants were eager to learn more about mobile security for media and activists. Athens is, of course, also experiencing social turmoil right now, so I engaged in a bit of citizen journalism on Twitter on my own, interviewing police and demonstrators during the night.
UPDATED POST: Mobiles are yet again playing a key role in citizen reporting as terror attacks grip the Indian city of Mumbai. Twitter, the microblogging service that is available in India, was especially instrumental in conveying first hand reports as the chaotic events were unfolding in the city. Twitter users set up aggregator accounts at Mumbai, Bombay, @BreakingNews and with the search tag #Mumbai.
The Extraordinaries, a new project by Mobile Voter (disclosure: I sit on the board of Mobile Voter) seeks to revolutionaize the way we volunteer. We wrote about its precursor before. Busy people in the West rarely volunteer for lack of time to go to an organization. Most volunteer opportunities require training, vetting, and time commitments. In fact 46% of non-volunteers in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, say they don't because they are too busy.
Local information and media is one of the areas where mobiles can be an ideal delivery vehicle. Rede Jovem, a Brazilian NGO created 0800 Rede Jovem, or Mobile YouthNet, a project that reaches young people through SMS on their mobile phones with local opportunities and information about what is going on in their communities. Soledad Muniz talked with Alice Gismonti from Rede Jovem about the SMS project.
The Vodafone Americas Foundation has a new Wireless Innovation Challenge to promote innovation and increase implementation of advanced wireless related technology for a better world. The foundation is providing $600,000 in awards to support projects "of exceptional promise." The Challenge is open to projects from universities and nonprofit organizations based in the United States.
Projects must demonstrate a multi-disciplinary approach that uses innovation in wireless related technology to address a critical global issue in one or more of the following areas: access to communication, education, economic development, environment, or health. The technology should have the potential for replication and large scale impact. Teams should have a business plan or a basic framework for financial sustainability and rollout. Submissions deadline is February 2, 2009.
Google Labs in India recenty launched SMS Channels, a new, free SMS messaging service for India only that may prove to be incredibly useful for citizen groups and NGOs. The service allows anyone to set up a group of mobile subscribers to message to, or for a group to message each other many-to-many. A user can receive news alerts and blog updates via SMS, for example; or a group can group-text message to each other.
There are many commercial group messaging solutions in India where the primary means of mobile communiations is SMS. However, unlike GupShup, Zook, and MyToday, Google’s SMS channel is two-way allowing for SMS discussions and also enabling subscribers to publish to the channel.
In this report we explore the dynamics of the role of mobile phones in enhancing access to and creating information and citizen-produced media. We explore trends in the use of mobile telephony with a focus on software and platforms that make content creation and broadcasting easier. We also present an inventory of current and potential uses of mobile phones to promote citizen media and freedom of information, and present short case studies of examples--all from the MobileActive.org community.
In our ongoing reviews of mobile tools focused on the NGO sector, here is our latest edition: A review of FrontlineSMS, the much-written-about desktop SMs bulk messaging tool. We take a look at some use cases, outline technical considerations in using Frontline, and describe the tests that we ran.
Firstly, and most importantly for many users, FrontlineSMS provides a simple way to send and receive SMS on a laptop or desktp, with contact management and grouping ability for bulk messaging. Provided installation comes off without a hitch and you are using a supported phone, this should allow new users to get started quickly, after which they can explore some of the more advanced functionality.
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 National Council of Resistance of Iran reported recently that SMS use in Iran is now regulated. According to the article, the Organization of Communications Regulations in Iran has imposed restrictions on sending SMS, requiring a security check by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) to receive clearance for using the service.
The article details the regulation: "Sending SMS deemed contrary to national security will be punishable by law. Any change of address by the subscriber of the service must be reported promptly to the relevant authorities. It is the security agents who decide which SMS are in breach of national security." The article further states that "according to some figures every day over 20 million text messages are received in Iran, the peak hours are between ten in the evening and one in the morning. The SMS has become a tool to exchange messages by opponents of the regime."
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.
