MobileActive.org

Practice-Based What? Teaching mHealth to the Next Generation

Marion McNabb — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 19:19:04 +0000

One of the main reasons I joined the Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) program at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) in the United States was because of the philosophy of practice-based learning the school employs. This approach at BUSPH is certainly not limited to the DrPH program - it is the mantra the school uses for teaching public health. So, like any other great approach that has merit, we chose to bring this this type of education to mHealth and the world of mHealth to BUSPH students.

The next generation of public health practitioners will benefit from the chance to learn about a field that is emerging as an important tool in public health programs. But it’s not just about learning how cool this topic is – it’s about learning how to help countries and programs integrate mobile technology in a smart, data-driven and informed way. One year ago, a few faculty members from BUSPH had a brilliant idea – why not teach a mHealth course for our public health students? However, this concept isn’t entirely new. The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) has offered a mHealth course for masters of public health (MPH) students for years and is forming a certificate program in eHealth. (We definitely leaned on them heavily in the design of our course! Thanks JHSPH colleagues!) TechChange also partnered with the mHealth Alliance to offer a four week online course on mHealth for public health practitioners. (Thank you TechChange for your help in planning our course too and I really enjoyed taking your course!) We at BUSPH decided we would build off the practice-oriented nature of BUSPH courses for our mHealth course for MPH and DrPH students with practical teaching and learning.

And so here we are. In just under two months, we (Marion McNabb MPH, Jonathan Payne MS, Dr. Chris Gill, and Dr. Jim Wolff) will teach the first mHealth course at BUSPH from March – May 2013. Students will work as consultants for organizations implementing mHealth projects in the field. The premise? We want to expose these bright professionals to what it really means to work in the field of mHealth - as much as any classroom can do this. We have four partner organizations for the course: Partners in Health-Mexico, Pathfinder International - Nigeria, Dimagi LLC, and PharmAccess - Namibia.

Students will learn about the comprehensive theoretical, behavior change, practical and realistic needs of a mHealth project by interacting with these organizations as a “consulting firm” – all guided by the instructors. At the start of the course, students will be given a project task: a real need that the organization faces in their public health programs that mobile technology can address. The students will respond through the course by developing a comprehensive situational analysis, project plan and mHealth application using CommCare and FrontlineSMS platforms. The idea is that partner organizations can use the student products in their day-to-day mHealth programming in the future. Students will present their final mHealth project plan and application to the organizations and members of the public at the end of the course. What is the end result? Learning by doing.

I selfishly smile in gratitude for BUSPH and my esteemed fellow instructors and teaching assistant for letting me be a part of such an awesome endeavor to give back to the school that has inspired me.

We will be posting more updates about the course and how you can get involved – until then…how would you teach a mHealth course for MPH students?

Cheers from Marion McNabb and the BUSPH mHealth course teaching team!

Marion McNabb, MPH – Senior Project Manager, mHealth - Pathfinder International, Jonathan Payne, MS – Maternal Concept Lab, mHealth Alliance, UN Foundation and Partners in Health, Chris Gill MD, MS– Associate Professor, Boston University School of Public Health, James Wolff MD, MPH, MAT - Associate Professor, Boston University School of Public Health and Senior Fellow, Management Sciences for Health, Teaching Assistant: Laura Khurana - Research Associate, Quintiles Outcome

This post was written by Marion McNabb and does not represent the official views of BUSPH. Please contact marionm@bu.edu for further information about the course.

Photo courtesy RTI via flickr

Countries and Regions

Sub-Saharan Africa

United States

8165023561_b951ea0af8_c.jpg

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The emergence of mobile-supported national health information systems in developing countries

asangansiime — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 02:20:17 +0000

Author:

Ime Asangansi, Kristin Braa

Publication Type:

Journal article

Publication Date:

Jan 2010

Publisher/Journal:

Studies in Health Technology and Informatics

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

A major challenge for national health information systems in developing countries is their scalability and sustainability at the lowest levels where primary health care is delivered. This paper contributes to the discourse on how national health information systems can scale to the lower levels and how mobile technology is supporting the collection, handling and dissemination of data. But can mHealth go beyond the 'hype' and visions it has come to be associated with? Using an action research methodology in a long-term action research project, the usability and then scalability of mobile solutions for large scale national health information systems are studied. In this paper, initial successes and challenges with using m-Health for national public health information systems is reported and discussed.

Location

Countries:

Nigeria

Global Regions:

Sub-Saharan Africa

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.imeasangansi.org/pd...

Upload Paper:

The emergence of mobile-supported national health information systems in developing countries.pdf

Citation:

Asangansi I, Braa K. The emergence of mobile-supported national health information systems in developing countries. Studies in health technology and informatics 2010;160(Pt 1):540.

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Crowdmapping by the (Sobering) Numbers

admin — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:58:28 +0000

Editor's Note: We have, in the past, written about crowdmapping using mobile tech for submission of stories and reports. Crowdglobe recently analyzed data from Ushahidi and Ushahidi Crowdmap instances to better understand the quantity and quality of data submitted to 12,795 Crowdmaps in over 100 countries.

This guest post by Tiago Peixoto, an expert in the use of mobile tech in participatory budgeting and citizen participation, reviews the Crowdglobe report. It is reposted here by permission. Tiago blogs at Democracy Spot and tweets as @participatory.

For a while, the (quite impressive) number of Ushahidi deployments has been repeated in development circles as proof of its scalability, although very little was known about these various deployments. A new report by Internews sheds light on a number of issues on that front, such as number of participants, areas of intervention and geographical coverage.

Below are a few excerpts from this rather sobering report, based on surveys and an analysis of 12,757 Crowdmaps (highlights are my own):

93% of Crowdmaps had fewer than 10 reports.
61% of Crowdmaps had absolutely no customization at all, i.e., they still had the four default categories and the default report.
89% of Crowdmaps had four categories, including those with the four default categories.
13% of Crowdmaps had 5-10 categories.
94% of Crowdmaps had only one user.

(…) while about 61% percent exhibited virtually no activity beyond installation, 93% of Crowdmap instances reported fewer than 10 reports. In short, the power law distribution was far steeper than the Pareto Principle would anticipate.

Our initial processing shows a vast majority of deployments with little to no actionable data with a slight slope toward the minority with a likelihood of effective and active engagement.

The more reports a Crowdmap project has, the more reports it seems to attract, leading it to a positive feedback loop.In physics, power law relationships often reflect phase transitions. It is possible that there is an analogous process by which a map project reaches critical mass. If confirmed, this may indicate the importance of strategies to get nascent map projects “over the hump.” This is a promising area for future research.

(…) more attention was given to analyzing the 585 Crowdmaps that had between 21 and 10,000 reports.

The results revealed that the vast majority of these(30%) focused on North America while 18% focused on Western Europe and 16% on Africa. On average, these Crowdmaps had 814 reports.The median number of reports for this set of deployments was substantially lower, at 94, which is not surprising considering that the distribution of this set of cases is highly right-skewed

An even more important question refers to the number of outputs (Crowdmaps created) and outcomes (impact). The report does not go that far.

But still, it is a milestone in the efforts to better understand ICT mediated reporting (or engagement), a field in which policy is rarely backed by good evidence. Even if these results might come across as disappointing to some, kudos should go to the Ushahidi team for sharing their data for an external evaluation. Having said this, and in the spirit of openness, provided security measures were in place, it would be great if this data could be made available to other researchers to conduct their own analysis.

