This August has lots of mobile events for everyone from developers, to researchers, to business owners. Mobile events are happening all over the world this month, so check out the list below to see what's happening near you!
5-7 August MakerFaire (Kumasi, Ghana) Applications are still being accepted for a mini-MakerFaire event in Kumasi, Ghana. Hosted by the International Development Design Summit, the two-day event allows participants to show off their ideas and projects for the ICT world. 18-19 August International m4Ed4Dev Symposium (Bethesda, USA) This USAID event will "focus on potential areas where mobile technology can help achieve education strategy goals with a particular focus in two core areas: literacy and on-demand access to materials, and improved education data for education system strengthening."
19 August All Things Mobile Conference (Denver, USA) This business-oriented event looks at how companies can incorporate mobile applications into their work, and how mobile devices can be used for business.
23-24 August Mobile Entertainment Africa (Cape Town, South Africa) This two-day event is all about entertainment! Different panel discussions cover everything from mobile television, to music delivery systems, to mobile gaming – and how mobiles are changing Africa's approach to entertainment content delivery.
26-28 August Social Dev Chicago (Chicago, USA) Social Dev Camp brings together app and platform developers for a weekend of discussions (on topics such as "Turning Mistakes into Success," "In-App Payments," and "Civic Apps and Open Data") along with a hackathon where developers can collaborate on projects.
Multiple Dates Mobile Monday (worldwide) Mobile Mondays are get togethers for people interested in mobile technology. Local groups host events around the world on different dates, so check out the site to see what's happening near you this month!
Upcoming
1-2 September Apps World Asia (Suntec, Singapore) This conference has workshops and exhibitions where developers can learn new skills and demonstrate multi-platform apps.
Registration is open Tech4Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa) Although this event isn't until 27-28 October, registration is now open for Tech4Africa, a conference that looks at mobile, web, and emerging technology in Africa.
Do you know of any M4D events happening in your area? Let us know in the comments!
As mobile gaming explodes worldwide, the market for “games for good” (either with an educational or social-change focus) is open for growth. Mobile games provide a way to quickly pass time, an always-on-hand source of entertainment, and a way to connect with others through competing scores or sharing strategies. Can mobile games also be used to teach, inform, and raise awareness?
Level One: The Mobile Gaming Landscape
The current mobile landscape shows that games are popular worldwide, regardless of handset type or region. A June 2011 Gartner report on the state of the gaming industry reported that mobile gaming is expected to see the largest growth percentage of any aspect of the industry (compared to consoles and PCs), estimating “its share growing from 15 percent in 2010 to 20 percent in 2015.” Tuong Nguyen, principal research analyst at Gartner, is quoted as saying, “As the popularity of smartphones and tablets continues to expand, gaming will remain a key component in the use of these devices. Although [mobile devices] are never used primarily for gaming, mobile games are the most downloaded application category across most application stores, […] For this reason, mobile gaming will continue to thrive as more consumers expand their use of new and innovative portable connected devices.”
The growth of mobile games can be clearly seen in US mobile trends; a July 2011 report from Nielsen says that games are the most popular kind of app for smartphone owners, with 64% of US smartphone owners using a mobile game app at least once a month. The Nielsen report also found that “the average mobile gamer plays an average of 7.8 hours a month,” and that “those with iPhones tend to play around 14.7 hours each month while those with Android smartphones play around 9.3 hours per month.”
But mobile games aren’t just popular on smartphones; feature phone users are embracing the mobile gaming trend as well. MobiThinking’s 2011 global mobile statistic report found that among Africans who use mobile devices as their primary means of accessing the Internet, 55 percent report downloading games. OnDevice Research’s 2011 Mobile Internet Satisfaction report found that mobile games can influence handset purchase, as users want mobile devices that can support games. They report that, “89% of mobile media users in Kenya consider the quality of games they can play on their device when choosing a new phone.”
A 2009 report on India’s mobile gaming field from Vital Analytics found “approximately 120 million urban Indians used their mobile phones to play games during quarter ending July 2009, a reach of 41%. In terms of time spent playing games, 37% of the population spends less than an hour in a week playing games while on the other end of the spectrum 9% spend over 5 hours on an average.” The report also found that most popular types of mobiles games for Indian users were sports games (such as cricket) and arcade-style puzzle games.
With all these mobile gaming enthusiasts out there, where does that leave educational and social change games? Couldn’t some of this popularity be turned toward math, literacy, or advocacy games? The landscape shows that mobile games are popular regardless of handset and location, so the question now is how to make a game that provides both value and entertainment to the player.
