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:
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!
SMS Info Lines - A How-To Guide data sheet 5006 Views
Author:
Corinne Ramey
Abstract:
Imagine this scenario: A woman in Johannesburg, South Africa, stands at the fish counter in her local supermarket and texts the name of a fish to a phone number. Within seconds, she receives back information via a short text message informing her whether the fish is legally and environmentally harvested, and advising her whether “to tuck in, think twice or avoid completely.”
The shopper is using FishMS, a text messaging-based service that provides point-of-sale information about the impact of fishing on fish stocks, enabling consumers to make informed choices about the seafood they purchase.
Infolines provide valuable, just-in-time information, but in the end their real potential is how they change behavior based on the information, and result in concrete actions by consumers and constituents. Infolines can also be a good hook to get people to join your mobile list.
Introduction
Imagine this scenario: A woman in Johannesburg, South Africa, stands at the fish counter in her local supermarket and texts the name of a fish to a phone number. Within seconds, she receives back information via a short text message informing her whether the fish is legally and environmentally harvested, and advising her whether “to tuck in, think twice or avoid completely.”
The shopper is using FishMS, a text messaging-based service that provides point-of-sale information about the impact of fishing on fish stocks, enabling consumers to make informed choices about the seafood they purchase.
Infolines provide valuable, just-in-time information, but in the end their real potential is how they change behavior based on the information, and result in concrete actions by consumers and constituents. Infolines can also be a good hook to get people to join your mobile list.
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:
MobileActive08 delved right into the key issues that we have been talking about for some time now. During the Mobile Cafe in the opening session, key themese emerged that need to be addressed to fully "unlock the potential of mobile tech for social change."
It was rightly noted that we need to make "common ground" - there are lots of small projects that should start sharing notes, tech, and experiences. This is one of the key reasons, of course, why we co-convened MobileActive08 - to bring the best and the birghtest people in this field together to start comparing notes. Several participants talked about the importance of voice. Much attention is focused on SMS and higher-end applications but voice is often neglected.
The cost of mobile communication is a hug barrier for many projects that needs to be addressed in order to go beyond a small proof-of-concept phase to anything resembling sustainable use of mobiles.
As more than 300 mobile social innovators set out to Johannesburg to convene at MobileActive08, we wanted to let you know how you can follow the proceedings and participate remotely. We will be blogging many of the amazing sessions here on this blog, on MobileActive08's blog; and you can follow and discuss proceedings through these channels:
There is yet another competition focused on mobile app development, this time sponsored by USAID and Netsquared. Starting on October 13, Development 2.0 will reward the innovative uses of mobile technologies for international development withup to $10,000 for the winner. While this is less than some of the other recent competitions, applicants can get advice and improve their ideas and clarify their project submissions during the entire application process on a project gallery.
A open voting process will determine the best projects, and then a jury of USAID senior staff will select the final winners. More info is here.
Other compeitions open right now:
Knight News Challenge -- $5 million awarded to digital media projects, including mobile citizen media projects;
This article was written by Lisa Campbell of the Youth Action Network and is reprinted here with permission. Lisa's research and articles are on her blog Mobile Revolutions.
Mobile phones are the first telecommunications technology to be more popular in developing nations, than their developed counterparts, far outnumbering internet coverage (Zuckerman 2007). More and more people are using their phones to access the internet instead of computers. Soon there will be more cell phone users than literate people on the planet. This signifies a shift into a new age of digital literacy, where avatars, emoticons, pictures, sounds and videos often hold more power than names and numbers.
Economists around the world are hailing cell phones as the solution for ICT development and a ray of hope in bridging the digital divide.
In our occasional mobile tool reviews, we are featuring this week two reviews of similar mobile applications that provide bulk messaging focused on NGO needs. Today's review is of RapidSMS, an open source enterprise level bulk messaging application developed by UNICEF. Later this week we'll be reviewing FrontlineSMS, the much-touted grassroots bulk messaging desktop application.
We are pleased and proud to welcome and thank the sponsors and supporters of MobileActive08. We are very grateful for the generous and amazing funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada which is a major supporter of the event. IDRC has also been instrumental in the mobile-for-social-impact field with extraordinary research and support, so we are very pleased that IDRC staff and grantees will be contributing their expertise and innovations to MobileActive08.
The Knight News Challenge 2008, a worldwide contest, reopened again for a new round. There is $5 million in funding available for digital media experiments to innovate news and communication - including mobile! The deadline is November 1, 2008.
The contest is open to community-minded innovators worldwide, from software designers to journalists to citizens and students of any age. Winning entries must have three elements:
Forum Nokia has announced a new global contest: "Calling All Innovators" for developers to create mobile applications that will help to better society. Nokia will award up to USD 150,000 in cash and prizes, in addition to helping the winning developers distribute their mobile applications.
In its announcement of the contest, Nokia notes that
What does it take for smaller organizations to adde a mobile strategy to advance the work? What are some ways in which small organizations can get started in mobile, and get what they need for free or at very low cost to try the mobile medium for their work?
We were recently at the Institute for Nonprofits organized by the Bay Area Video Coalition to help a select group of organizations develop their social media strategy.
Lots of the groups at BAVC were interested in exploring how mobile phones fit into their work. Many work with constituents of color and lower-income communities in America that are more likely to be on a mobile than on the web. And of course, this is true around the world already.
In that same vain, a reader asked recently: "How can I get started in mobile?" He wrote:
We have written a lot about providing consumers with just-in-tine information about products on their mobile. Shoppers can receive an SMS about sustainable fish or climate impact of products already. This is the idea of the new GoodGuide, a new start-up spun out of the University of Berkeley. Good Guide provides 'green' consumer information for shoppers who want to buy products in line with their values.
The brainchild of Dara O'Rourke, an enterprising UC Berkely professor, Good Guide came online yesterday. The 61,000 products already in the database contain hundreds of datapoints. They are organized into three categories: health, social and environmental impact. Currently, there are two product types only: personal care and household chemicals. Food, electronics, toys, and apparel are to be added over the next several months.