Photo courtesy Crowdglobe

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Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

KatrinVerclas — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:12:35 +0000

Things are changing at MobileActive. When we started in 2005 at a legendary event that we hosted in Toronto, Canada, there were few practitioners and few projects but many ideas on how to use mobile tech in development. We had identified about 100 people worldwide who were actively using mobiles in their social change and social development work and brought 40 together. Since then, the field has exploded and there are now thousands of projects and tens of thousands of people who are actively integrating and using mobile phones in some way or another in their projects.

The field has matured and there is considerably more expertise, more sophisticated tech, buy-in from telcos, and big donor money. There are also many more interest groups and communities of practice. There is the mHealth Alliance, the Mobiles for Education Alliance, the m-agriculture people, the mobile operators organized in the GSMA with its Development Fund and the Mobile Intelligence project, and many more.

There are blogs and twitter tags and failfaires, research groups, and too many conferences. In other words, when I co-started MobileActive with my colleague Marty Kearns, we were pioneers. Now we are but a tiny part of a healthy, vibrant, maturing, and increasingly smarter field that has different needs than when we started. We were and are thrilled to be part of this #m4dev field and declare unilateral success in helping create it and tell its stories.

But it's time to move on. I, as the driving force behind MobileActive, have decided to, for the first time in a very long time, join an established organization. I will be working at the National Democratic Institute at a senior level on pushing tech innovation in the field I grew up in and have always cared the most about: Building vibrant representative democracies with good governance. NDI works in some 63 countries and is focused on areas such as meaningful citizen participation, open parliaments, strong political parties, and fair and equitable elections. The organization pioneered the use of SMS in election monitoring, a field I have written (and ranted) much about. In fact, my now-boss was in Toronto in 2005 and with the leadership of my dear friend Ian Schuler, then also at NDI, invented SMS election data collection. I am delighted to be part of this pioneering group, the NDITech team, to take tech innovation in democracy to the next level.

What does this mean for MobileActive? Inevitably (and for those of you who are keen observers this is already obvious) there will be much less activity here. In fact, eventually, this site will go away, having served its purpose and raison d'être. For now, it'll stay up for its resources, even as those will and are dating fast. Certainly, if there is another group that would like to take on the site, please be in touch. Some of the projects we hosted will find new homes or will be repurposed. There will be appropriate announcements about that in the near future. The discussion group where people exchange ides, answer each others questions, and post jobs will stay where it is - it seems useful and still needed.

In the meantime, you will see more of me over at Demworks, NDITech's blog, and under the hashtag #tech4dem on Twitter. It's been an exhilarating, sometimes crazy, often risky, and never boring ride in the last seven years here. Thank you for the amazing community that you are.

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Mobile Maniacs: More mobile stats from Praekelt

KatrinVerclas — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:48:03 +0000

Last year, the Praekelt Foundation, a South-African based philanthropy that works on mobile project, released a short video overview of the mobile technology landscape in Africa. It's one of those great "Did you know' videos - with a high production value. The video for 2012 is equally as entertaining, focusing on the 'mobile maniacs' of Africa. Take a look and enjoy!

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Safety on the Line - A new report by the BBG and Freedom House on Mobile Security

admin — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 22:39:53 +0000

The US Broadcasting Board of Governors and the US organization Freedom House recently collaborated on a new study on mobile safety in 12 countries. The study, Safety on the Line: Exposing the myth of mobile security (PDF), sets out to investigate two distinct areas: 1. Testing of specific mobile applications (with a strong focus on circumvention tech) vis a vis their security and usability; and 2. a very small survey of users in 12 countries about their use and security challenges of mobile telephony.

The BBG, as the parent of news outlets such as the Voice of America and Voice of Asia, is, of course, keenly interested in delivering content to various countries without a free media, so the report emphasizes circumvention tools and barriers to online content, and focuses on countries of particular interest to the BBG.

The study is peculiar. It seems rather an internal assessment than one aimed at a particular audience (other than the US Congress that funds the coffers of the BBG) and there are a number of significant flaws with it. The findings such as this one:

"A study of the technical aspects of GSM and later mobile networks used for both voice, text, and internet access teaches us that there are significant flaws in the security of mobile networks that could be exploited for the purpose of blocking and monitoring"

are hardly revolutionary to anyone who works in repressive environments.

The study is poorly written with sentences such as this one, describing the selection of mobile apps chosen for 'testing': "A specific risk of selecting applications is the need for them to function across many smartphone platforms. Applications that only work for one platform may require users to employ more ubiquitous, but insecure services such as email, voice, or text chat." We honestly have no idea what that means.

Equally opaque is the scoring system used to arrive at the conclusion that, for instance, skype on iOS is classified as 'good' in regard to its security features while it is 'adequate' on the Symbian operating system while garnering the exact same number of 'stars' all the while Skype has come under considerable attack for its inadequate security. Freedom House has previously been criticised for its evaluations of circumvention software and while the methodology in this report is marginally more sound, there are significant questions about the assessments.

Likewise, there are flaws with the methodology of assessing user behaviour and perceptions vis a vis mobile security risks. As Katy Pearce, an experienced researcher on tech use in some of the hardest-to-survey countries notes, the study is unclear how respondents (total n for all 12 countries is a paltry 1,644) were recruited. Asked via email, she writes, "If it was a snowball sampling (asking people to identify who else they know), that can be a threat to validity." She also noted that "web based surveys are problematic for many reasons. One, you're self-selecting only those with some tech skills already, thus skewing your answers. Also when people answer web surveys they tend to just click through answers." Pearce notes that typically such surveys are conducted face-to-face, especially in countries that are extremely hard to survey.

The extremly small sample size makes one wonder, in Pearce's words, "What we can infer from this? Why does this matter at all?"

The report is useful in one respect: The analysis of the mobile market in the 12 specific countries, and more specifically, the cost analysis of mobile communications. Price and handset market analysis for all countries is something that the ITU (as the chronicler of this information) ought to make available at no cost. Currently, the information is only available at a cost, is old almost 12 months, and does not include handset information for each country.

In the end, though, there is hardly anything new in this report that is not already rather well known: Mobiles are ubiquitous, increasingly used by citizens for activism, content generation, and accessing online content; strictly controlled and highly insecure mini-computers that are subject to significant surveillance as mobile operators exist within a highly regulated and government-controlled environment. Unfortunately, other than stating the obvious, the BBG/Freedom House study does little to substantively add any additional usable information about the degree of surveillance, technical capabilities, or actual incidences of mobile data use against activists or human rights defenders. It is a missed opportunity to push for greater transparency, accountability, or changes in this mobile environment we all work in.

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Mobile Data, FTW! The GSMA Development Fund Steps It Up with The Mobile Development Intelligence Database

KatrinVerclas — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:52:41 +0000

One of the issues we all struggle with as we are working in mobile tech for social change and development is the lack of reliable data on mobile use, penetration, and costs. The GSMA sells a service, Wireless Intelligence, that provides detailed data on mobile subscriptions worldwide as well as country- and carrier-based information. Unfortunately, it is priced out of reach for most NGOs and places limitations on the use of that data. The ITU that should, under its mandate, provide accurate and timely mobile data, but does not. Data from the ITU is late and often available only at a cost that is too steep for many NGOs.

