MobiChange

Please Vote for MobiChange at the NetSquared USAID Development 2.0 Challenge

Gaurav Mishra — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:06:40 +0000

Please vote for MobiChange at the NetSquared USAID Development 2.0 Challenge. Voting ends on December 12, and the fifteen most popular projects go on to the final round.

Here is the full text of MobiChange's NetSquared USAID Development 2.0 Challenge application --

SHORT PROJECT DESCRIPTION

MobiChange will be an open-source, multi-lingual mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and enable social change.

DETAILED PROJECT OVERVIEW

MobiChange will be an open-source, multi-lingual mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and enable social change.

The MobiChange project will have three parts --

1. An open source code base for a multilingual mobile social network designed on the basis of extensive ethnographic research, to be accessed almost exclusively by voice and SMS (MobiChange).

2. A Drupal-based community website to discuss how such a platform may help non-profits engage local communities and mobilize social change (www.mobichange.org).

3. A hosted ad-supported consumer version of the mobile social network, built on the MobiChange platform, designed for mass market adoption (www.mobitalk.org).

www.mobitalk.org will be our main source of revenue.

MobiChange will work closely with grassroots non-profits working with disadvantaged local communities to build a code base and user interface that is flexible enough to be customized for development-oriented applications in the areas of education, activism, advocacy and micro-enterprise.

It will be the first social networking experience for millions of mobile phone users who have limited ease with English and use a $50 mobile phone as their only computing device. It will allow them to do some of the things we take for granted on social networks — meeting new people with common interests, benefiting from new opportunities for learning and earning, even sharing their own knowledge and skills with others.

A desired outcome will be the effective use of the MobiChange platform at a grassroots level to self-organize, coordinate and mobilize activities relevant to the community.

MobiChange will subsequently release its open source code base and train non-profits in emerging Asia and Africa to use it as a powerful development tool.

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU DONE IN THIS AREA?

The MobiChange founding team combines a rare set of skill and experiences: (1) expertise in the emerging markets in Asia and Africa, (2) understanding of the emerging mobile social networking space, and (3) experience in using mobile and social media applications to engage non-profits and grassroots communities.

Ken Banks runs kiwanja.net, an organisation that helps grassroots non-profits around the world figure out how to use mobile technology in their social change work. Ken's FrontlineSMS project has previously received grants from William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and the Open Society Institute. For more, see www.kiwanja.net.

Dina Mehta is a partner at Mosoci (research for web 2.0 strategy) and Explore Research & Consultancy (qualitative market research). Dina has contributed to building several communities on the internet, such as Worldchanging, Tsunami Help, KatrinaHelp, Asia Quake Help, SkypeJournal and Global Voices Online. For more, see www.dinamehta.com.

Gaurav Mishra is the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow in International Values and Communications Technology at Georgetown University where he will be teaching a graduate course on the use of social media in business, government and development in Spring 2009. Gaurav has extensive previous experience in the Indian consumer market. For more, see www.gauravonomics.com.

All three have been widely acknowledged as thought leaders in the social media and mobile for development (Mobile4D) space, coregularly on their blogs about these topics, and are frequently quoted in the media.

SUSTAINABILITY (FINANCIAL) MODEL:

Once the MobiChange code base and user interface have matured, we plan to launch MobiTalk (www.mobitalk.org), a hosted ad-supported consumer version of the mobile social network, built on the MobiChange platform, designed for mass market adoption. The advertising revenue from MobiTalk will be our main source of revenue, apart from donations and grants.

POTENTIAL OBSTACLES:

We see three sets of risks for MobiChange --

(1) At the core of MobiChange is the premise that mobile phone usage in emerging Asia and Africa will continue to be driven by SMS and voice. There is a small possibility that during the development of the platform, mobile web will become ubiquitous in these countries and MobiChange won't be relevant anymore.

(2) While the technology to build a SMS based social networking platform already exists, it is not a trivial design problem by any means. In spite of extensive ethnographic and usability research, we may not be able to develop a user interface that is intuitive enough for first time social networking users. Also, we aren't yet aware of any voice based mobile social network and developing one may be a serious design and technology challenge.

(3) Finally, given given the limitations of SMS, users and non-profits may not find MobiChange/ MobiTalk compelling enough to use it actively.

PROJECT MILESTONES:

Phase I: Pre-development Research/ Prototyping (Fall 2008 to Fall 2009)

Do secondary research on social mobile applications in emerging Asia and Africa and build a working prototype for the MobiChange mobile social networking platform.

Phase II: Ethnographic/ Usability Research (Fall 2009 to Fall 2010)

Do on-ground ethnographic/ usability research amongst non-profits and mobile users who aren't (regular) computer users, and customize the code base for at least 5 non-profits.

Phase III: Open Sourcing/ Public Launch (Fall 2010 to Fall 2011)

Open source the MobiChange codebase and launch www.mobitalk.org, the hosted, ad-supported, consumer version of the mobile social network, built on the MobiChange platform, designed for mass market adoption.

The voting process is somewhat complex, so here is what you need to do --

1. Register at NetSquared and then login using the password they have e-mailed to you.

2. Go to the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge project page and select three projects, including MobiChange. The other two projects I voted on were QuestionBox and Ushahidi.

3. Add the three projects to your ballot, then cast your ballot (twice!), then submit your ballot. You know you are done when you are given a ballot number.

Once again, voting ends on December 12, and the fifteen most popular projects go on to the final round, so, please do vote.

Welcoming Ken Banks and Dina Mehta to the MobiChange Team

Gaurav Mishra — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:04:12 +0000

Here is the big announcement on MobiChange I had promised earlier: I am delighted to welcome Ken Banks and Dina Mehta on the MobiChange team.

Ken Banks runs kiwanja.net, an organisation that helps grassroots non-profits around the world figure out how to use mobile technology in their social change work. Ken's FrontlineSMS project has previously received grants from William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and the Open Society Institute.

Dina Mehta is a partner in Mosoci (research for web 2.0 strategy) and Explore Research & Consultancy (qualitative market research). Dina has contributed to building several communities on the internet, such as Worldchanging, Tsunami Help, KatrinaHelp, WorldwideHelp Group, SkypeJournal and Global Voices Online.

Both Ken and Dina are widely acknowledged as thought leaders in the mobile for development (Mobile4D) and social media space, write regularly on their blogs about these topics, and are frequently quoted in the media.

The MobiChange founding team now combines a rare set of skill and experiences: (1) expertise in the emerging markets in Asia and Africa, (2) understanding of the emerging mobile social networking space, and (3) experience in using mobile and social media applications to engage non-profits and grassroots communities.

Over the next few months, all three of us will devote a significant part of our time on MobiChange even as we continue to work on our individual projects. I believe that, between us, we have the skills and resources required to make MobiChange happen, but we will also count on the support of the mobile for development community to help us bring MobiChange to reality.

By the way, the MobiChange application to the second round of the Knight News Challenge is up. Do have a look at our application, vote on it, comment on it, and share your feedback with us.

How to Build Social Mobile Applications

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:33:00 +0000

As I work on my MobiChange application for the second round of Knight News Challenge 2009, my thoughts return to two recent posts on building social mobile applications.

