MobileActive.org

According to the Wall Street Journal, “[Data produced by the use of mobile phones] generates immense commercial databases that reveal the ways we arrange ourselves into networks of power, money, love and trust.” As mobile phone use increases and applications become increasingly sophisticated, the volume of mobile data we create continues to grow at an incredible rate, creating new possibilities and posing new challenges to notions of privacy.

Businesses want this data for marketing. Congress wants to regulate it. Activists and privacy advocates want to ensure that it is not used to compromise their safety or freedoms. Meanwhile, projects such as UN Global Pulse want to use information gleaned from mobile phone use to detect and prevent slow-onset humanitarian crises. We invite you to join us on the evening of June 30th for our next New York City-based Mobile Tech Salon as we explore these tough questions:

• How do we determine socially beneficial uses for mobile data?
• How can the safety, security, and privacy of individuals be respected while using mobile data to benefit them?
• How can our mobile data be effectively aggregated and anonymized? Or can’t it?

[This post was written by Robert Goodier and originally appeared on Engineering for Change. It is reposted here with permission.]

Three men who believe that cellphone service should be cheap and accessible to everyone have found a way to make it happen. The creators of OpenBTS, the open-source cellphone network, launched a startup and have delivered cheap cellphone networks to the world's biggest mobile tech corporations, governments and other clients on every continent. (Yes, even Atarctica—the Australian base is connected via OpenBTS.)

As we reported last year, OpenBTS is a network built on open-source software and hardware that works seamlessly with the average cellphone. With smart coding and decentralized call processing, the system has reduced the hardware needed and cuts the cost of installing and running a cellphone network to about one-tenth that of a traditional setup.

And, importantly for developing countries, the base tranceivers (the gear in the cell towers) are energy sippers that can run on PV cells. The bottom line: The whole network can reduce the cost of service to about $2-3 per month for subscribers.

We spoke with Glenn Edens, a co-founder of Range Networks, with a resume that includes such titles as former head of Sun Lab at Sun Microsystems, former president of AT&T Strategic Ventures, Chief of Strategic Technology at Hewlett-Packard and others. Edens summed up the last six months at Range Networks and told us what lies ahead for the startup.

It's a brand new month, and June is bursting with tons of mobile-themed events around the world! From hackathons for developers and coders to in-depth discussions about mobiles for social change and development, this month's events cover a wide range of topics and sectors. Check them out below:

1-2 June AppsWorld Africa 2011  (Cape Town, South Africa) How can mobile apps be used for development in Africa? This two-day conference uses workshops and exhibitions to explore the potential of apps in sectors ranging from health and agriculture to business and banking.

4-5 June Random Hacks of Kindness (global) This Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon will focus on both disaster risk and climate change. Experts in disaster risk and climate change submit challenges they've faced in their work, and developers and coders gather together to build solutions.

6-9 June Mobile Health Summit (Cape Town, South Africa) Co-hosted by the GSMA and the mHealth Alliance, this three-day event is the go-to place for leaders in the mobile and health fields to learn how mobile technology can improve on global health practices. 

8 June Mobile Applications for Development Workshop (Washington, D.C., USA) Hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank, this workshop focuses on the role of mobile and Internet technologies in fostering social development.

8-9 June Open Mobile Summit (London, UK) For businesses looking to create a mobile presence, the Open Mobile Summit covers all the bases. From workshops on monetizing apps to targeting audiences through social media, panel leaders discuss how to mobilize your business.

8-9 June AITEC Banking and Mobile Money: West Africa (Accra, Ghana) The theme of this two-day event is how mobile banking can drive trade and investment in West Africa. The event looks at how traditional banks can use mobile banking, and the benefits of providing mobile banking options for people at the bottom of the pyramid.

14-15 June PIVOT25 (Nairobi, Kenya) PIVOT25 is an mLAB dedicated to supporting the growth of mobile entrepreneurs in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Somalia and Southern Sudan. Discussion topics at the event include the role of women in ICTs and the use of mobile applications in government, health, banking, and games.

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:

• mGames and mobile Internet (featuring work of Jonathan Donner and Matthew Kam) 
• Effectiveness of PDA-based vs. paper based data collection (a study from Fiji)
• Predicting mobile affordability in Latin America (report by Hernán Galperin)
• Supply chain management using mobile phone cameras (insights from an m-agriculture project)

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.