Now, the GSMA Development Fund is trying to address this gap with the launch of a new date site, the Mobile and Development Intelligence (MDI) project. The MDI contains about 70 metrics and the ability to tabulate, graph, map and export the datasets with country-level dashboards for 140 developing world countries. The database aims aggregates publicly available data from sources such as the ITU, the World Bank, and that of development organizations that can supply data about their projects and organizations themselves, as well as some data from the proprietary GSMA Wireless Intelligence service.

What is there?

MDI has a number of metrics in a variety of sectors that include the mobile industry, health, mobile money, societal metrics such as population and metrics focused on the economy. For the mobile industry,metrics include contract and prepaid connection numbers, GSM coverage by area and population, market penetration, mobile broadband upload and download speeds, and number of mobile operators. Nokia is also supplying data on the 'total cost of ownership' - an aggregate number on what a user has to spend on a phone and airtime on average to operate a phone. This is, unfortunately, an imprecise metric for organizations as they are trying to assess the cost of running mobile programs in a country.

MDI also provides data on organizations, companies, and and their products and services that include both NGOs and development organizations as well as commercial providers.

This, undoubtedly, could prove to be the most important aspect of the MDI that allows anyone to assess who is doing what where.

What is missing?

The MDI so far covers only 140 countries out of 196 (by the most generous count) countries globally. Countries represented are "developing countries" according to the site, but how that is defined is not specified. (And, under that definition we are not sure how Poland or Chile, decidedly middle-income countries are included).

There is also important data missing from its mobile metrics, most notable the costs of SMS/voice and availability and costs of mobile data services. One of the metrics for which there is very little data anywhere is the prevalence of specific operating systems and handsets, data that is available at a premium price through private vendors and that is critically important market data for any development project. Unfortunately, there is no data on devices at all in the MDI.

Lastly, we are not thrilled with the privacy policies and terms of use stipulations of the site. Data submitted by a user can be provided to third parties for marketing, according to the privacy policy. Opt-out requires an email. All user-generated information submitted to the MDI is apparently copyrighted by the GSMA (which makes us not want to submit information). We encourage the GSMA Development Fund to adopt a stronger privacy policy and a Creative Commons license.

What do we think?

All in all, we think this is a great start and laudable effort; and something that we tried to do on a shoestring for a long time until we found that we could not support accurate data over time or display it well without considerable resources. We like the look and feel of the site, and while we understand that the GSMA Development Fund does not want to cannibalize its own profitable Wireless Intelligence operation, we had hoped that more data from WI would be available freely. Perfection should not be the enemy of the good but device and cost data will be critical to add for any development effort to make intelligent strategic deployment decisions. We say, onward, MDI - keep on adding relevant data.

Countries and Regions

Asia

Australia and Oceania

Central America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South America

Sub-Saharan Africa

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Open Congress, Just a Call Away (Brought to You by the Sunlight Foundation)

KatrinVerclas — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:07:30 +0000

The Sunlight Foundation, always pushing the envelop on tech and open government in the United States and increasingly worldwide, launched a new service today: Call to Congress. The number 1-888-907-6886 (tol-free in the US) allows anyone to learn about how a lawmaker is voting on bills and raising their money for re-election. As the announcement states: "Being connected with your lawmakers' Capitol Hill offices and getting details on legilsation is now as easy as ordering pizza..."

The service is essentially an interactive-voice responce system that allows a user to navigate a menu tree to search a member of Congress by postal code. Lawmakers can add their biography, their top campaign donors, recent votes and allows a caller to be transferred directly to the Reprentative's office. The service also provides bills currently under consideration in both the House and the Senate, including upcoming votes. The service is available in English and Spanish with the goal of bridging the online/mobile divide increasingly common in the US where especially ethnic and lingual minorities access the web via their mobile devices. Call to Congres is at its core powered by Twilio, a cloud communications API. Technically, the Sunlight team reports, is Twilio, a cloud communications API. More technical details about the service are on this blog post but in essence, here is how it works (paraphrasing the post mentioned)

Twilio can generate dynamic responses that are spoken back to the user using Twilio's text-to-speech feature. We can have recordings of a spoken script play for static content or even play music, if we had the need. We can even forward phone calls so that users can be connected directly to the office of their representative without having to write down the phone number and dial the call. (Incidentally, Twilio also has SMS features that, while not used on this project, are used on our other new service, Scout.)
To create multi-lingual content, each bit of text used in the application is run through a series of steps to determine the proper response. All of the text is written in English in the code, but is internationalized by creating an MD5 hash of the text, determining the response language, checking for a cached translated copy of the text if it is not in English, generating a translated copy of the text using the Google Translate API, generating an audio file name based on the MD5 hash and a slugged chunk of the text, doing a HEAD request to S3 to see if an audio file exists for the chunk of text, responding either with a Twilio Say command using the translated chunk of text or a Play command with the S3 URL of the audio file, if one exists.
Aall of the features on Call to Congress are powered by existing Sunlight APIs: Member lookup by ZIP code and contact information is powered by the Congress API, bill information comes from the Real Time Congress API, and campaign contributions and member biographies are provided by the Influence Explorer API.
Finally, Sunlight usesTurboVote for the API that allows the to provide information about local election offices.

Very smartly, Sunlight leverages the "logic that combines the Twilio, Google Translate, and Sunlight APIs into a single application." Congrats on the launch, and if you are a United States voter, go check it out by calling 1-888-907-6886 in the US.

Countries and Regions

United States

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Liquidity Is King: Mobile Savings Vehicles For Poor Individuals

lisa kienzle — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:32:06 +0000

This is the final post of this three-part blog series co-authored by Lisa Kienzle, Ali Ndiwalana, Olga Morawczynski and Ignacio Mas on saving with mobile money using deferred payments or “Me2Me” transactions. The first post explored user reactions to deferred payments and to goal-based accounts, gathered through focus groups. The second post looked at rewards that help individuals set aside money to meet financial goals. Today, the authors discuss ways to encourage individuals to keep money in their savings vehicle(s).

During the focus groups in Fort Portal, in western Uganda, people quickly grasped the notion of deferred payments as a means of saving. However, one of the most common questions that people asked was, “What if I need to access my money earlier?"

Liquidity is always top of mind especially for people near the bottom of the economic pyramid, of course. We tested several features, ranging from full illiquidity (can’t touch the money until a specified future date) to full liquidity (take out any amount, anytime). But we also presented a few other options to the individuals in our test group:

Applying social pressure (for example, what if a friend had to approve early withdrawals?)
Preventing impulse purchases (what if early withdrawals were possible, but not in small amounts – everything had to be withdrawn at once, on the assumption that it was only for large emergencies?)
Deferred access (what if early withdrawals required a 24-hour waiting period, to avoid impulsive spending?)

There was no clear winner and, in fact, each option generated lively discussions. We found that people like the extreme options for the standard reasons: prohibiting them from accessing funds would help them save, while having access anytime assures them that they can manage any financial eventualities.

Though many individuals liked the idea of a friend as gatekeeper, others perceived goals as private and argued that changing their plan should be their individual choice. Several appreciated that a 24-hour delay period provided time to reconsider, while others said emergencies required money immediately.

And though the all-or-nothing approach seemed like a good compromise in providing immediate access while minimizing impulse spending, one woman said that being forced to take all her money out even when she needed a fraction, felt like failure – like the system was punishing her. The challenge is how to strike a balance between helping people meet their savings goal on one hand, while giving them the flexibility to access their savings to address unexpected risks on the other.

