Mobile for Development: Using Mobile Technology for Social Causes

• 1. Mobile for Development Using mobile technology for social causes by Evgeny Morozov @ BarCamp Baltics February 09, 2008

2. Plan (kind of)I. Random facts II. Uses of mobile tech III. Opportunities (and problems)IV. OMG, it's finally over 3. ~ 3,3 billion mobile phone subscribers globally 4. More than 1,1 billion sold last year worldwide 5. 97% of people surveyed in Tanzania said they could access a mobile phone, while just 28% could access a land line phone... 6. Young people in the US 4.2% more likely to voteafter an SMS reminder 7. Global New Year's SMS traffic: 43 billion messages, 30% upfrom lastyear 8. Japan: of last year's 10 best-selling novels,five were originally mobile phone novels 9. A 2005 study showed that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people could increaseGDP growth by 0.6% 10. 2008: first time an Egyptian court reviews a case of divorce-by-SMS 11. Kenya: only 19% of the country's 36 million people are reached by traditional banking institutions. BUT virtually have access to the mobile phone. 12. ~1 billion: the number of illiterate people in theworld 13. 426,000: the number of mobile phones retired in the US every day. 14. During this year's State of the Union address, you could have turned your cell phone into a Bush LieDetector by signing up for live fact checks By texting quot;factsquot; to shortdoce 30644, when the President told a lie during the State of the Union, you could have received a text with the truth. 15. Applications: Development / Economics 16. Fish dumping, which averaged about 5 to 8 percent of daily catch before mobile phones, was eliminated. Fishermens profits increased onaverage by 8 percent, while consumer price declined by 4 percent. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2007 17. Applications: Health 18. SMS the word 'HIV' to 31771 followed by their post code or town name. Their two nearest testing locations will be SMS'edback. 19. Applications: Social 20. EpiSurveyor is a free, open source tool enabling anyone to very easily create a handheld data entry form, collect data on a mobile device, and then transfer the data backto a desktop or laptop for analysis 21. Health+Data mash-up 22. 3 23. Applications: Politics, Mobilization, Other 24. Kenya: The Ministry of Internal Securityurges you to please desist from sending orforwarding any SMS that may cause public unrest. This may lead to your prosecution. 25. BBC Africas Have Your Say received over 3800 and published over 1300 commentsafter requesting updates from Kenyans 26. Opportunities 27. Opportunities: More $ for applications development 28. Opportunities: Open Handset Alliance 29. Opportunities: Visual story-telling / Ubiquity 30. Opportunities: wind/solar charging 31. Opportunities: Wind-Powered Base Station 32. Opportunities: p2p transmission 33. Opportunities: Phone for theIlliterate 34. Email: [email protected]