MobileActive at the Global Forum for Media Development and 1st M4D Conference

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. 

Next is the 1st International Mobile Communications for Development conference in Sweden where Jonathan Donner and I are presenting our paper with "Reflections on the M4D Landscape" based on MobileActive08 participants.  It's worth a read, as it begins to try to develop a taxonomy of applications and deployments, and suggest an additional research agenda.  I am looking forward to meeting up with some old friends and colleagues there!