Mobile Web for Social Development (MW4D) | The MW4D Interest Group closed in April 2013. It explored how to use the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Mobile phones as a solution to bridge the Digital Divide and provide minimal services (health, education, governance, business,…) to rural communities and under-privileged populations of Developing Countries. This is an archived version of the MW4D IG blog, the information on this page is historical and is no longer maintained.

New blog engine pour MW4D IG

Posted on December 5, 2011

As people can see, we have just moved from our old blog engine to the new ones. We lost a bit of pictures, but more funcitonalities.

Stephane

Joint Workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies in Social and Economic Development Report Available

Posted on July 11, 2011

W3C together with the Web Foundation today published the report from the W3C/Web Foundation Workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies in Social and Economic Development held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in June. The large and diverse group representing more than 30 different nationalities had engaging discussions on voice-based services for underprivileged communities, mobile entrepreneurship and data collection tools. The results of these discussions, as well as the actions identified will be investigated by the W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group and the Web Foundation.

W3C and the Web Foundation thanks the participants and appreciates the support of the Workshop sponsors: Spider (Gold Sponsor), Twaweza (Gold Sponsor) and Comviva (silver sponsor).

Fourth Workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies For Social and Economic Development

Posted on April 4, 2011

I realized i forgot to announce the organization of the fourth workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies for Social and Economic Development.

This event will take place in Dar es Salam, Tanzania, 4-5 June 2011. This event is co-organized by W3C and the Web Foundation. A call for participation has been issued last February, and submission of statements of interest is open till April 15 2011.

Like for the three previous instances, we also have a call for sponsors in order to offer travel grants to enable NGOs and field experts to attend and share their experience. If you are interested, feel free to contact Stephane Boyera.

Minutes of November 15 teleconference published

Posted on November 15, 2010

The MW4D IG held the 7th teleconference of its second charter on November 15 2010.

The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/11/15-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of October 11 teleconference published

Posted on November 12, 2010

The MW4D IG held the 6th teleconference of its second charter on October 11 2010.

The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/10/11-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of September 13 teleconference published

Posted on September 13, 2010

The MW4D IG held the 5th teleconference of its second charter on September 13 2010.

The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/09/13-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of September 6 teleconference published

Posted on September 6, 2010

The MW4D IG held the 4th teleconference of its second charter on September 6 2010.

The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/09/06-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of August 23 teleconference published

Posted on August 23, 2010

The MW4D IG held the 3rd teleconference of its second charter on August 23 2010.
The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/08/23-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of August 2 teleconference published

Posted on August 2, 2010

The MW4D IG held the 2nd teleconference of its second charter on August 2 2010.
The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/08/02-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of July 5 teleconference published

Posted on July 5, 2010

The MW4D IG held its 1st teleconference of its second charter on July 5 2010.
The minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2010/07/05-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Documents and Resources

The MW4D IG has published the following documents:

08 December 2009: Mobile Web for Social Development Roadmap (HTML version)
- See also the PDF (color) version of the roadmap
- See also the PDF (black and white) version of the roadmap

The MW4D plans to develop a set of documents which are described in the Deliverables section of the charter.

The draft version of these documents are developed collaboratively on the group’s wiki.

There is also a set of ressources relevant to the activity of the MW4D and which have been developped by W3C since 2006:

Reasons for joining

The objective of MW4D IG is to gather all stakeholders in a global forum in order to identify the key challenges of using mobile phones as an ICT-platform in Developing regions.

The targeted players are Web experts, Mobile specialists, Academics from Developed and Developing regions, NGOs with field expertise, and International organizations working on reducing the Digital Divide. W3C believes that only a joint coordinated action could lead to the identification of all challenges and also to the identification of the right actions to be launched to have a real impact. The MW4D IG, while not limited to these topics, will investigate the following areas:

technical issues related to the mean of deployment (sms, voice, web,...)
technical issues related to accessibility for illiterate people, people without technological background, people without prior dewsktop experience,...
technical issues related to specific types of applications (m-health, mgov, ...)
Social issues: how to capture the real needs from the targeted populations, how to have a bottom-up approach that will integrate NGOs into international organization agenda and work
Social issues related to empowerment: how to enable local people to master the technology to develop and deploy the applications they need, how to leverage local contant and applications development
Social issues related to sustainability, entrepreneurship, ...

The following types of actors should be able to contribute to the mission of MW4D, and learn from other participants:

Charitable Foundations funding and/or managing Development projects using ICTs
Companies or Organizations providing ICT-related products, services, content, applications or infrastructure in Developing Countries.
People with grassroots experience on the use of ICT in Development
People from the ICT for Development (ICT4D) domain
People with a mobile background
Web experts
Accessibility experts
Digital Divide experts
People expert in mobile HCI in Developing Countries
People expert in the use of mobile phones in Development

How to give feedback?

Feedback on MW4D documents is very welcome on the public-mw4d@w3.org list (archive). To subscribe to this list, Send an email to public-mw4d-request@w3.org with the word subscribe in the email subject header. To unsubscribe, send an email to the same address with the word unsubscribe in the email subject header. For additional help, consult the W3C's public email list pages.

Feel free To contact either Ken Banks, co-Chair of the group, or Stephane Boyera co-Chair and W3C Staff Contact.

Teleconferences

The Participants of MW4D are meeting regularly by phones. The teleconferences are taking place the first and the third monday of each month at 8:00am EST time (Boston time). This schedule follows the Daylight saving time of Boston (i.e. it is always 8:00am EST time any day of the year). To find what time this is in your region, you can check the world clock meeting planner.

The archives of the meeting minutes are available online

Teleconference and IRC Information:

Teleconference bridge :
- +1.617.761.6200
- Conference code: 6493 ("M4WD")
IRC: Access Directly the MW4D IRC channel through the W3C IRC Web Interface
IRC Raw information:
- Channel: #mw4d
- Server: irc.w3.org
- Port: 6665
It is mandatory to read the Teleconference How-to before joining your first teleconference
Read the instruction about the irc bot zakim managing the teleconference
Read the detailed instruction on how to use IRC and the W3C teleconference system

Face-to-face Meetings

The first MW4D Face-to-face meeting took place during the W3C TPAC 2008 on Friday 24 October. Read the minutes.

Workshops

One of the MW4D IG objectives is to create an inter-disciplinary forum involving Web and Mobile experts, NGOs with field expertise and experience, academics from Developed and Developing regions, and International organizations involved in reducing the Digital Divide and providing services to under-privileged populations. Some of these actors are not yet connected or working with W3C, and it is essential to outreach these communities. Organizing public workshops is one of the most easiest and effective ways of gathering people from different background at the same place, and agree of the issues.

Future Workshops

The future workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies in Social and Economic Development will take place in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania, 4-5 June 2011. See the Call for Participation.

Past Workshops

W3C organized a first workshop in December 2006, in Bangalore, India as a preliminary action which led to the creation of MW4D IG.

A second workshop on the Role of Mobile Techonologies on Fostering Social Development was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 2nd and 3rd 2008. Read the executive summary report.

A third workshop on the Role of Mobile Techonologies on Fostering Social Development - Africa perspective was held in Maputo, Mozambique, April 1st and 2nd 2009. Read the executive summary report.