Ken 'Kiwanja' Banks wrote a great post last week on the mistakes techies make in developing social mobile applications for the emerging world --

Progress in the social mobile field will come only when we think more about best practices in the thinking and design of mobile projects and applications, rather than obsessing over the end products themselves. By then most of the damage has usually already been done.

Ken gave some great advice, based on his own FrontlineSMS experience: understanding the need gap before entering development, learning from other tools/ players, prototyping early and cheap, partnering with grassroots non-profits, staying lean, being flexible, encouraging local customization, focusing on text and voice, starting small, working closely with early users, and building conversations and community over time. My own approach to MobiChange is similar and I'll try to follow most of Ken's advice in the months to come.

It reminded me of another great post in which Russel Southwood critiqued the social mobile space (via Katrin Verclas) and raised several important questions around usability, impact, scale and sustainability --

So if it’s such an obviously good idea, why can’t I name more successful, long-standing projects that have begun to change the fundamentals of communication or the lives of people?

The immediate and seemingly reasonable response is that many of these projects are in their early stages. There did not seem to be a single project I spoke to at the (MobileActive '08) conference that was not a pilot: in other words it will be funded for a year to three years and then may disappear. However, the early pioneers stretch back further and few have found their financial feet or scaled up in such a way that they have made a significant major impact. Indeed one might ask: with so many pilots around, when are we going to see some flying?

Russel argues that a social mobile project will work if it communicates more effectively with a group of people and/or it is more cost effective. I'll add to that and say that a social mobile project will work if it follows a commercial-social hybrid model, like the Prakelt Foundation in South Africa.

I have some thoughts on how to apply these learnings to MobiChange, but that's another post.

MobiChange in Round 2 of Knight News Challenge 2009

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:27:25 +0000

I have some good news: MobiChange is through to round 2 of the $5 million Knight News Challenge 2009.

MobiChange is my work-in-progress muse project: an open-source, multi-lingual mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and help mobilize social change. I had earlier written about submitting MobiChange for the Knight News Challenge.

The Knight News Challenge is a great fit for MobiChange both in terms of the stage the idea is in and amount of funding required to realize the idea. Other contests like NetSquared USAID Development 2.0 Challenge and Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Challenge either offer a very small grant or fund projects in a different development stage. So, getting funded by Knight News Challenge may be the most important thing for MobiChange now.

Of course, the Knight News Challenge has multiple rounds of screening and the winners will only be announced in Fall 2009. MobiChange itself is evolving as an idea, I'm still in the process of putting together the rest of the team, the actual development work may only start in Spring 2009, and my grand vision for MobiChange may only be realized by end of 2010. So, MobiChange promises to be a very long journey of (self-)discovery for me.

Still, every long journey begins with a first step, and getting through round one of the Knight News Challenge is a great first step.

The deadline for round 2 of the Knight News Challenge is November 30, so you'll hear more on MobiChange soon.

Nokia Research on Mobile Phone Usage at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Part 2)

Gaurav Mishra — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:00:00 +0000

In my previous post on Nokia's research on mobile phone use at the bottom of the pyramid, I talked about the practice of sharing mobile phones and the challenges in designing a user interface for illiterate mobile phone users.

In this post, I'll talk about the informal service infrastructure that supports mobile phone use at the bottom of the pyramid.

Here, Jan Chipchase documents informal repair cultures in the developing world and asks --

What can we learn from informal repair cultures? Aside from the benefits, what are the risks for consumers and for companies whose products are repaired, refurbished and resold? Given the benefit to (bottom of the pyramid) consumers are there elements of the repair ecosystem that can be exported to other cultures? Can the same skills be applied to other parts of the value chain? And, given the range of resources and skills available what would it take to turn cultures of repair into cultures of innovation?

Here, Jan Chipchase and Duncan Burns explore street hacks for mobile phones (an update of the informal repair culture presentation) --

Here, Stuart Henshall (not from Nokia) shares his experience in buying a 'China phone' at Mumbai's Manish Market.

The cost of a repaired/ refurbished phone in the gray/ black market is often less than a third of the original handset. The informal repair culture is often convenient, efficient, fast and cheap, especially for poor customers who often don't have warranty. Together, they reduces both the initial cost of acquisition and the total cost of ownership and increase the lifetime of products, making them accessible to bottom of the pyramid customers. Not only that, these vendors often offer value add services like unlocking phones, installing pirated software, and uploading songs, extending the use cases of these low cost phones.

Here, Jan Chipchase and Indri Tulusan talk about street battery charging services in Uganda that enable residents without regular access to mains power to keep their mobile phone's charged. It's another example of how electricity is the bottleneck for mobile use in emerging Asia and Africa.

Finally, Jan Chipchase, Indri Tulusan and Lokesh Bitra deep dive into the practice of community address books maintained by phone kiosk owner to record the phone numbers used by their customers, a study that links back to their research on shared phone use.

In another post, I'll talk about how all this fits into Homegrown (slides), Nokia's umbrella project that includes Nokia Remade (phones made from recycled material), Zero Waste, People First, Everyone Connected, and, perhaps, even the Five Dollar Comparison (slides).

In yet another post, I'll write about the importance of Nokia Life Tools, Nokia's collaboration with Reuters Market Light and Idea Cellular to bring critical information to rural phone users in India (see Ken Banks, Ashish Sinha and Kiruba Shankar).

Nokia Open Studio: Nokia Asks Slum Residents to Design Their Ideal Future Mobile Phones

Gaurav Mishra — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:29:33 +0000

Nokia ethnographers Jan Chipchase and Younghee Jung share their experiences in conducting the Nokia Open Studio design contest in 2007 across three slums around the world -- Dharavi (Mumbai, India), Favela Jacarezinho (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and Camp Buduburam (Accra, Ghana) --

Ethnographic research methods guide the design research phase for innovation as far as creating opportunities through which we can understand the present living and underlying motivations behind why people behave the way they do. But it often does not let us see beyond the barriers of the present living: people who are not using technology not because they do not need it but because they cannot afford it; people who do not have time or social network to introduce them to new tools. Through open studios, we wanted to lift these barriers and understand how people see the relevance of technology in their lives, sometimes for the future, sometimes in relation to what is lacking today. It is not a marketing tool, and it is not a tool to hunt ideas to implement in products directly. But it is a tool that supports our thinking and projection about the future. (Younghee Jung)

Despite what you might assume for a studio, the most valuable output of the Open Studio is not the designs, but in providing an alternative way for people to articulate their wants and needs - within the context of their community. (Jan Chipchase)

The 220 entries included a range of creative ideas that ranged from simple statements, to complex conceptual representations, to highly symbolic expressions of their needs and desires. Ideas represented through the entries can be broadly divided into four overlapping themes -- device symbolism, functional enhancement, mobile convergence, and magical function --

- Device symbolism: Entries that used the device’s shape to symbolically represent the entrant’s preference, heritage, profession, and what they desire in the future through the shape of the device.

- Functional enhancement: Entries that focused on specific functions as solutions to problems or issues they are facing as individuals or communities.

- Mobile convergence: Entries that created attractive combinations of known functions on one mobile device, to enable easy access, especially in private contexts.

- Magical function: Entries that addressed the most important issue in their lives in mobile context, without any technical references or relevance to communication.

The underlying motivations represented through the entries included cost saving (combining device functionalities and enabling battery charging by solar energy), increasing convenience (combining device functionalities and wearing the mobile phone, often as a wrist watch), expressing identity, and enabling social change.

