What an amazing three days MobileActive08 it was! We gathered an extraordinary group of people in one place who usually never get to see each other and the energy and work and collaboration that happened here in Johannesburg was truly amazing. The session and ideas are too numerous to describe here (and not that I would know about all the crazy work that went on, anyway!) but here are a few observations about who was here!
Participants: Thanks to the fantastic team at Mobile Researcher, we conducted a number of surveys of the more than 370 attendees and here are a few data points:
- Â We had about 40% women attendees -- great for a tech event in the mobile space!
- More than 3/4 of the people there were actively engaged in some sort of a project involving mobiles -- truly a gathering of practitoners
- 15% of attendees were researchers and 25% of the projects there involved a research component. We are so grateful for the support of IDRC which focuses on research and impact of ICT projects and I personally found the input and learnings that the researchers in attendance brought invaluable.
- We had a highly heterogenous crowd! People from more than 45 countries, all areas of practice: NGO practitioners, mobile developers and technologists, commercial vendors, researchers, funders, and a number of telcoms and operators -- an every issue area from health to agriculture to direct services to advocacy.
- More than half of the projects are less than two years old - a testament to how new this field is.
- At the same time, many projects are not small. Almost half of the mobile projects surveyed reach more than 10,000 individuals - a number that surprised us.
For the slides with survey results, go here.
Post new comment