As highlighted in our first post, financial goals can be transitory. The key is to build up discipline for saving. Having the right incentives or rewards can help users set money aside to meet different savings goals. Poor people need and want disciplined savings vehicles but they also need and want choice – the choice to leave funds untouched and out of sight, or the choice to tap into the pot if an emergency requires it.

Some want more restrictions on access, while others want fewer. The trick will be providing vehicles that achieve the purpose of saving toward a target but are flexible enough to cater to unforeseen shocks.

In these three posts we've discussed ways that deferred savings vehicles could improve upon current savings methods. Mobile network operators and financial service providers want to keep several considerations in mind when developing this type of product:

How could organizations create goal-based products for users who have looser notions of the concept of goals?
What rewards can an organization offer that would be compelling to a down-market customer?
How could organizations design liquidity options that support savings behaviors but provide enough flexibility to address emergencies?

Poor people can’t afford to be illiquid, but they also can’t afford to be unprepared. Savings goals are diverse in their nature and timeframe, so it is likely that people will want a variety of options. In a world where putting away money yields little reward and currency comes in the form of livestock and land, what’s the best way to offer simple yet varied product features when it’s no longer cash, but liquidity, that is king?

Countries and Regions

Sub-Saharan Africa

Uganda

focus group 3.jpg

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mHealth to Improve TB Care

Interactive Research and Development — Tue, 29 May 2012 07:31:50 +0000

Author:

Interactive Research and Development

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

May 2012

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

'mHealth to Improve TB Care' is a new report demonstrating the enormous potential for mobile health (mHealth) to revolutionize the fight against tuberculosis (TB). Mobile phones provide TB care with much needed impetus, and initiatives intending to reap the benefits of this nascent field are launching all across the globe.

In sharing the experiences of 31 TB-focused mHealth initiatives, this report seeks to lay the foundation for what will become an extensive knowledge-sharing and partnerships network benefitting all stakeholders in the field of TB, both old and new.

View the report here

E-mail the authors at TB_mHealth@irdresearch.org

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.stoptb.org/assets/d...

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mClerk: Enabling Mobile Crowdsourcing in Developing Regions

Aakar — Mon, 28 May 2012 14:49:21 +0000

Author:

Aakar Gupta, William Thies, Edward Cutrell, Ravin Balakrishnan

Publication Date:

May 2012

Publisher/Journal:

ACM SIGCHI

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

Global crowdsourcing platforms could offer new employment opportunities to low-income workers in developing countries. However, the impact to date has been limited because poor communities usually lack access to computers and the Internet.

This paper presents mClerk, a new platform for mobile crowdsourcing in developing regions. mClerk sends and receives tasks via SMS, making it accessible to anyone with a low-end mobile phone. However, mClerk is not limited to text: it leverages a little-known protocol to send small images via ordinary SMS, enabling novel distribution of graphical tasks. Via a 5-week deployment in semi-urban India, we demonstrate that mClerk is effective for digitizing local-language documents. Usage of mClerk spread virally from 10 users to 239 users, who digitized over 25,000 words during the study. We discuss the social ecosystem surrounding this usage, and evaluate the potential of mobile crowdsourcing to both deliver and derive value from users in developing regions.

Location

Countries:

India

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~aak...

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Mobile Security Survival Toolkit for Activists

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:57:58 +0000

MobileActive's SaferMobile project is running two trainings at the Internet at Liberty conference on mobile security with colleagues from IWPR, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and UC Berkeley. We’ll be demoing common mobile threats and provide hands-on tips on how to better protect yourself.

We put together a set of resources in a ‘mobile security survival kit’ for activists and journalists with practical tips and advice. They are all online at SaferMobile.org but we are also compiling here in a Primer Toolkit on Mobile Security. You'll find:

Tips for SaferTwitter, SaferYoutube, SaferFacebook, SaferEmail, and SaferPhotos on your mobile phone
Mobile Risks Assessment Guide
Mobile Tactics for Participants in Peaceful Assemblies
Mobile Journalist Survival Guide
Primer on Geolocation
Important Security Considerations for Satellite Phones
And lots of useful worksheets that guide you in assessing your operational environment: Rating Your Mobile Info Sensitivity, and your operational environment 1, 2, 3, 4
We are also including the slides we are using for this workshop on MobileSecSurvival Slides 1 and MobileSec Survival Slides 2.

All materials are available in html on SaferMobile.org.

An important note: You should know that is nearly impossible to stay entire safe on your mobile device. Mobile networks are designed to be monitored so that mobile operators can charge you for using their services. We want to be clear that the tips and tactical advice we provide is meant to keep you safer as you work on making the world a better place – they can not keep you completely secure. A good start is to clearly understanding your mobile communication risks and learn more about some ways to better protect yourself. If you have questions or comments, leave us a note!

final_sm_logo.jpg

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Mobile Phones and Rural Livelihoods: Diffusion, Uses, and Perceived Impacts Among Farmers in Rural Uganda

EKStallings — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:04:15 +0000

Author:

Lee Martin, Brandie, Eric Abbott

Publication Type:

Journal article

Publication Date:

Nov 2011

Publisher/Journal:

Information Technologies and International Development

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

To successfully use mobile phones to aid development efforts, understanding the impact of the social structure on mobile phone adoption, uses, perceived impacts, and reinvention of uses is invaluable. Interviews were conducted with 90 mobile phone-owning holders of small-to-medium-sized farms, 50 women and 40 men, actively involved in agricultural development-based farm groups in Kamuli District, Uganda. Respondents indicated use of the mobile phone for coordinating access to agricultural inputs, market information, to monitor finanancial transactions, and to consult with agricultural experts. Over time, the number and variety of agricultural uses increased among all users, indicating that adoption occurs for a few key purposes, but that uses will be added or reinvented to meet changing needs. This study identified a number of unique uses, including storing local market trends in the calendar, using the speakerphone function for group consultation with agricultural experts, and taking photos of agricultural demonstrations

Location

Countries:

Uganda

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://itidjournal.org/itid/ar...

Upload Paper:

789-2211-1-PB.pdf

Citation:

Lee Martin, Brandie, Eric Abbott. "Mobile Phones and Rural Livelihoods: Diffusion, Uses, and Perceived Impacts Among Farmers in Rural Uganda." (2011) Information Technologies and International Development Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2011, 17 – 34.

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Cash In, Cash Out Kenya: The Role of M-PESA In The Lives Of Low-Income People

EKStallings — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:52:52 +0000

Author:

Stuart, Guy, Monique Cohen

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Sep 2011

Publisher/Journal:

The IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, College Park and Microfinance Opportunities

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

This study examines how low-income Kenyans use M-PESA, that country's pioneering mMoney service. The study focuses on (1) the value of M-PESA to low-income individuals; (2) the most likely areas for M-PESA's future growth; and (3) whether M-PESA can serve as a platform for financial services beyond remittances.

Taken from the transactions of 92 individuals over eight months, the study found that "cash is king." mMoney's share of transactions was less than 6 percent, compared to more that 94 percent for cash. M-PESA is still primarily used to send money home, usually from urban to rural, and cash out almost always happens quickly, often the same day the remittance is received. Respondents did not appear to use M-PESA as a de facto savings account, but the services was an important part of their coping strategies for unusual large expenses, particularly hospital bills.

The study looks at ways M-PESA usage mimic cash usage patterns. It also examines the "e-money loop" - the number of times an e-money unit is transferred between being cashed out.