The conclusion reached by Jan and Younghee is at the center of my lowest common denominator design philosophy for MobiChange --

Their submissions highlighted that innovation in the context of these communities is not about newness of technology but relevance to the individual’s needs, usage contexts, and adaptability, especially for those who are exposed to the spread of technology or technology-driven products in a non-linear fashion compared to more developed markets.

For more details on the Nokia Open Studio see these two posts by Jan Chipchase and Younghee Jung.

Here is their paper and presentation on Nokia Open Studio --

Here is Younghee Jung's talk at Lift 2008 Conference --

-- and here is another video interview with her --

Here is a BusinessWeek slideshow on Nokia Open Studio.

Here's a presentation by Younghee Jung and Jan Chipchase that locates Nokia Open Studio in the context of their work at Nokia Design Studio --

Guest Lecture: Digital Divide 2.0, The Myth of Leapfrogging, and Grassroots Innovations

Gaurav Mishra — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Here is a presentation I will use for my guest lecture tomorrow in the Information Technology (IT) in a Changing World course at Georgetown University.

You can download the presentation with notes in a PPTX format, or view it online in a PDF format.

SLIDE 1: Global Digital Divide 2.0: Always Off in an Always On World

We can talk about digital divide in many contexts: between countries and within countries, driven by differences in race, gender, education, income and location. In this presentation, I'll focus on the global digital divide, or the digital divide between countries, but the same ideas are often applicable to digital divides within countries.

SLIDE 2: Introduction

My views on this topic are colored by my own biases. In terms of education and experience, I'm a marketer. In my present role as the GU-ISD Yahoo! Fellow, I'm a quasi-academic. In terms of inclination, I'm a social media enthusiast and my next avatar may be as a social entrepreneur. A lot of the work I'm doing is at the intersection of technology, culture and development and it is informed by my understanding of emerging markets and emerging technologies.

SLIDE 3: Global Digital Divide

Let's start off by looking at some examples of global digital divide.

SLIDE 4: The Link Between ICTs & GDP

Access to communications technologies is directly linked to the country's GDP, especially for newer technologies like broadband. The distribution of older technologies like internet and mobile is less skewed, but it’s often a moving target. For instance, high income countries as defined by the World Bank, contribute to 15.7% of the world's population but 79.9% of the world's GDP. They also contribute 38.7% of the world's mobile phone users, 42.7% of the world's fixed phone users, 55.7% of the world's internet users and 74% of the world's broadband users ¹.

SLIDE 5: World Map of Computer Penetration

The skewed distribution of technology is true for computers…²

SLIDE 6: World Map of Internet Penetration

internet access…³

SLIDE 7: World Map: Optical Fiber

optical fiber networks…⁴

SLIDE 8: Cost of Broadband Access

and cost of broadband access⁵. For instance, the cost of broadband access in Japan is $0.06 per 100 kbps (0.002% of average monthly wage) whereas in Mozambique it’s $361.83 per 100 kbps (1400 times average monthly wage).

SLIDE 9: Cost of Broadband Access

The same disparity exists between high income and low income countries on the whole. The cost of broadband access as a percentage of average monthly per capita income is 2.1% for high-income countries, compared to 909% for low-income countries. ⁶

SLIDE 10: Cost of ICT Access

The cost of internet and mobile access are less skewed. The cost of internet access as a percentage of average monthly per capita income is 0.9% for high-income countries, compared to 172% for low-income countries. The cost of mobile access as a percentage of average monthly per capita income is 0.7% for high-income countries, compared to 54.9% for low-income countries ⁷. The relatively flat cost of mobile access is, in fact, one of the main reasons why mobile penetrations have increase so fast in developing countries.

SLIDE 11: Reasons for Differential Technological Achievement

At this stage, it is perhaps useful to step back from ICTs, look at technology in general, and enquire into the reasons for differential technological achievement between countries.

SLIDE 12: Three Types of Technology Transfers

Technology transfer can happen in three ways in developing countries: new-to-market technologies can be invented in the country, technologies invented elsewhere can be adapted by the country, and technologies adapted by parts of the country can diffuse to the rest of the country⁸.

SLIDE 13: Technology Adaption vs. Diffusion

The good news is that the rate at which technology is adapted by emerging countries has increased: on average, the time it takes before official statistics in a developing country record significant exploitation of a new technology has declined from almost 100 years for innovations discovered in the 1800s to about 20 years for innovations discovered in the late 1900s.

The bad news is that emerging countries fair poorly on both invention and diffusion: even for technologies discovered during 1975–2000, only one third of the developing countries that have achieved at least a 5% penetration level have gone on to reach the 25% threshold and less than 10% have reached a 50% penetration level⁹.

SLIDE 14: Technological Achievement Index

As a result, even though the rapid progress in developing countries has led to relative convergence, the gap between high income and low income countries remains large.

In general, the level of technological achievement observed in a country is positively correlated with income levels. However, considerable variation is apparent within income groups.

Interestingly, the penetration rates of newer technologies such as mobile phones, computers, and the Internet (many of which are provided by corporations operating in competitive markets) are more directly correlated with income than is the case for older technologies such as fixed-line telephones, electrical power, transportation, and health care services (many of which were originally provided by governments)¹⁰.

SLIDE 15: What is Digital Divide 2.0?

As we discussed before, the digital divide will exist as long as income inequities exist. Over time, however, the shape of the digital divide has shifted.

SLIDE 16: The 4 Cs of Digital Divide 2.0

The 4 Cs of Digital Divide 2.0 include computing devices, connectivity, content, and capabilities.

In academic discussions on digital divide, two broad groups can be identified. The Digital Binary group has focused on access (computing devices and connectivity) whereas the Digital Inequality group has looked a broader definition of the digital divide that includes applications (content and capabilities) apart from access¹¹ ¹².

The difficulties in bridging the digital divide often increase as we move from computing devices and connectivity to content and capabilities.

SLIDE 17: Digital Divide 2.0

As we move from internet and mobile to broadband, 3G and next generation networks on the access side and from SMS and e-mail to web 2.0, mobile 2.0 and the semantic web on the application side, it is difficult to not notice that digital equality is a moving target. As the gap on older technologies narrows down, new gaps on new technologies open up. The global digital divide, in fact, is widening, instead of narrowing.

Specifically, even as the ubiquitous use of mobile phones bridges the digital divide between the developed and developed countries, another digital divide — digital divide 2.0 — is opening up between them. Digital divide 2.0 is not about access to communications devices; it’s about the ability to leverage the power of group-forming social communications technologies to collaborate with others, self-organize into grassroots communities and create crowd-sourced content that is relevant for these communities.

SLIDE 18: The Promise/ Myth of Leapfrogging

Leapfrogging is the idea that poor countries can skip over stages in technology adoption (especially large-scale, industrial, infrastructure-heavy technologies) and directly adopt newer, better technologies (especially light-weight, distributed, ecologically sustainable digital technologies).

SLIDE 19: The Promise of Leapfrogging

The classic example of leapfrogging is the ubiquitous adoption of mobile phones in the developing world. The idea that access to mobile phones will transform the world has become popular not only in the academic and development circles, but also in mass media and popular culture.