A discussion on mobile application security must address the current issues facing mobile devices and the best way to mitigate them. This chapter aims to provide content on the following subjects:
Top issues facing mobile devices
Tips for secure mobile application development
The issues covered in this chapter are not exhaustive and appear in no particular order; however, they can be used to begin the conversation on mobile application security in your organization.
Mobile Applications Laboratories Business Plan data sheet 1974 Views
Author:
Vital Wave Consulting
Publication Date:
Mar 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The goal of the plan is to inform infoDev-supported mobile application labs in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) – and other mobile application laboratory initiatives globally – to develop sustainable business models and transition from a donor-funded start-up phase to a selffinancing, sustainable phase over a three-year period.
The plan's six chapters cover the following topics:
Landscape Analysis describes mobile applications labs and similar organizations, including success factors and challenges across these labs.
Segmentation Analysis offers a typology of mLabs based on relevant defining characteristics and explores examples from parallel fields (e.g., software development, business incubation, technology transfer) to identify the characteristics of labs that function most effectively.
Offering & Promotional Strategies examines the services that best support sustainability for the mLab, and offers strategies for driving branding and awareness.
Business Model and Pricing Strategies defines potential revenue streams for the services that the labs offer, including potential price lists and menus of options that are tailored to regional markets via the companion Business Model Workbook Tool.
Operating Model provides recommendations on resource requirements (e.g., equipment, staffing, skills) and the phased rollout of services and functions over time.
Customer and Partner Strategies including the identification of intermediate clients (e.g., mobile applications developers, SMEs), end clients (e.g., app stores, network operators, equipment manufacturers, governments) as well as potential partners, investors and donors.
Apps For Development: Lessons From mPowering data sheet 4230 Views
Non-profit organization mPowering is developing customized mobile apps to help reach the ultra poor -- people living on less than $2 a day -- and connect them with funding opportunities and programs in the developed world.
Reaching individuals and supplying resources in remote regions has huge challenges. The goal of mPowering is to leverage existing mobile infrastructure to open up channels of access. The organization has ongoing programs in Nepal and India which provide incentives to poor individuals for reporting to school or work, via mobile application. The organization is also working to create a mobile donor app to further connect the poor with funding opportunities.
Before a mobile app can be developed and deployed, the mPowering team conducts field research and partners with local institutions. We spoke with Kamael Ann Sugrim, Co-founder and CEO of mPowering, to find out how an app is developed.
Programs in Nepal and India
The mPowering organization is a year old and currently has two programs underway which utilize mobile apps. In Bhaktapur, Nepal, women earn points for reporting to work, and the points can be redeemed for food, clothing, and medicine.
In Orissa, India, 175 children in the village of Juanga earn points for attending school and can redeem the points for food, clothing, and medicine. Teachers have been supplied with donated Android phones with the mPowering application. Through the app, they can “scan” children in for attendance.
We have gathered over 200 journal articles, evaluations and reports on mobiles for development in the mDirectory - a one-stop literature bank on mobiles in social change useful for practitioners and NGOs.
In our "Mobile Research At Your Desk" series, we've featured the work of researchers in the ICT4D field, covering a range of applications. To recap, here's a list of our slidecasts:
The fifth slidecast focuses on the work of Laurie Butgereit. She developed Dr. Math, an educational tool for South African youth, based on the popular mobile instant messaging service called MXit. The report was presented at the IST-Africa Conference in 2009.
One of the main goals of the SaferMobile project is to release software tools that allow activists and rights defenders to use their mobile phones as network monitors and sensors. The goal is to help them, and the mobile developers, human rights organizations and people on the street they work with, to monitor network performance and proactively detect blocking, filtering and censorship. SMSTester is the first tool we are publicly releasing within this category, and it is free, freely licensed and open-source. Our first trial run with Short Message Service Tester (SMSTester) was completed in April 2011. The results are written up here.
Targeting women with mobile phones and mobile-based projects can bring great benefits and opportunities, as we outlined in Part 1 of our series on women and mobiles. But, there is a “darker side” to this world, which includes changes in gender relations and power dynamic, a potential increase in violence, substitution of money or a change in expenditures, invasion of privacy, and increased control by a male partner.
Changes in Gender Relations and Power Dynamics
When the traditional social dynamic of a household is patriarchal, introducing a mobile phone into the hands of the woman can challenge the existing gender structure. Trina DasGupta, mWomen Programme Director for the GSMA Development Fund, writes in an e-mail to MobileActive.org, “threats to the status quo have sometimes been viewed negatively by community leaders and we have seen examples of this gender discrimination manifesting itself when women gain greater access to empowering tools, such as the Internet or mobile phones.”
