As part of the connected MobileActive.org community of practice, we feature relevant mobile research. If you've been following our Mobile Research At Your Desk Series, you already have a sense of wide range of articles that we've gathered in the mDirectory. (For a full list, see below!)
This slidecast outlines findings from a large-scale study carried out by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. Sanjay Gandhi, Gaurav Tripathi, and Dr. Surabhi Mittal interviewed 200 small scale farmers to highlight the best uses of mobiles to support agricultural productivity.
The authors organized 17 focus groups over four months across India, and conducted 46 individual interviews with subsistence farmers. In total, they spoke to 200 people, living in villages where both mobile services and agricultural information sources are available. Farmers grew a wide of crops and average household incomes varied. The researchers partnered with organizations that provided agricultural information services linked to mobile phones.
We have gathered over 230 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. Here's a list of our slidecasts to date:
Mobile del Mar: How Mobile App Fisher Friend Helps Fishers in India data sheet 3309 Views
An ongoing project in coastal India is working to improve the livelihoods of “fisher folk.” A mobile app called Fisher Friend provides timely information on local fish markets, the weather, and the sea.
A video about Fisher Friend suggests that, “for fishing communities, the key to livelihood is knowledge... knowledge of the market, the weather, and most importantly, the sea.” The Fisher Friend app, which launched in 2007, provides timely and critical information for fishers, and “also increases their knowledge base by providing information on government schemes and entitlements, health services, directory services, and a marine toll-free helpline.”
The Fisher Friend app provides information on potential fishing zones and market rates per species, helping fishers in all phases of their work. MobileActive.org spoke with S. Senthilkumaran, director of MSSRF in Chennai, to learn more about Fisher Friend.