Location

Countries:

Kenya

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.microfinanceopportu...

Upload Paper:

cash_in_cash_out_kenya.pdf

Citation:

Stuart, Guy, Monique Cohen. "Cash In, Cash Out Kenya: The Role of M-PESA In The Lives Of Low-Income People" (2011) The IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, College Park and Microfinance Opportunities.

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Lines Across The Desert: Mobile Phone Use and Mobility in the Context of Trans-Saharan Migration

EKStallings — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:50:41 +0000

Author:

Max Leonard Schaub

Publication Type:

Journal article

Publication Date:

Jan 2011

Publisher/Journal:

Information Technology for Development

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

In West and Northern Africa, mobile phone coverage has been expanding parallel to increased attempts by Africans to migrate overland to Europe. This paper explores possible links between the two phenomena, looking specifically into the role of mobile phones in trans-Saharan migration. It provides a first detailed description of the telecommunication processes underlying contemporary trans-Saharan migration. An analytical framework is presented that helps to explain how mobile phones facilitate migration by interacting with the social and spatial factors shaping migrants’ mobility. By drawing on this framework and fieldwork conducted among Congolese migrants in Morocco, it is shown that the expansion of the communication infrastructure is, on the one hand, only one of several factors that have turned the region into a more ‘transitable’ space. On the other hand, the use of mobile phones is demonstrated to be central to the migration process: migrants draw on the unprecedented accessibility of contacts equipped with mobile phones to tie together novel, geographically expansive networks. Phones are also shown to be used by migrants’ ‘helpers’ for the purpose of internal coordination.

Location

Global Regions:

Middle East and North Africa

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://ha3.www.mendeley.com/re...

Citation:

Schaub, Max Leonard. "Lines Across The Desert: Mobile Phone Use and Mobility in the Context of Trans-Saharan Migration". Information Technology for Development (2011) Volume: 18, Issue: 2, Pages: 1-19

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Inferring Patterns of Internal Migration From Mobile Phone Call Records: Evidence From Rwanda

EKStallings — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:40:31 +0000

Author:

Joshua Blumenstock

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Oct 2011

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

Understanding the causes and effects of internal migration is critical to the effective design and implementation of policies that promote human development. However, a major impediment to deepening this understanding is the lack of reliable data on the movement of individuals within a country.

In this paper, we describe how mobile phones can provide a new source of data on internal migration. As these technologies quickly proliferate throughout the developing world, billions of individuals are now carrying devices from which it is possible to reconstruct detailed trajectories through time and space.

Using Rwanda as a case study, we demonstrate how such data can be used in practice. Our empirical results corroborate the findings of a recent government survey that notes relatively low levels of permanent migration in Rwanda. However, our analysis reveals more subtle patterns that were not detected in the government survey.

Location

Countries:

Rwanda

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.jblumenstock.com/fi...

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jblumenstock_itd2012_wp.pdf

Citation:

Blumenstock, Joshua. "Inferring Patterns of Internal Migration From Mobile Phone Call Records: Evidence From Rwanda" (2011)

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A Voice For The Voiceless: Peer-to-Peer Mobile Phone Networks For A Community Radio Service

EKStallings — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:29:54 +0000

Author:

Ranganathan, Kavitha, Ankur Sarin

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

May 2011

Publisher/Journal:

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

We propose a new application for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) – community radio. We argue how MANETS help overcome important limitations in how community radio is currently operationalized. We identify critical design elements for a MANET based community radio service and propose a broad architecture for the same. We then investigate a most critical issue – the choice of the network wide broadcast protocol for the audio content. We identify desired characteristics of a community radio broadcasting service. We choose and evaluate eight popular broadcasting protocols on these characteristics, to find the protocols most suited for our application.

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.iimahd.ernet.in:818...

Upload Paper:

15380481872011-05-02.pdf

Citation:

Ranganathan, Kavitha, Ankur Sarin. "A Voice For The Voiceless: Peer-to-Peer Mobile Phone Networks For A Community Radio Service" (2011) Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

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An Open Letter to the International Telecommunications Union

KatrinVerclas — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:28:43 +0000

We are interrupting our usual programming on MobileActive.org for an important message on the future of the opennness of the Internet. Civil society groups from around the world have signed on to an open letter to the International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré, objecting to the lack of openness and inclusion in recent attempts by the ITU to increase its control over the Internet. MobileActive.org is one of the signers of this letter.

The background is this: In December 2012, the International Telecommunication Union will convene a meeting of the world’s governments to renegotiate the ITU’s underlying treaty, the International Telecommunications Regulations. Currently, these ITRs do not address Internet technical standards, infrastructure, or content. However, some states, notably China and Russia, are advocating for an expansion of the ITRs to include Internet regulation.

The emergence of the ITU as the primary regulatory body for the Internet would represent a sea change in Internet governance and could undermine the success of the Internet as an open platform for innovation, economic growth, human development and democratic participation.

We believe that there is a lack of opportunity for civil society participation in the World Conference on International Telecommunications meeting in December. We also believe that this does not bode well for the future of an open Internet. We urge all civil society members of MobileActive's community to review the key issues at hand and become involved.

We are indebted to the Center for Democracy and Technology which is circulating this open letter. A PDF of it is here. For more background on the WCIT, see the post by CDT on why Civil Society Must Have Voice as ITU Debates the Internet, and for even more, see the ITU resource page. If your organization is interested in signing the letter, please contact signon@cdt.org.

17 May 2012

To Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré, the Council Working Group to Prepare for the WCIT-12, and ITUMember States:

The undersigned human rights advocates, academics, freedom of expression groups, and civil society organizations write to express our desire to participate in the preparatory process undertaken for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The current preparatory process lacks the transparency, openness of process, and inclusiveness of all relevant stakeholders that are imperative under commitments made at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). We ask that the Secretary-General, the Council Working Group, and Member States work to resolve these process deficiencies in several concrete ways.

The continued success of the information society depends on the full, equal, and meaningful participation of civil society stakeholders (along side the private sector, the academic and technical community, and governments) in the management of information and communications technology, including both technical and public policy issues. Indeed, WSIS outcome documents recognize the need for a multi-stakeholder approach in technical management and policy decision-making for ICTs. The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society urges international organizations “to ensure that all stakeholders, particularly from developing countries, have the opportunity to participate in policy decision-making … and to promote and facilitate such participation.” And such participation depends on transparency and openness of process at every stage of substantive and procedural dialogue.

Yet there has been scant participation by civil society in the Council Working Group’s preparatory process for theWCIT so far, even as media reports indicate that some Member States have proposed amending the International Telecommunication Regulations to address issues that could impact the exercise of human rights in the digital age, including freedom of expression, access to information, and privacy rights. Under the current process, civil society participation is severely limited by restrictions on sharing of preparatory documents, high barriers for ITU membership (including cost), and lack of mechanisms for remote participation in preparatory meetings.

As an important step towards fulfilling WSIS commitments for building a more inclusive information society, the undersigned request that the Secretary-General, the Council Working Group, and Member States:

Remove restrictions on the sharing of WCIT documents and release all preparatory materials, including the Council Working Group’s final report, consolidated reports from all preparatory activity, and proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations;
Open the preparatory process to meaningful participation by civil society in its own right and without cost at Council Working Group meetings and the WCIT itself, providing formal speaking opportunities and according civil society views an equal weight as those of other stakeholders. Facilitate remote participation to the extent possible; and
For Member States, open public processes at the national level to solicit input on proposed amendments to the International Telecommunication Regulations from all relevant stakeholders, including civil society, and release individual proposals for public debate.