Consider this ad film from Indian mobile operator Idea Cellular that promises education for all through mobile phones ¹³ --

SLIDE 20: The Economic Value of Mobile

This idea is widely supported by research.

In 2005, research conducted by Leonard Waverman of London Business School showed that a developing country which had an average of 10 more mobile phones per 100 population between 1996 and 2003 would have enjoyed per capita GDP growth that was 0.59% higher than an otherwise identical country¹⁴.

In 2006, McKinsey & Co. found that the mobile industry contributes as much as 8% to the GDP of some countries, after factoring in direct impact from operators, indirect impact from other industry participants and the surplus created for enterprise and retail users¹⁵.

In fact, the very nature of mobile technology makes it an especially good leapfrogger: it works using radio, so there is no need to rely on physical infrastructure such as roads and phone wires; base-stations can be powered using their own generators in places where there is no electrical grid; and you do not have to be literate to use a phone, which is handy if your country's education system is in a mess. Unfortunately, the mobile phone turns out to be rather unusual and the widespread diffusion of most digital technologies is dependent on the existence of a solid social, economic and industrial infrastructure¹⁶.

SLIDE 21: The Myth of Leapfrogging

Unfortunately, the mobile phone turns out to be rather unusual and the widespread diffusion of most digital technologies is dependent on the existence of a solid social, economic and industrial infrastructure.

Broadly, two sets of obstacles stand in the way of technological progress in emerging economies. The first is their technological inheritance. Most advances are based on the labors of previous generations: you need electricity to run computers and mobile phone networks. The second is the country’s capacity to absorb technology: which is dependent on education, R&D, financial systems, rule of law, business climate and good governance.

SLIDE 22: Mobile Interface for Illiterate Users

Even in the case of mobile phones, owning one is not the same as knowing how to use one.

In a long term qualitative research led by Jan Chipchase, the Nokia Research team found that non-literate mobile phone users typically know how to turn on the phone, receive calls and make local calls, but often struggle with features that require text editing, such as making long distance calls (by using prefixes), creating a contact, saving a text message, and creating a text message. Based on the research, they concluded that bringing personal, convenient, synchronous and asynchronous communication within the reach of textually non-literate users will require design innovations at three levels: on the phone; in the communications eco-system; and on the carrier network¹⁷.

SLIDE 23: Telecom Usage at the BOP

Similarly, in a large-scale quantitative research conducted in 2006, LIRNEasia found that most mobile users at the bottom of the pyramid felt that the phone improved their ability to learn and earn.

Still, most users only knew how to perform the most basic tasks on their phones. For instance, only 35% of the respondents in India had used SMS, because of low literacy and the absence of any social need to use it. 72% of the respondents in India hadn’t even heard of the internet¹⁸.

SLIDE 24: Telecom Usage at the BOP

Let's look at these two videos to get a flavor of telecom usage at the bottom of the pyramid ¹⁹ ²⁰ --

SLIDE 25: How to Bridge Digital Divide 2.0?

The big question, of course, is: how do we bridge digital divide 2.0?

The good news is that we do know what to do. The bad news is that there are are no shortcuts to bridge the digital divide.

SLIDE 26: Government Policy is Important

Government policy is important, both for building linkages with other countries for technology adaption and for building the country’s absorptive capacity for technology diffusion. Only when these two are in place will the spillover and multiplier effects of communications technologies kick in²¹.

SLIDE 27: Grassroots Innovations Are Equally Important

…but grassroots innovations are equally important in bridging the digital divide.

Here are a few of my favorite ICT4D grassroots innovations.

SLIDE 28: VNL MicroTelecom (India)

VNL’s WorldGSM MicroTelecom is a low cost, rugged, solar powered mobile network designed to serve rural populations profitably.

SLIDE 29: Grameen Village Phone (Bangladesh)

The Grameen Foundation gives microloans to help poor rural woman become public phone operators.

SLIDE 30: United Villages (India)

United Villages uses a van fitted with wifi to connect villages to the internet, with a time lag.

SLIDE 31: QuestionBox (India)

QuestionBox uses human mediation to connect illiterate users to the internet.

SLIDE 32: EkGaon CAMS Mobile Framework (India)

EkGaon’s CAMS Mobile Framework is a paper-mobile hybrid document management system for semi-literate users.

SLIDE 33: BabaJob/ Microsoft Research (India)

BabaJob and Microsoft Research have created a text free job search engine.

SLIDE 34: Ushahidi (Kenya)

Ushahidi uses a Google Maps mashup to map crisis information using text messages sent by users.

SLIDE 35: MobiChange (India)

MobiChange, a project I’m evangelizing, hopes to develop a lowest common denominator mobile social networking platform.

SLIDE 36: Discussion

Finally, I’ll leave you with three questions –

- Is the digital divide narrowing or widening?
- Is leapfrogging a myth or reality?
- Is government policy more important, or grassroots innovations?

References

- 1 ITU-UNCTAD World Information Society Report, 2007

- 2 United Nations Global Development Goals Indication

- 3 Emiel van Wegen based on World Internet Stats data

- 4 Tata Communications

- 5 Wired Magazine based on ITU data

- 6 ITU-UNCTAD World Information Society Report, 2007

- 7 ITU-UNCTAD World Information Society Report, 2007

- 8 World Bank Global Economic Prospects, 2008

- 9 World Bank Global Economic Prospects, 2008

- 10 World Bank Global Economic Prospects, 2008

- 11 Technology and Social Inclusion, Mark Warschauer, 2003

- 12 Eszter Hargittai et al, 2001

- 13 Idea Celluler Education-for-All Ad

- 14 McKinsey & Co, 2006

- 15 Leonard Waverman et al, 2005

- 16 The Economist, 2008

- 17 World Bank Global Economic Prospects, 2008

- 18 Jan Chipchase et al, Nokia Research, 2007

- 19 Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid, LIRNEasia, 2007

- 20 LIRNEasia Teleuse at the BOP Film, Part 1

- 21 LIRNEasia Teleuse at the BOP Film, Part 2

LIRNEasia Study on Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:44:23 +0000

I recently came across an amazing study done by ICT4D research organization LIRNEasia on Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Here are the key findings from the 2006 study amongst 8660 respondents (including 6605 SEC D and E respondents) in India, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand --

- At the BOP, access to phones (more than 90%) is much higher than ownership of phones (20% to 50%) due to heavy used of shared, borrowed and public phones.

- At the BOP, males are heavier users of mobile phones while females are heavier users of household landline phones.

- BOP users make an average of one call per day, mostly local, mostly 2-3 minutes long, mostly to stay in touch with family and friends.

- At the BOP, convenience, in terms of anytime accessibility, is the biggest driver in the purchase of both fixed and mobile phones. The ability to afford the initial cost (up to $50) of getting connected is the biggest reason for not buying a phone even though monthly charges are low (as low as $5).

- Most BOP phone owners (up to 70% in India) feel that owning a phone has improved their ability to earn or save.

- Only 35% of the BOP mobile phone owners in India use SMS (compared to 100% in Philippines) primarily because they don't know how to use SMS (party due to low local language support) and the cost of an outgoing voice call is almost the same as the cost of a SMS.

- BOP mobile phone users adopt various cost-cutting techniques including making missed calls, using the mobile phone exclusively for incoming calls, making only mobile-to-mobile calls and making calls at off-peak hours.

