Mobile Web for Social Development Panel

Stéphane Boyera

http://www.w3.org/2009/03/sb_ictd09/

ICTD 2009

Doha, Qatar, April 17 2009

Introduction

• Head of the W3C Mobile Web for Social Development (MW4D)
  • Mission: Exploring and Understanding the barriers of using Mobile Technologies in ICT4D
  • Chair: Ken Banks and Stephane Boyera
  • Home: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/
• Head of Web in Society Program at the World Wide Web Foundation
  • Mission: advance the Web, Connect Humanity, Empower People
  • Home: http://www.webfoundation.org
• Project manager of the EU-FP7 project Digital World Forum
  • Mission: Using ICT and low-cost technologies to leverage economic development in Africa and Latin America
  • Home: http://www.digitalworldforum.eu

Mobile Phones: a revolution

Mobile ICT for Development

	Mobile phones have a great potential as ICT platform Success Stories demonstrate the potential simple services can improve people's lives simple services can put pressure for more open governance simple services can overcome lack of infrastructure ... Still limited impact at the global level only a small set of services available only a small set of contributors only a small set of users
(Photo Source: Der Spiegel)

Panel Objectives

• Understanding authoring and deployment barriers and potential ways to lower them
• Understanding Access barriers and potential ways to lower them
• Understanding the place of mobile in the global ICTD picture

(Photo Source : The Economist )

Agenda

• Panel Introduction
  • Ken Banks (kiwanja.net)
  • Gaetano Borriello (University of Washington)
  • Jonathan Donner (Microsoft Research)
  • David Edelstein (Grameen Foundation)
  • Jesse Moore (GSMA Development Funds)
• Content Challenges
• Access Barriers
• Mobile in the complete ICTD picture

Panel Introduction

Content Challenges

• Current situation: Few contributors and few services
• Questions
  • need for proactive actions ? or let the market grow alone ?
  • roles of the different actors (ngo/grassroots, entrepreneurs, mobile operators/handset manufacturer, government,...)
  • why success stories are slowly replicated ?
  • roadblocks ?
    • lack of awareness ?
    • lack of expertise ?
    • lack of tools ?
    • lack of market/business ?
  • should contributors focus on currently available phones, or focus on future full-featured phones and devices ?

Access Challenges

• Current situation: few users
• Questions
  • should we just wait for content and the number of users will just grow reaching everybody ?
  • How to cope with low reading skills ?
  • How to cope with computer literacy (searching for, finding and using services) ?
  • Importance of localization/availability of content in local languages ?
  • is a very low-end phone a real potential ict platform, or should we wait for availability of 3G, 4G, 5G or 10G network and devices ?
  • is SMS the killing platform for services ? what about voice, mobile browsing, native applications,... ?

Place of Mobile in the ICTD domain

• are mobiles just a new tool for people working in ICTD or a complete revolution ?
• Questions
  • should people in ICTD stop everything they are doing and concentrate on mobile only ?
  • what is the importance/impact of the channel delivery vs the development challenges (providing services to people to improve their lives)
  • in which way mobile is facilitating (or making harder) access to content compared to other channel ?
  • is mobile facilitating adoption of ICT services by people ?