We welcome Secretary-General Touré’s commitment to creating a more inclusive information society and ensuring equitable access to ICT around the world. Collectively and individually, the undersigned human rights advocates, academics, freedom of expression groups, and civil society organizations work to fulfill this vision through a range of national and global institutions and we call for the same opportunity to engage at the WCIT, consistent with WSIS commitments. We urge you to ensure the outcomes of the WCIT and its preparatory process truly represent the common interests of all who have a stake in the future of our information society.

Sincerely,

Access

Article 19

Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

Eduardo Bertoni, Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión y Acceso a la Información (CELE), Universidad de Palermo, Argentina

Bytes for All, Pakistan

Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)

Center for Democracy & Technology

Center for Technology and Society (CTS/FGV), Brazil

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), India

Consumers International

Digitale Gesellschaft e.V.

Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights

Electronic Frontier Foundation

European Digital Rights

Freedom House

Global Partners & Associates

Global Voices Advocacy

Human Rights in China

Human Rights Watch

Internet Democracy Project, India

Internet Governance Project (IGP)

Kictanet, Kenya

Rebecca MacKinnon

MobileActive Corp

New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute

ONG Derechos Digitales, Chile

Open Rights Group

Panoptykon Foundation, Poland

Public Knowledge

Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders

World Press Freedom Committee

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Do You Hear Me (In a Disaster)?

KatrinVerclas — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:50:10 +0000

We just came across this video, posted by our ever-innovative colleagues at LIRNEAsia. In partnership with Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka's largest development organisation, LIRNEAsia recently conducted research on how to best use mobile technology in emergencies.

With ubiquitous and affordable mobile technology a reality not just in Asia but the world over, LIRNEAsia set out to ask a number of important questions: Can talking on the phone help those responding to emergencies to be better organized? How can voice services be used more efficiently in alerting and reporting about disasters than other channels? Where can computer technology make a difference in crisis management?

The video details how LIRNEAsia is experimenting with the open-source Sahana disaster management platform, and with Freedom Fone's interactive voice response system to investigate whether voice-based reporting can fit into globally accepted standards for sharing emergency data. LIRNEAsia found that while the technology isn't perfect, there is much potential for crisis and disaster management. Give it a look - well worth your while.

Countries and Regions

Asia

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mWASH: Mobile Phone Applications for the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector

MTHutchings — Sat, 12 May 2012 00:26:58 +0000

Author:

M.T. Hutchings, A. Dev, M. Palaniappan, V. Srinivasan, N. Ramanathan, and J. Taylor

ISSN/ISBN Number:

1893790398

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

May 2012

Publisher/Journal:

Pacific Institute

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

Billions of the world's poor still lack access to basic water and sanitation services, yet many of them can count mobile phones among their possessions. Water and sanitation practitioners have begun to tap the potential of mobile phones as tools to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Technology that innovates the ways in which data is generated can help overcome information challenges in policymaking and governance. Most mobile phone solutions have great potential, fueled by desires to bring about rapid and effective change, but their success depends on thoughtful design choices at every step.

mWASH: Mobile Phone Applications for the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector, from the Pacific Institute and Nexleaf Analytics, presents a study of the social considerations, technical options, and program design best practices for the implementation of mobile phone solutions. The researchers conducted a study on current mobile phone for development (M4D) applications to identify current design trends and lessons learned to help inform future implementation for current and potential implementers, especially those of mobile phone for WASH (mWASH) applications. They surveyed more than forty mobile phone projects worldwide that were being used as information interventions to effect change, selecting ten implementers for further study, including five in the WASH sector: FLOW, Human Sensor Web, Maji Matone, NextDrop, and Water Quality Reporter. The ten case studies revealed the key decision points made on social, technical, and program design. The report concludes that for mWASH and other mobile phone for development solutions to assist the underserved, the developers must understand:

--user participation is driven by a real need for the information or service provided, appropriateness given socio-cultural context, and technical ease of use

--mobile phone solutions can provide high-quality, technical data, and when citizens are involved they should have equal access to that data

--responsiveness of the service provider or government agency is necessary to ensure users' long-term interest

--securing a future for the system requires a plan for long-term sustainability right at the outset.

The Pacific Insitute and Nexleaf Analytics are using this mWASH research to build the open-source WASH SMS System.

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.pacinst.org/reports...

Citation:

Hutchings, M.T., A. Dev, M. Palaniappan, V. Srinivasan, N. Ramanathan, and J. Taylor. 2012. mWASH: Mobile Phone Applications for the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector. Oakland: Pacific Institute.

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Jobs! Check Out Current Tech- and Mobile-in-Social-Change Positions!

EKStallings — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:21:25 +0000

Looking for a job in the field of mobile tech for social change and development? The MobileActive Discuss list and the MobileActive newsletter are great resources not only for talking about the latest issues and topics in the ICT4D world, but also for jobs. Here's a sampling of some of the recent openings posted:

Inveneo is seeking an ICTD Network Operations Engineer. The position is based in San Francisco with some travel. Available immediately.

There is an open Programme Coordinator ICT for Development (ICT4D) with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in Wageningen, the Netherlands.

Human Rights Watch is seeking a Researcher on the Internet and Human Rights. The position is based in Washington, DC (or flexible). Deadline is May 18, 2012.

The Chiapas Institute of Health (ISECH) is looking to fill some technical positions for the Mesoamerican Health Initiative project in Mexico.

Tobacco Free Kids, based in Washington, DC, is looking for an experienced applicant for an Associate Director of International Communications (Social Media) position. The position will be open until filled.

The newly founded Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in Berlin is seeking applications from researchers and phd candidates for several positions:
- Research Position at the Policy & Governance Section. Backgrounds in STS, Political Science, Sociology, Cultural Studies or Media and Communication Studies are especially welcome.
- Doctoral Positions at the Institute.

The Archives & Special Collections at UConn is looking for a Curator of Human Rights Collections who has a strong interest in Human Rights as well as experience working with digital content and archives.

eQualit.ie is looking for a Server Administrator for Maintenance and Development of the Deflect DDoS mitigation project and participation in eQualit.ie's other projects. This is a full time position but two part-time roles,especially if located within the Western European and South East Asian timezones, would be considered. Please send your application and questions to dmitri AT equalit DOT ie.

mSwali.org, is looking for a solid Python webapp developer to participate in a 3-month internship in Nairobi this summer.Interested candidates should send a short letter of interest, CV, and any applicable projects to jobs AT mswali DOT org.

The International Broadcasting Bureau, Office of Technology, Services and Innovation is looking to fill an open position for the Director of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The position is located in Washington, DC and only US citizens are eligible.

Computer Aid International is hiring for two London-based positions:
- Director of Fundraising
- Director of Marketing and Communications (10-month maternity leave cover)

shiftLabs has announced three Summer Digital Innovation Fellowships. Applicants must be over 18 and currently be currently enrolled Undergraduate or Graduate students, or recently graduated (past six months). The closing date is May 18.

Google is currently hiring for the Regional Lead of Program Management for Emerging Markets, a position based either in Nairobi, Kenya or Lagos, Nigeria.