- More than 95% of the BOP mobile phone users have pre-paid connections to control costs and avoid documentation. Most of them do infrequent top-ups once in a month or even longer (>90% in India).

- More than half of the BOP non-owners want to buy a phone in the next 2 years. Almost a third of them (skewed towards female and rural users) want to buy a fixed connection. Most of the prospective BOP phone users have incomes of less than $150 per month.

- Finally, almost 70% of the BOP respondents in India hadn't heard of the internet yet in 2006 (wow!).

Here is a three part presentation on the findings -- 1, 2, 3 -- and here is a two part video report on the study -- 1, 2 --

Mobile for Development Innovations in Africa

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:34:32 +0000

The story on using mobile innovations for development in Africa has been unfolding for a while now, but it has become even more prominent since the Surprising Africa special at the Picnic 2008 conference in Amsterdam and the MobileActive 2008 conference in Johannesburg.

Here's what some of the people who are writing the story on mobile-based social innovation in Africa have to say about it.

Ethan Zuckerman from Golbal Voices --

If Africa is surprising, then you're not paying enough attention.

Jonathan Gosier from AppAfrica (link) --

For social entrepreneurs and investors, the innovation occurring here is a huge sign of progress that could potentially change the continent's world standing forever. The most exciting aspect for me, however, is the decreased reliance on developmental aid and foreign groups to provide these solutions. The number of African developers who are beginning to create applications that offer solutions for their own communities is increasing and that, more than anything else, will shape the future of Africa.

Eric Hersman from Ushahidi (link/ slides) --

Here’s one more compelling thought. The challenges brought about by bad governance, poverty, low bandwidth (all the negative things you associate with Africa) also provide an incredible opportunity. The developers who are coming up with solutions in the continent, the ones who are writing software or hacking hardware, are creating for some of the harshest environments and use-cases in the world. If it works in Africa, it will work anywhere.

Lowest common denominator design is at the core of MobiChange -- it doesn't work if it doesn't work for everybody, everywhere -- and here is a list of African mobile for development innovations I often turn towards for inspiration --

- Mobile Payments: MPESA (kenya), Wizzit (South Africa), Celpay (Zambia)

- Citizen Journalism: Africa News, Ushahidi (Kenya and South Africa), Sokwanele (Zimbabwe), Afrigator, Mzalendo (Kenya).

- Consumer Activism: mPedigree (Ghana).

- Access: WinAfrique (Kenya), Feedelix (Ethiopia), EthioBlog (Ethiopia), mobile phones on bicycles and wheelchairs, mobile charging stations.

- Agriculture: TradeNet (West Africa), Manobi (Senegal).

- Health: TxtAlert, SocialTxt and Mobilisr by Praekelt Foundation (South Africa)

Also See: Jonathan Gosier (1, 2, 3), Jason Harris (1, 2), Ethan Zuckerman, Amy Smith, Paul Polak, Ben Turner.

Electricity is the Bottleneck for Mobile Penetration in Rural India

Gaurav Mishra — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:02:50 +0000

Atanu Dey on why electricity is the bottleneck for mobile usage in rural India --

We don’t usually associate telecommunications with power. But cellular towers don’t work on love and fresh air (and fresh air is not something that you can take for granted, anyway.) They require power and in areas where the grid is unreliable, you have to spend fairly large sums on diesel generator sets. That, among others, is a major problem in rural India. The cost of energy accounts for a third of the operating costs of a cellular network, I am told. Higher costs means higher prices. So what’s to be done.

I am a firm believer in the market. The market figures out a solution. Recently I came across a firm that has developed cellular technology that is miserly in the use of electricity. It does not require grid and can do without diesel generator sets. It is VNL, a Swedish Indian company. As they claim, “VNL’s WorldGSM™ is the industry’s first microtelecom solution; a complete re-engineering of GSM for the billions of low-income, rural users.”

As you know by now, I'm a big believer in the idea of of transforming the macro into the micro and microtelecom sounds more exciting than anything else I have heard of late.

By the way, mobile penetration in rural India is growing fast. According to TRAI, at the end of June 2008, the rural wireless subscriber base in India was 71 million, or 25% of the 287 million mobile subscribers in India. Even more importantly, out of the 25.8 million new mobile subscribers in April to June, 8.55 million, or more than 30%, were rural subscribers.

Clearly, mobile penetration in rural India is increasing and initiatives like microtelecom will only enable the process.

A Mobile Customer Support Backbone in Rural India

Gaurav Mishra — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:37:18 +0000

Sayantan Sen e-mailed me to suggest an innovative use case for MobiChange -- to help expand operations for service providers in rural India by providing a SMS based customer support backbone --

One of the main reasons why many of the services/ facilities that we take for granted in cities are not available in rural India is because corporations/ service providers balk at the high cost of customer care... be it in the form of physical check up of the facilities or service via some other media.

You may want to leverage the capability of MobiChange in expanding the base of service providers who can now provide services to the deepest pockets of India at an affordable cost.

Recently, I came across an organization that sets up bio gas plants using animal waste. The main concern for them to scale their operations is they do not have means to provide service in the some of the parts of the country. They have found that using mobiles and an introductionary training course they can provide service in a very cost effective manner.

It sounds really interesting to me. What do you think?

MobiChange is Now Live: Here's How You Can Help

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:58:24 +0000

A (pre) alpha version of MobiChange went live today and my mailbox is flooded with mails requesting alpha invites and asking me if I need any help.

So, let me give you a quick overview of where MobiChange is today, where does it go from here, and how you can help it get there.

As you know, MobiChange is a work-in-progress open-source, multi-lingual mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and help mobilize social change.

That's a big claim to make and MobiChange is not quite there yet. As of today, MobiChange is equal to this website plus about one-third of my time.

I see MobiChange taking about a year to reach Version 1 from the present Version -3 and I see it happening in three phases: Ideation, Implementation and Iteration. And, yes, you can help in all three phases.

Phase 1 (Ideation): The present version of the website is designed to host a community of 'Friends of MobiChange' who can be mobile developers, non-profit practitioners or mobile for development enthusiasts. I'm hoping to host some interesting conversations on the design and applications of the MobiChange platform and develop the MobiChange blueprint with your help. In this phase, you can help me by subscribing/ registering, spreading the word, and sharing your knowledge and connections with the rest of the community. I have already enabled the accounts for everybody who has registered for the alpha invites, so that you can start commenting on the website. In a week or two, once I have all the community features under control, I'll start enabling author access, so that you can write posts, forum entries and book pages.

Phase 2 (Implementation): MobiChange will enter phase 2 once the product specs and the development team are in place. Between Drupal and Laconica, most of the building blocks for the MobiChange open-source code base are already in the public domain and it shouldn't be difficult for a smart set of geeks to hack together the code in about a month. You can help MobiChange prepare for this phase by helping me connect with developers and designers who are excited by the idea of doing good through code.

Phase 3 (Iteration): MobiChange will enter phase 3 once the code base and the funding to iterate on it are in place. The iteration will involve working with local communities in India to build customized applications, testing the functionality and usability of the applications through ethnographic studies, and changing the code base to better service the needs of these communities. Perhaps, a fellowship model will work best in this phase to reach out to a significant number of local communities in a short time. You can also help MobiChange prepare for this phase by helping me connect with local NGOs/ NPOs in India who would like to explore the possibilities of a mobile social network.

