Report: Mobile Technologies Fostering Social Development

The W3C's (World Wide Web Consortium) Mobile Web Initiative and Mobile Web for Social Development (MW4D) just published a report on the findings of a workshop that took place beginning of June in São Paulo, Brazil.



Their efforts are focused on "investigating the role mobile phones and Web technologies could together play in helping bridge the Digital Divide".

The group aims to "identify the key issues and promising solutions to deploy Web content, applications and services on Mobile phones to foster the social and economic development of rural communities and under-privileged populations of Developing Countries".

The key points are:

• Mobile phones are the primary delivery channel for ICT in these markets
• Three technological solutions are being used: SMS, Voice, Web. All three should be seen as delivery channels for web content.
  
• NGO requirements: easy-to-use toolkit, ease of replicability, sustainable with low investment, low requirements on infrastructure and administration
• Need for business experts (there were none at the event) to find business models and set up commercial service to guarantee the projects' sustainability
• Shared phone model (one phone used by many people): privacy and security a major factor to be considered by mobile services and applications providers
• Key barrier for having useful and relevant content is lack of local expertise to develop these. Empower local actors to become mobile service providers (technical knowledge, entrepreneurship and business models)
  
• Players in the field need to define a shared vision of the future and measure impacts on targeted populations
  

One of the most interesting points was the vision of SMS, Voice and Web as delivery channels for web content:

Mobile phones should be considered as an access mechanism, where mobile browsing is one way to access the content, but using Voice applications (through e.g. voiceXML) is another way, and SMS could be a third option. All of these options should be considered as different delivery channels of Web content. Using the Web as a repository of information could leverage replication and cross-fertilization between different projects by offering visibility.

Another great vision is the economic impact that capacity building of local players could have:

For that, it is necessary to develop a dedicated curriculum around the mobile platform, in order to empower local actors which will then encourage the development of a new economic sector (mobile service provider) and create employment. This would also provide an opportunity for people to use their own creativity and innovation in the development of new mobile services that rarely come from a corporate process.

Image by http://futureatlas.com/blog/.