Village Tech Solutions is looking for two unpaid Summer interns familiar with Linux/PHP. The positions are based in California and Nepal supporting intensive field testing and equipment redesign. The contact for the position is David Sowerwine, david AT villagetechsolutions DOT org.

If you have any job openings, please email them to us at info AT mobileactive DOT org. If you are seeking a job in the field, please sign up for the MobileActive newsletter where we regularly list job openings that we receive.

Image courtesy of Cinty Ionescu on Flickr.

2546573297_57c6a0372f_z.jpg

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Mobile Phones, Popular Media, and Everyday African Democracy: Transmissions and Transgressions

EKStallings — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:13:14 +0000

Author:

Herman Wasserman

Publication Type:

Journal article

Publication Date:

May 2011

Publisher/Journal:

Routledge / Popular Communication

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

This article examines various approaches to the relation between mobile phones and participatory democracy, and argues that mobile phones do not only transmit political information needed for rational deliberation in the public sphere, but also transgress cultural and social borders and hierarchies in the way they refashion identities and create informal economies and communicative networks.

Location

Global Regions:

Sub-Saharan Africa

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

https://docs.google.com/a/mobi...

Upload Paper:

Wassermann 2011.pdf

Citation:

Herman Wasserman (2011): Mobile Phones, Popular Media, and Everyday African Democracy: Transmissions and Transgressions, Popular Communication, 9:2, 146-158

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The Funding Divide: Examining The Lack Of Funding For Mobile Phone Strategies In The United States

EKStallings — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:48:19 +0000

Written by Katrin Verclas and Emily Stallings

Why, despite wide-spread use of mobile tech for social change around the world, has the U.S. social sector been so slow to adopt mobile technologies? What do funders need to understand to support grantees' efforts to harness the power of the mobile phone? What strategies can help service organizations realize the potential of mobiles? Since phones are ubiquitous for most demographics but particularly so for young people and communities of color who use phones more intensively, this is becoming a critical question for the social sector in the US.

Funding Mobile Strategies for Social Impact: The Future is Now from ZeroDivide examines these questions, asking how to increase grantmaking for projects that utilize mobile technology to target groups working for social equity.

The U.S. Mobile Landscape

The paper notes that the vast majority of American adults, 86%, own mobile phones, and 50% of these phones are smartphones with access to the Internet. More than other groups, minorities, youths, individuals from lower income brackets, and those with no college experience rely on a mobile phone for Internet access. Yet, serious barriers to full Internet participation persist. These include phone capabilities, costs, network speeds, and accessibility of mobile phones over Internet access on a computer.

Ways in Which U.S. Organizations Use Mobile

The report, authored by Amy Gahran and Jeff Perlstein, outlines some ways in which organizations are using the various mobile channels. For instance, it highlights the work of Txt2Wrk and Text4Baby that both utilize SMS or text messaging as a channel for outreach, or Mobile Voices that utlitizes the phones' multi-media capabilities for story telling.

The report unfortunately also highlights projects that are no longer active and clearly were a failure, such as Witness' Hub (featured at a recent Failfaire that we hosted). There is also no discussion about the actual effectiveness of some of the projects described and some notable examples of projects that might actually have an impact are not even mentioned. (We are thinking here of Do Something's SMS channel, for instance.)

This diminishes the credibility of the report, especially in a section that is entitled "Making an Impact." More careful vetting of the case studies and example mobile uses in the report would have been useful here to make the point that, in fact, there is very little being done today in the US with mobile tech that is really having any impact at all.

Keys to Success For Mobile Programs With Underserved Communities

Based on interviews with practitioners, the the authors suggest that there need to be a number of key factors in place to help organizations best harness the potential of mobile phones for social impact. They include many factors that we have written about time and time again. These factors are really no different from those that have been identified for any successful use of technology in social change projects:

Build powerful partnership;
Prioritize publicity and outreach;
Involve the target community;
Foster strong ties with technologists;
Be realistic about the limitations of technology and access; and
Always include training.

Many of these issues are not necessarily related to funding, however; a point the report leaves woefully unaddressed. It would be our contention that a lof of the lack of expertise with fast-changing tech such as mobile is, in fact, a symptom of fundamental structural and management weaknesses in the US nonprofit sector, and especially so amongst organizations explicity focused on social change issues and marginalized communities.

Ways Funders Can Support Mobile Strategies By And For Underserved Communities

The report states that funding mobile phone-based programs as a way to reach underserved group is clearly needed. Yet, the philanthropic sector's investment in such solutions continues to be modest. What are the barriers to investment?

Based on a 2011 survey of foundations, there are considerable obstacles to funding mobile-oriented solutions: Funders lack expertise or even familiarity with technology, there is a lack of clarity on funding strategies to foster grantees' use of tech for social change, there is little dedicated funding for grantees' media/tech work, and not enough attention and funding for intermediaries to assist foundations/nonprofits with tech strategies.

What comes next? How can funders overcome these barriers and best support grantees and communities in seizing opportunities? The author notes:

"The sweet spot for funders working with underserved communities lies in increasing the value people can generate from the types of mobile devices and access they already have. For now and the next few years, this means ensuring accessibility —designing projects for feature phone users— and emphasizing the strengthening of community capacity, knowledge, and strategy development."

The report suggests that support can come in a number of forms, not just as funding. Some of the ideas presented include:

Foster learning
- Support research on local mobile usage, ownership
- Support nonprofits' learning
- Promote funder education (i.e. professional development)
Supporting Grantees
- Conduct a mobile assessment of grantees, fund mobile elements for existing projects
- Fund a cohort of existing grantees to experiment and generate mobile projects
- Develop a Tech Talent Bank
- Subsidize bulk text messaging
Convening Key Stakeholders
- Sponsor hackathons and "mobile challenges," encourage participatory design
- Collaborate on matching funds
- Convene potential partners from different sectors
Expanding the Audience
- Provide translation and localization support for existing mobile offerings

Playing Catch-Up

The social sector in the United States already lags far behind international deployments of mobile technology for social impact, in no small part dues to funders inability to work within a fast-changing and technically sophisticated environment.

Funding Mobile Strategies for Social Impact: The Future is Now serves as an introduction to the obstacles to funding mobile phone-based strategies in the United States. While the report lacks depth and nuance, as well as a substantive discussion of the lack of impact of even existing projects in the US, it does provide a primer to key issues.

We applaud some of the creative ways suggested in which funders can address their lack of innovation in this field (even if we believe that hackathons are overrated to produce shippable product).

But nonprofits and funders alike are playing catch-up with technology, and they better get on it.

Follow the link here to view ZeroDivide's list of resources to help funders and grantees seize the capabilities of mobile phone technology.

(Image by JR_Paris on Flickr)

Countries and Regions

United States

144119309_644080ece9.jpg

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Innovation by Users in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Mobile Banking Services

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:23:50 +0000

Author:

van der Boor, Paul, Pedro Oliveira, Francisco Veloso

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Feb 2012

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

This paper examines the extent to which users in emerging economies innovate, and whether these innovations are meaningful on a global stage. To study this issue, we conducted an empirical investigation into the origin and types of innovations in financial services offered via mobile phones, a global, multi-billion dollar industry where emerging economies play an important role. We used the complete list of mobile financial services, as reported by the GSM Association (GSMA), and collected detailed histories of the development of the services and their innovation process. Our analysis shows that 85% of the innovations in this field originated in emerging markets. We also conclude that at least 50% of all mobile financial services were pioneered by users, approximately 45% by producers, and 5% jointly by users and producers. Additionally, services developed by users diffused at more than double the rate of producer-innovations. Finally, we observe that three-quarters of the innovations that originated in emerging markets have already diffused to OECD countries and that the (user) innovations are therefore globally meaningful.