So, if you believe in the promise of MobiChange, become a part of the community and help it realize that promise. Subscribe here to receive updates about MobiChange and register here to participate in the MobiChange community.

How to Find Unusual Users for Your SMS Application

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:01:53 +0000

Sushrut Bidwai (@SushrutBidwai) writes two interesting posts on how you can find unusual users for your SMS application, if you only know where to look --

Why can’t you reach to customers in villages/taluka places who have mobiles but don’t use SMSes? You can. I know you will say that these people can’t type SMS and literacy rates are low. Yes, they can. I do lot of field work and I know that a lot of them (30% approximately) can. So who can send them useful SMS which these people, let's say farmers, can use for there advantage? Traders. For example, Nasik exports grape to global market. Lot of farmers who export them are not literate but are rich and have mobiles. Now you can bridge these farmers in Nasik to exporters in Mumbai using SMS channel. How? Go to traders in Mumbai and see how they work. For every day they will call n differnt farmers telling them todays market price and if they want to sell for that market value. Otherwise farmers go directly to markets and sell it for available market price. So you can help farmers get good pricing for there goods and you can help traders in managing their supply chain using SMS channels. (link)

My father, who worked in Maharashtra irrigation department, told me that the District Collector communicates with them using SMSes! Reach to them. Go and talk to these people and make them see how they can use SMSGupshup like platform (SMSGupshup is branded wrongly, so first build a me-too product with much better branding). These large monolithic organizations require sending of memos (often one-liners) and receipt of memos. See if you can make them use SMS for the communication. (link)

Book: Use Cases for MobiChange

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:31:27 +0000

When I think of how MobiChange will be used, I imagine a twenty-something carpenter or plumber or shop assistant or courier boy in Mumbai who has spent two weeks worth of his salary to buy a $50 mobile phone.

He can read the English alphabet but doesn’t know how to write or speak a full sentence in English. He has seen a computer but doesn’t know how to use it.

I imagine him trying out MobiChange because one of his friends who works with the local non-profit has told him how useful it is.

It isn't easy at first, and I see him struggling with the simple and supposedly intuitive multi-lingual SMS based menu. After a week or two, I see him learning how to use it and doing some of the things we take for granted on social networks — meeting new people with common interests, finding new ways to entertain himself, benefiting from new opportunities for learning and earning, even sharing his own knowledge and skills with others.

How do you see an open-source, multi-lingual, SMS based social networking platform being used? Do share your ideas in the form of stories like this, one story per book page.

MobiChange: Using Mobile Social Networking for Mobilizing Social Change

Gaurav Mishra — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:30:33 +0000

MobiChange is seeking funding to develop an open-source, multi-lingual mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and help mobilize social change.

What? | Why? | Where? | Who?

MobiChange at Knight News Challenge Garage

Gaurav Mishra — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Apart from Google's Project 10^100, I'm also submitting MobiChange at the Knight News Challenge. Here is the full text of my submission to the Knight News Challenge Garage. As you can see, some of the ideas here are based on your feedback on my Project 10^100 submission. As before, I'll request you to take out ten minutes and share your thoughts on how I can improve my submission,

Describe your project:

MobiChange is a social entrepreneurship venture that will leverage mobile social networking for mobilizing social change.

Even as the ubiquitous use of mobile phones bridges the digital divide between the developed and developed countries, another digital divide — digital divide 2.0 — is opening up between the haves and have-nots. Digital divide 2.0 is not about access to communications devices; it’s about the ability to leverage the power of group-forming social communications technologies to collaborate with others, self-organize into grassroots communities and create crowd-sourced content that is relevant for these communities.

MobiChange will enable disadvantaged communities to benefit from the power of group-forming social networks by bringing these technologies to the $50 mobile phone that can only be used to make voice calls and send text messages.

MobiChange will be an open-source mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and help mobilize social change. The social network will exist in the cloud, like other social networks, but it will be designed to be accessed almost exclusively by mobile phones via intuitive multi-lingual voice and text message based menus developed for lowest common denominator user. It will be built on an open source code base (like the Laconica micro-blogging platform and the Drupal SMS Framework) to support customization by developers and non-profits to create local cause-based communities. These local communities themselves will be connected with each other to enable knowledge sharing. The open source MobiChange API itself will link into other grassroots micro-change projects (like Kiva) to create new ways to connect communities and create change opportunities.

How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities?

Even as the ubiquitous use of mobile phones bridges the digital divide between the developed and developed countries, another digital divide -- digital divide 2.0 -- is opening up between the haves and have-nots. Digital divide 2.0 is not about access to communications devices; it's about the ability to leverage the power of group-forming social communications technologies to collaborate with others, self-organize into grassroots communities and create crowd-sourced content that is relevant for these communities. MobiChange will enable disadvantaged communities to leverage the power of group-forming social networks by bringing these technologies to the $50 mobile phone that can only be used to make voice calls and send text messages.

When I think of how MobiChange will be used, I imagine a twenty-something carpenter or plumber or shop assistant or courier boy in Mumbai who has spent two weeks worth of his salary to buy a $50 mobile phone. He can read the English alphabet but doesn’t know how to write or speak a full sentence in English. He has seen a computer but doesn’t know how to use it. I imagine him trying out MobiChange because one of his friends who works with the local non-profit has told him how useful it is. It isn't easy at first, and I see him struggling with the simple and supposedly intuitive multi-lingual SMS based menu. After a week or two, I see him learning how to use it and doing some of the things we take for granted on social networks — meeting new people with common interests, finding new ways to entertain himself, benefiting from new opportunities for learning and earning, even sharing his own knowledge and skills with others.

How is your idea innovative? (New or different from what already exists.)

In the recent past, SMS Gupshup has built a subscriber base of 7 million in India for their group SMS service, Twitter has demonstrated that a vibrant social network can be simplified enough to be used almost exclusively on mobile phones, Laconica has built an open source federated micro-blogging platform, and Drupal has built an open source SMS integration for its content management platform.

Twitter and SMSGupShup, as great as they are, offer really limited social networking functionalities. For instance, Twitter doesn’t allow groups, it doesn’t offer multi-lingual SMS support and it isn’t voice-accessible. Moreover, it isn’t open source and a vibrant API ecosystem isn’t the same as a vibrant open source developer ecosystem. SMSGupShup doesn't even offer many-to-many messaging. Open source platforms like Laconica and the Drupal SMS Framework are closer to what the MobiChange code base will look like, but even they haven’t been designed for the lowest common denominator user.

MobiChange should build on these initiatives to develop its open-source mobile social networking platform. However, it is critical that the development of the platform is based on extensive ethnographic research conducted amongst mobile phone users and NGOs in developing Asia and Africa. This will ensure not only that the user interface is intuitive for the sometimes semi-literate users but also that the functionality addresses real non-trivial problems in their everyday lives.

What experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project?

Gaurav Mishra brings to MobiChange a rare set of skills -- a combination of deep academic and practical understanding of social media on one hand and extensive senior management experience in the Indian consumer market on the other hand.

Gaurav is the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet at Georgetown University. Gaurav's research is focused on how social media is used differently by individuals and institutions in BRIC countries as compared to their first world counterparts. Gaurav will also teach a graduate course on the use of social media in business, government and development at Georgetown University in Spring 2009.