Women themselves may not agree. The GRACE project study in Kenya, for example, finds that women do not perceive mobiles at tools for males. “Unlike our literature review that suggested that the mobile phone is culturally construed as a male tool, the women entrepreneurs did not perceive the phone as such. However, the study does indicate that usage of the phone is culturally construed, with an increase in responsibilities and empowerment for one or other profession socially construed as women’s work.”
A paper by Aramanzan Madanda looks at gender relations and ICT adoption in Uganda (the work will soon be published in book format) and finds that “existing gender structures have been dented and that patriarchy is stressed by adoption of the technologies especially mobile phones leading to transformation of gender relations to an extent.”
Animation without Borders: Mobile Cartoons as a Teaching Tool data sheet 5960 Views
A team of scientists, animators, and educators are working together to create animated videos that can be sent and downloaded to mobile phones around the world. The animations can be done in any language, are targeted toward low-level literate learners, and convey methods to obtain safe water in Haiti or techniques to farm effectively in Africa, and concepts such as value in a marketplace exchange.
This University of Illinois project is called "Scientific Animation Without Borders", or SAWBO, for short. The project started about a year ago. As the team delivers the animations via mobile phone and other mechanisms, they also hope to deliver a more collaborative and bottom-up approach toward effective educational materials.
MobileActive.org spoke with university faculty and graduate students to hear more about animation, education, and mobile technology.
Whether in the developing world or the business sector, the majority of mobile data collection efforts parallel the processes set down by their largely paper-based predecessors. In traditional data collection systems information is collected from a variety of sources, funnelled to a single point and eventually compiled, sorted and (hopefully) acted upon. In many cases this workflow meets the basic needs of data consumers and in some cases is preferable.
Let's consider some of the challenges posed by traditional one-way data collection systems.
The people performing data collection (usually referred to as "mobile workers") don't have access to the wealth of raw information available to data consumers. This makes mobile workers outsiders to the big picture and lessens their potential contributions to the overall data collection effort.
Solutions pull collected data into a black hole: once it's submitted there's very little the mobile worker can do to access it for review or to make corrections.
Implementations often force knowledgeable team members to work in a void. If data cannot be easily and seamlessly shared between team members collaborative efforts will be impeded and their overall effectiveness reduced.
When team members cannot "see" what others in the group are doing, the chances of double-entry and redundant information are all the more likely.
When aggregated data finally returns to mobile workers it is often severely outdated.
Solutions are not really mobile if they require workers to access desktops or laptops to complete tasks essential to the data collection process. This is also true if the tools make it impossible to take pertinent portions of the data set with them for online & offline use.
Group Complete has coupled the power and open architecture of Open Data Kit and XForms standards with CouchDB to provide a mobile and real-time collaborative data collection platform.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
App resides and runs on a server
Is a web-based application/web service
Key Features :
Share collected data between mobile team members and data consumers in real-time
Allow team members to collaborate on data entry and review collected data, regardless of their locations
Reduce double entry, increase team cooperation and still employ more traditional workflows when needed
Perform all of the major functions of data collection on a smartphone (form building, data entry & export)
Use Group Complete Mobile to work offline
Integrate with Open Data Kit and XForms workflows
Main Services:
Voting, Data Collection, Surveys, and Polling
Location-Specific Services and GIS
Mobile Social Network/Peer-to-peer
Information Resources/Information Databases
Display tool in profile:
Yes
Tool Maturity:
Currently deployed
Release Date:
2011-03
Platforms:
Android
Linux/UNIX
Current Version:
0
Program/Code Language:
Java/Android
Javascript
Other
Organizations Using the Tool:
n/a
Number of Current End Users:
100-1,000
Number of current beneficiaries:
100-1,000
Support Forums:
http://www.groupcomplete.com/help
support@groupcomplete.com
Languages supported:
English (multi-lingual capable)
Handsets/devices supported:
All versions of Android 2.2, 2.3 and 3.x supported. Support for Android 2.1 coming soon.
What's happening in the world of mobiles? Check out the MobileActive event calendar for the best conferences, events and developer meetings happening this month!
1 April, Mobile Security Hackday (New York City, USA): It's no joke, MobileActive is hosting a hackday in our new digs. This casual, day-long event will help you better understand mobile and digital network security as we discuss tools for enhanced security, profile open-source tools and allow time to talk about security needs and issues.