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...

Citation:

van der Boor, Paul, Pedro Oliveira, Francisco Veloso. "Innovation by Users in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Mobile Banking Services." 2012.

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Understanding Negotiation in Airtime Sharing In Low-Income Microenterprises

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:10:11 +0000

Author:

Sambasivan, Nithya, Ed Cutrell

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Apr 2012

Publisher/Journal:

Nithya Sambasivan & Ed Cutrell

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

Shared access to airtime is a prominent mode of connectivity access in the developing world. We seek to understand airtime sharing among low-income microenterprises in India (small, low-capital businesses, such as flower sellers and milkmen), that constitute 90% of the total enterprises in India. We introduce social negotiation as the foundation of airtime sharing. We highlight negotiation mechanisms in the microenterprise, showing how shared resources are used towards personal interests amidst tensions and value conflicts, by adapting, modifying, subverting, and repurposing airtime. We then explore the design space of airtime and bandwidth sharing in low-income communities, including designing for negotiation and improving readability of airtime.

Location

Countries:

India

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~nsamba...

Citation:

Sambasivan, Nithya, Ed Cutrell. "Understanding Negotiation in Airtime Sharing In Low-Income Microenterprises." 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1015-4/12/05.

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How Users Understand Cellular Infrastructure

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:49:34 +0000

Author:

Heimerl, Kurtis, Tapan S. Parikh

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Apr 2012

Publisher/Journal:

University of California at Berkeley

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

In this study, we investigated how users throughout the world understand and make use of their cellular networks. We conducted semi-structured interviews of 17 different people, both rural and urban, across three different countries; the United States, India, and Uganda.

Location

Countries:

India

Uganda

United States

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/P...

Citation:

Heimerl, Kurtis, Tapan S. Parikh. "How Users Understand Cellular Infrastructure." University of California at Berkeley. 2012.

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Deprivation, Distance and Connectivity: The Adaptation of Mobile Phone Use To A Life in Wesbank, A Post-Apartheid Township in South Africa

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:15:56 +0000

Author:

Velghe, Fie

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Oct 2011

Publisher/Journal:

Tilburg University

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

The high uptake of mobile phones in the developing world has instigated studies on the impact of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on poverty reduction programs and other programs that would benefit the poorest and most excluded sections of the global population. It has created new hopes as to how mobile phones would be able to close the so-called global digital gap that exists between the developed and the developing world and transform the fortunes of the poor. As ICTs are always embedded in social and economic realities and practices which deeply influence, define, and restrict people's mobile phone use, one should however be cautious in transporting and applying findings and studies focusing on the created opportunities of mobile phone use from one continent, country or even society to another.

This article focuses on mobile phone use of middle-aged women, living in Wesbank, a post-apartheid township in Cape Town. By highlighting the main characteristics of the community (poverty, unemployment, crime, multilingualism and migration) we discuss the influences of these characteristics of 'a life in Wesbank' on mobile phone use. Although the adoption of amobile phone creates diverse opportunities with regards to connectivity, safety and re-imagination of the self, poverty proved to put a major constraint on the full use of the potentials.

Location

Countries:

South Africa

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://tilburguniversity.acade...

Citation:

Velghe, Fie. "Deprivation, Distance and Connectivity: The Adaptation of Mobile Phone Use To A Life in Wesbank, A Post-Apartheid Township in South Africa" Tilburg University, 2011.

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Early Experience of Mobile Telephony: A Comparison of Two Villages in Papua New Guinea

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:56:51 +0000

Author:

Watson, Amanda H. A.

Publication Type:

Journal article

Publication Date:

Jan 2011

Publisher/Journal:

The Asian Media Information and Communication Centre

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

This paper examines social change following the recent introduction of mobile telephony into rural communities in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It presents the findings of substantial fieldwork conducted in 2009, and suggests ways in which the new technology is already changing people’s lives and relationships. The paper identifies the roles of mobile telephones in two communities, the changes taking place, and how villagers are responding to them.

Comparison of the two villages is strategic as it highlights similarities in perceptions of mobile phones in these two very different settings. An ethnographic approach is adopted, situated within an interpretative methodology. Data collection methods include semi-structured interviews, orally-administered surveys and participant observation. The theoretical lens is focused on the ‘communicative ecology’ concept, which stems from the communication research tradition. This research is significant as it addresses changes currently occurring in the communication methods of whole communities.

Location

Countries:

Papua New Guinea

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/4885...

Citation:

Watson, Amanda H. A. (2011) Early Experience of Mobile Telephony : A Comparison of Two Villages in Papua New Guinea. Media Asia, 38(3), pp. 170-180.

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Using ICT to Promote Governance

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:23:30 +0000

Author:

Siceloff, John.

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Apr 2012

Publisher/Journal:

DANIDA

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

In the fall of 2011, Danida commissioned a study with the objective of:

• Examining strategic opportunities for using ICT for promoting governance and democratization efforts within development assistance; and

• Exploring opportunities for ICT in the present Danish portfolio of development programs and within the vision of the Strategy for Danish Development Cooperation.

The study touches on a range of ICT technologies but its focus is the use of mobile phones, including voice calls, SMS- Text, mobile internet, and social media. This report presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the study and falls in 6 chapters: an introductory part outlining study objectives and the methodology applied (Chapters 1-2); a presentation of why ICT is important (Chapter 3); a presentation of ICT case studies from Kenya emphasizing transparency, accountability and empowerment (Chapter 4); a presentation of other donor practices and experiences with emphasis on institutional issues (chapter 5); and a concluding chapter outlining the conclusions/recommendations (Chapter 6).

Location

Countries:

Kenya

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://um.dk/en/~/media/UM/Eng...

Citation:

Siceloff, John. "Using ICT to Promote Governance." DANIDA. 2012.

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Funding Mobile Strategies for Social Impact: The Future is Now

EKStallings — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:01:44 +0000

Author:

Gahran, Amy, Jeff Perlstein

Publication Type:

Report/White paper

Publication Date:

Apr 2012

Publisher/Journal:

Zero Divide

Publication language:

English

Abstract:

Mobile strategies provide tremendous opportunities for funders interested in strengthening grantees' social impact and generating a strong return on investment. The technology required is (relatively) inexpensive, nearly ubiquitous and already in the hands of underserved communities. Unfortunately, despite many proven successes, clear best practices, and numerous available approaches, funding for U.S.-based projects still lags significantly behind international deployments. What, then, do funders need to under- stand to support their grantees in seizing these opportunities? How can funders support mobile projectsbeyond fundraising campaigns and communicat- ing via social media? What are strategies to help grantees realize the broader potential to amplify program impact? This paper takes on these questions and provides background information derived from interviews with practitioners and secondary research. Examples are given from various mobile projects by and for underserved communities, on issues that range from health disparities to work- force development and more.

Location

Countries:

United States

Research Paper - Link to or Upload

Paper URL:

http://zerodivide.org/sites/de...

Citation:

Gahran, Amy, Jeff Perlstein. "Funding Mobile Strategies for Social Impact: The Future is Now." Zero Divide, 2012.

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