Gaurav is serving at Georgetown University on leave from his role as the National Brand Head for Indica at Tata Motors, which is a part of the Tata Group, India's largest business conglomerate.

Gaurav writes regularly on social media at Gauravonomics Blog and is frequently quoted in media as an authority on the emerging social media scene in India. Gaurav has also contributed chapters to two books on social media.

Gaurav has an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

(Originally posted at Gauravonomics Blog).

MobiChange at Google's Project 10^100

Gaurav Mishra — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I'm all set to submit MobiChange to Google's Project 10^100 (see my earlier post on Project 10^100), but before I hit the submit button, I want to ask for your help in improving the idea. So, here is my complete submission. I'll be grateful if you take out ten minutes and tell me what you think about it.

- The name of the idea: MobiChange

- The category of the idea: Community

- The idea in one sentence: An open-source mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and help mobilize social change.

- The idea in more depth: Communications technologies play an important role in development by enabling better economic decisions, building capability at both the individual and the institutional levels, and having multiplier effects across economic sectors. The mobile phone, by the virtue of being the only truly accessible and affordable communications technology available in many developing countries, is increasingly being seen as the key to bridge the digital divide and unlock the economic potential of developing Asia and Africa.

However, group forming social networks (that follow Reed's Law) are exponentially more powerful than telecommunications networks (that follow Metcalfe's Law). For instance, for a network with 100 users, a mobile telecommunications network can have a maximum of 4,950 connections while a mobile social network can have a maximum of 1,267,650,600,228,230,000,000,000,000,000 connections. Mobile social networks can, therefore, leverage the ubiquity of mobile phones to support local communities and help mobilize social change.

The idea behind MobiChange is simple. MobiChange will be an open-source mobile social networking platform, accessible by voice and SMS, designed to support local communities and help mobilize social change. The social network, built on the values of collaboration, community and user generated content, will exist in the cloud, like other social networks. It will be designed to be accessed exclusively by mobile phones via intuitive multi-lingual voice and text message based menus. It will be open source to support customization by NGOs to create local cause-based communities. These cause-based communities themselves will be connected with each other to enable knowledge sharing. The open source MobiChange API itself will link into other grassroots micro-change projects (like Kiva) to create new ways to connect communities and create change opportunities.

- The issue addressed by the idea: Even as the ubiquitous use of mobile phones bridges the digital divide between the developed and developed countries, another digital divide -- digital divide 2.0 -- is opening up between the haves and have-nots. Digital divide 2.0 is not about access to communications devices; it's about the ability to leverage the power of group-forming social communications technologies to collaborate with others, self-organize into grassroots communities and create crowd-sourced content that is relevant for these communities. MobiChange will enable disadvantaged communities to leverage the power of group-forming social networks by bringing these technologies to the $50 mobile phone that can only be used to make voice calls and send text messages.

- Who will benefit from the idea and how: There are 3.66 billion mobile phone users in the world, compared to 1.46 billion internet users. Therefore, there are at least 2.20 billion mobile phone users across the world, mostly in developing Asia and Africa, who don't have access to the internet. As mobile phone penetration is expected to grow faster than computer penetration in the coming years, mobile phones will continue to be primary computing devices in most of developing Asia and Africa. Not only that, most of the mobile phones in these countries will continue to be low end $50 devices that can only be used to make voice calls and send text messages. MobiChange will bring the power of group-forming social networks to these 2.2 billion mobile phone users and bridge the gap between the digital divide 2.0 haves and have-nots.

- The initial steps required to get the idea off the ground: In the recent past, SMS Gupshup has built a subscriber base of 7 million in India for their group SMS service, Twitter has demonstrated that a rich social network can be simplified enough to be used almost exclusively on mobile pones, Laconica has built an open source federated micro-blogging platform, and Drupal has built an open source SMS integration for its content management platform. MobiChange should build on these initiatives to develop its open-source mobile social networking platform. However, it is critical that the development of the platform is based on extensive ethnographic research conducted amongst mobile phone users and NGOs in developing Asia and Africa. This will ensure not only that the user interface is intuitive for the sometimes semi-literate users but also that the functionality addresses real non-trivial problems in their everyday lives.

- Measurement of the outcomes of the idea: I would consider MobiChange to be successful, if it is widely adopted by NGOs and mobile phone users in developing Asia and Africa and used to solve real non-trivial problems. I would measure MobiChange's success in terms of three quantitative metrics -- the robustness of the developer community for the open-source code, the adoption of the mobile social networking platform amongst NGOs, and the adoption of the applications built on the platform amongst mobile users in developing Asia and Africa. The most important measure, however, will be a qualitative one -- if the application developers, NGOs and mobile phone users are using MobiChange to solve real non-trivial problems.

Finally, here is a presentation on MobiChange --

MobiChange

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social-change mobile-social-networks)

-- based on which I made the 30 sec video for the submission --

Once again, do take out a moment to share your feedback with me, either in the comments section, or via e-mail.

Update: I submitted MobiChange to Google's Project 10^100, after factoring in some of your feedback. Thank you for taking out the time to share your suggestions with me.

(Originally posted at Gauravonomics Blog).

Thank You for Sharing Such Great Feedback on MobiChange

Gaurav Mishra — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I'm totally delighted with the great feedback I have received on MobiChange.

Ben Turner commented on the post:

You might want to... focus on another angle: increased robustness of tools through lowest-common denominator design, then seeing if that leads us in any interesting, innovative directions.

@Ben: You hit the nail on the head. Lowest common denominator design is indeed the key to MobiChange.

Lavanya commented on the post --

It would be good if you give an example in words and not just diagrams. So take an NGO by name and say how it will connect to everyone else. The idea is easy to follow, but making it simpler will not reduce its value.

@Lavanya: You are right. I should illustrate the idea with examples of use cases. Coming up soon.

Ranjan Varma commented on the post --

What are the actionable deliverables for this great idea? Everybody wants to learn but doesn't want to be taught. So, how do you address the challenge of providing relevant content for the idea?

@Ranjan: I'm sure that learning/ teaching will be one of the use cases for MobiChange, but I don't think that it will be its primary use case.

When I think of how MobiChange will be used, I imagine a twenty-something carpenter or plumber or shop assistant or courier boy in Mumbai who has spent two weeks worth of his salary to buy a $50 mobile phone. He can read the English alphabet but doesn't know how to write or speak a full sentence in English. He has seen a computer but doesn't know how to use it. I imagine him struggling with the supposedly intuitive multi-lingual SMS based menu of MobiChange because one of his friends has told him how useful it is. After a week or two, I see him learning how to use it and doing some of the things we take for granted on social networks -- meeting new people with common interests, finding new ways to entertain himself, benefiting from new opportunities for learning and earning, even sharing his own knowledge and skills with others.

I don't yet know how MobiChange will look or work, except that it has to be simple enough to be intuitive to the lowest common denominator, but I that's how I imagine it being used.

Manuscrypt shared links to the UN Foundation/ Vodafone Foundation report on Wireless Technology for Social Change and RWW report on MobiActive '08 conference.