6-8 April, The Mobile Learning Experience (Phoenix, USA): Interested in learning how apps and mobile devices can be used in K-12 classrooms? The Mobile Learning experience is a three-day event that focuses on everything from using apps to improve writing to incorporating mobile devices into traditional teaching.
6-7 April, M-Commerce World Summit 2011 (Singapore): The M-Commerence World Summit looks at mobile money transfers and payments, mobile remittances, mobile banking (including among unbanked populations) and microfinance services.
8-9 April, National Conference for Media Reform 2011 (Boston, USA): This conference brings together experts in the fields of media, technology and democracy to look at how all three can be used to create better, more open systems. Themes include: Policy and Politics, Social Justice and Movement Building, Journalism and Public Media, Media Makers & Culture and the Arts, and Technology and Innovation.
A comprehensive new study, commissioned by UNICEF, sheds light on trends and challenges in global mobile telephony. The report, Mobiles for Development, focuses on mobile tech as an area of significant future opportunity for advancing social development around the word. The report finds that there is an increasing number of mobile-based projects, with the most common sectors being health, socio-economic development and agriculture. Findings also show that "mobile tools can identify the most deprived...communities, provide cost effective interventions, overcome bottlenecks to services, and enable communities to maximise the impact of available resources."
Additionally, the report takes a look at the mobile operators in this field. It finds that there are significant business opportunities for regional operatators in the field of social development, including:
Mobiles for Development is a research study commissioned by UNICEF to help the organization understand the global mobile telephony landscape as it relates to advancing development, and as an area of significant future opportunities. Evidence for the report comes from UNICEF operational staff and representatives of mobile operators in 14 countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Kosovo, Lao PDR, Malawi, Mongolia, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Uganda, and Zambia). The report suggests that mobile tools can identify the most deprived children and communities, provide cost effective iinterventions, overcome bottlenecks to services, and enable communities to maximize the impact of available resources.
This is a guest post by our colleague Michael Benedict who is currently working in Tanzania and Uganda. It was originally posted on his blog and is published here with permission.
While working with SMS-based applications I’ve noticed an air of mystery around the issue of reliability. I hear colleagues say ambiguous things like “carriers consider SMS to be lower priority than voice”, or “SMS delivery isn’t guaranteed”. My personal experience has been that messages are almost always delivered quickly and correctly, but I’ve heard stories of hours-long delays, corruption of data, and occasionally messages that never arrive. Since I am working on two projects that depend on reliable SMS service — one involves field-based data collection and another employs SMS as a transport layer between computers — I am interested in learning about how factors such as network, location, and time of day impact message transmission. I found myself in Mwanza, Tanzania last week with two GPRS modems and a local partner who was distinctly unenthusiastic about the work I was there to do, so I decided to try an experiment. I bought SIM cards and airtime for three of the major TZ networks, put two at a time in the models, and wrote a simple python script using Adam Mckaig’s excellent pygsm
Featherweight Multimedia for Information Dissemination data sheet 1886 Views
Author:
Chu, Gerry, Sambit Satpathy, Kentaro Toyama, Rikin Gandhi, Ravin Balakrishnan, and S. Raghu Menon
Publication Date:
Jan 2009
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Featherweight multimedia devices combine audio with non-electronic visual displays (e.g., paper). Because of their low cost, customizability, durability, storage capacity, and energy efficiency, they are well-suited for education and information dissemination among illiterate and semi-literate people.
We present a taxonomy of featherweight multimedia devices and also derive design recommendations from our experiences deploying featherweight multimedia in the agriculture and health domains in India. We found that with some initial guidance, illiterate users can quickly learn to use and enjoy the device, especially if they are taught by peers.
Women & Mobile - A Global Opportunity: A Study on the Mobile Phone Gender Gap in Low and Middle-income Countries data sheet 3142 Views
Author:
GSMA Development Fund
Publication Date:
Jan 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Mobile Phone ownership in low and middle-income countries has skyrocketed in the past several years. But a woman is still 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man. This figure increases to 23% if she lives in Africa, and 37% if she lives in South Asia. Closing this gender gap would bring the benefit of mobile phones to an additional 300 million women. By extending the benefits of mobile phone ownership to women, a host of social and economic goals can be advanced.
Mobile phone ownership provides distinct benefits to women, including improved access to educational, health, business and employment opportunities. Women surveyed across low and middle-incoome countries on three continents believe that a mobile phone helps them lead a more secure, connected and productive life.
Information access by low literate users is a difficult task. Critical information, such as in the field of healthcare, can often mean the difference between life and death. We have developed spoken language interface prototypes aimed at low-literate users, and tested them with community health workers in Pakistan. We present results showing that 1) in contrast to previous reports in the literature, well-designed speech interfaces significantly outperform touch-tone equivalents for both low-literate and literate users, and that 2) literacy significantly impacts task success for both modalities.
The field of mLearning, or learning facilitated by mobile devices, has been generating growing interest in recent years and months. Outspoken advocates of mLearning, such as the authors of a report recently released by GSMA Development Fund, assert that the increasing ubiquity of mobile phone penetration (especially in the developing world) has the potential to reach more students than ever before. Critics, such as Kentaro Toyama, reply that digital content (mobile or otherwise) does little to improve the quality of education and that the hype surrounding it is unwarranted.
In part one of "How to Work With Operators," we investigated key considerations for mobile-for-change projects that, for better or worse, have to deal with mobile operations. In this second part of the series we look at the ten top tips for a successful relationship. While there is no one-size fits all approach or recommendation for a successful relationship, here are some tips for approaching, building, and sustaining a solid business relationship with a mobile provider.
SMS-Based Mobile Learning System: A Veritable Tool for English Language Education in Rural Nigeria data sheet 3255 Views
Author:
Nwaocha, Vivian Ogochukwu
Publication Date:
Dec 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
In sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in rural Nigeria, students in high school face the challenge of lacking exposure to English. For most, English language class are the only opportunity for learning English. Consequently, English skills are poor.
On the other hand, the use of mobile phones in Nigeria has continued to soar, with everyone having at least one mobile phone and Short Messaging Service (SMS) becoming the cheapest and regular mode of communication across different socio-economic spheres. Thus, there is great potential for this technology to be used as an instructional tool.
In this study, an SMS-based mobile learning system is employed in teaching high school students English. In order to determine if there were significant differences between students' success rate, pretests were administered to the experimental and control groups, after both received classroom instructions from the same Instructor. Subsequently, post-tests were administered to both groups, after the experimental and control groups had received SMS-based instruction and extra classroom instructions respectively. A paired sampled t-test was carried out and the results clearly revealed that after receiving the SMS-based instruction, the experimental group performed better than their counterparts who had received additional classroom instructions.
Using Mobile Phones and Open Source Tools to Empower Social Workers in Tanzania data sheet 2149 Views
Author:
Dias, M. Beatrice, Daniel Nuffer, Anthony Velazquez, Ermine A. Teves, Hatem Alismail, Sarah Belousov, M. Freddie Dias, Rotimi Abimbola, Bradley Hall, and M. Bernardine Dias
Publication Date:
Dec 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Although para-social workers carry the primary responsibility in providing essential services to the growing population of orphans and vulnerable children in Tanzania, they are often not paid for this work. Moreover, these para-social workers are unable to access governmental resources due to the lack of an efficient means of reporting their needs to relevant government officials in a timely manner.
In this paper we describe a text message (SMS) based solution that harnesses the prevalence of mobile phones coupled with several Open Source tools to empower these para-social workers. Specifically, we build a more efficient mechanism for reporting summary data on orphans and vulnerable children to relevant government officials in a cost-effective and efficient manner. This paper reports on our needs assessment process, reviews the related work, describes the implementation and testing of our prototype solution, and concludes with a discussion of relevant future work.
Mobile-based projects for social change can be found in any issue area: mobile health, mobile money, initiatives that promote advocacy, citizen journalism, democratic participation, and economic livelihoods. While projects vary in scope, objectives, and platforms, one consistency between many successful projects is a good working relationship with the mobile network operator in a given country.
Mobile network operators, or MNOs, go by many names: mobile providers, cell providers, telecommunications companies. In this article, we focus on MNOs in the traditional sense: companies that provides mobile network services.
The Mobile Minute has info on social networking via mobiles, interactive mobile lesson plans in South Africa, a new ITU study that estimates more than 90% of the world's population has access to mobile networks, the Red Cross' work to battle a cholera outbreak in Haiti with SMS health updates, and the launch of a mobile money transfer pilot in the Philippines.
The Vodafone Americas Foundation and the mHealth Alliance are announcing a call for entries for the annual Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project mHealth Alliance Award, a competition to identify and support promising wireless-related technologies to address critical social issues around the globe. Proposals will be accepted from September 27, 2010 through December 15, 2010, with the final winners announced in April 2011.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on mobile learning in South Africa, Egypt's pre-election SMS restrictions, Motorola's launch of dual SIM card handsets in India, a new mobile sensing tool, and India's extension of its deadline for banning RIM's BlackBerry services.