@Manuscrypt: Thanks for sharing these two wonderful resources. MobileActive is an amazing resource for mobile enthusiasts and I follow it really closely. Most of the present 'mobile for social change' projects, however, use the broadcast network and telecommunications network applications of mobile technology, not the group-forming social network aspect of it.

Jana Branch wrote to me by e-mail --

Adoption is the question. Is there some short statement about how mobichange.org would be different from other mobile networks in driving usage/ adoption? What's going to push its momentum to the point it gains that viral energy?

Perhaps something to address the human element that is always at the heart of technology -- a network of "in the virtual field" organizers who help communities or NGOs get up and running with a set of ready-to-go templates for different types of campaigns?

@Jana: Yes, you totally got it. I'm sure that designing the open-source code base for MobiChange will be only 10% of the work. The other 90% of the work will involve working with local communities offline to build functionalities that solve real problems in the context of their everyday lives.

Solomon-Hopewell Kembo wrote to me by e-mail --

I am an open source enthusiast based on Mozambique, originally from Zimbabwe. I see the potential of Mobichange and if you ever require help to spread the Mobichange message and also to translate anything free of charge in this side of the world, I am your man. As someone who is also working on NGO-based open source projects you have my support.

@Solomon: Thanks for your offer; I'll take you up on it immediately. I'm more of a thinker than a coder myself, and I'm looking for geeks who can build on some of the projects I have mentioned in the post and develop the open-source code base.

Abhilash commented on SlideShare --

Honestly, I love the idea of mobile social networks. The point is, however, most of us do realize its value - and what everyone's interested in, is how mobichange.org is going to penetrate the market. There are mobile social networks today, with low penetration. mobichange.org is better. Multilingual voice support. Open source. But what is the killer push required for penetration into local communities?

@Abhilash: I'm sure that MobiChange will not go viral and spread on its own. A project like this will require grassroots outreach in local communities with the help of organizations that already have an offline outreach infrastructure. For instance, if I was to pilot MobiChange in Mumbai, one of the first people I'll speak to will be Karmayog.

Codelion commented on Twitter (this is the same question Shripriya had asked me earlier) --

What does mobichange do which cannot be done already by using twitter or other micro blogging solutions?

@Codelion/ @Shripriya: Twitter, as great as it is, offers really limited social networking functionalities. For instance, it doesn't allow groups, it doesn't offer multi-lingual SMS support and it isn't voice-accessible. Moreover, it isn't open source and a vibrant API ecosystem isn't the same as a vibrant open source developer ecosystem. Open source platforms like Laconica and the Drupal SMS Framework are closer to what the MobiChange code base will look like, but even they haven't been designed for the lowest common denominator user.

It's great to be part of this conversation. Do keep the ideas coming.

(Originally posted on Gauravonomics Blog).

The Simple Idea Behind MobiChange

Gaurav Mishra — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

The real opportunity in the mobile services business is at the two extremes.

At the top end of the market, mobile phone are really compact, but really powerful, location-aware, always-on computing devices. This model presumes ubiquitous and unlimited data access (including wi-fi access), and a Java-enabled smart phone with GPS and a sophisticated mobile browser. Japan and South Korea have already established the proof of concept for this model and iPhone and other smart phones are creating a mainstream market for it. Most of the oomph and much of the money in the mobile services business is at this end of the market, but the number of users is still small (less than 300 million worldwide).

At the lower end of the market, mobile phones are the only communications device people have access to. The mobile phones themselves sell for as little as $20 and usage is primarily driven by voice and text messaging. This end of the mobile services business has little oomph but there is some serious money to be made here, because of the sheer size of the user base (almost 3.5 billion worldwide).

The idea behind MobiChange -- a project that hopes to use the power of mobile social networks to mobilize social change -- is really simple.

You start by stripping off layers from the typical smart phone associated with mobile social networking -- take out the GPS, then the data plan, then the mobile browser -- until you are left with a basic $20 mobile phone that essentially has a phone book, apart from voice and text messaging capabilities.

Then, you add back the social networking functionality to the mobile phone, so that the social network sits in the cloud but is accessed by the mobile phone via (many-to-many) text messaging. This creates a social networking platform that 3.5 billion people around the world can potentially use. This also creates a social networking platform that can be potentially used to spread commercial and non-commercial messages to 3.5 billion people.

Then, on top of this ubiquitous mobile social networking platform, you add the understanding of how to use social media for social change. Then, you open-source the platform, so that any non-profit, anywhere in the world, can customize it to create a local mobile-based community around their own cause. Then, you connect these local mobile-based communities with other local mobile-based communities.

Now, imagine thousands of cause-based local communities, each local community loosely connected to other communities, in an ever-expanding and truly ubiquitous mobile web built to mobilize social change.

That's the simple idea behind MobiChange.

(Originally posted at Gauravonomics Blog)

Google's Project 10^100: How Many People Could Your Idea Help

Gaurav Mishra — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Google is inviting innovative ideas that will change the world and help the highest number of people. The initiative is called Project 10^100 (10^100 is a way of expressing the number "googol," a one followed by one hundred zeroes) and Google has committed $10 million to realize the selected ideas --

Here's how it works. You submit a short description of the idea (and maybe a video) by October 20th, under one of eight categories (community, opportunity, energy, environment, health, education, shelter, and everything else). Google will put up a selection of hundred ideas for public voting and shortlist the twenty most popular ideas. Finally, an advisory board will select up to five final ideas and Google will use an RFP process to identify the organization(s) that are in the best position to implement the selected ideas.

So, Project 10^100 is not a social entrepreneurship venture fund -- it is meant for people whose desire to see their idea being brought to life is bigger than their desire to bring it to life themselves. I know how powerful that desire can be -- because I feel it (suffer from it?) myself -- and I applaud Google for tapping into it.

I believe that MobiChange is an idea that can change the lives of billions of people. I believe that MobiChange is an idea that is big enough for Project 10¹⁰⁰, which also means that it is probably an idea that is much bigger than myself. It's a difficult thought to come to terms with, but also a liberating one.

Expect much more on MobiChange on this blog in the run up to October 20th.

(Originally posted at Gauravonomics Blog)

How to Use Social Media for Social Change

Gaurav Mishra — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I recently announced that I’ll be spending some serious time this year working on MobiChange, a social entrepreneurship venture that will leverage mobile social networking for mobilizing social change.

I have been doing some research on how to use social media for social change and I believe that a truly powerful social 2.0 initiative needs to be --

1. Mobile, because most of the developing world still doesn't have access to computers.
2. Scalable, because standalone events/ initiatives can only have limited localized impact.
3. Self-sustainable, because it won't last unless it pays for itself.

That's the benchmark I'll have in mind, when I set up MobiChange.

(Originally posted at Gauravonomics Blog)

MobiChange: Mobile Social Networking for Mobilizing Social Change

Gaurav Mishra — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I’ll be spending some serious time this year working on MobiChange, a social entrepreneurship venture that will leverage mobile social networking for mobilizing social change.

No, I don't know enough about either "mobile social networking" or "mobilizing social change", but I do know that mobile-based communities can be critical catalysts for transforming youngsters into committed change agents. So, I'll start from whatever little I do know and learn the rest.

I was inspired to dream up MobiChange by Umair Haque's exhortation to use technology to solve real problems and Po Bronson's advice to search for something you can devote your life to.

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(Originally posted at Gauravonomics Blog)