Development

There is an enormous wave of interest in the role that mobile phones play in development. The widespread access to increasingly sophisticated mobile phones have opened up an information and communication platform that is improving, among other goals, livelihood, health and stability. Two new articles remind us that they come with a heavy price.

First, Ethan Zuckerman writes about the implications for innovation and activism that result due to centralization:

Creating novel functionality on a mobile phone network is much harder [than on the Internet]. Truly revolutionary applications like mobile money transfer have generally been deployed in tight collaboration with network operators – M-PESA was not an independent startup, but an initiative of Vodaphone/Safaricom with support from IBM and DFID. It is unclear whether Safaricom would permit a rival mobile banking system to develop expanded functionality and deploy on the same network.

Mobile applications in the developing world generally focus on providing services via short message services (SMS). This is due in part to the need to provide services on a wide range of devices, and in part to the comparative ease of deploying SMS gateways without cooperation from network operators. Voice-based services (IVR – interactive voice response) would often be a better technology for the needs of low-literacy users, but it’s difficult to deploy at scale without co-locating equipment with network operators… Unlike with the Internet’s decentralized DNS system, assignment of shortcodes is generally centrally controlled, giving operators control over the promotion of platforms by refusing to issue easy-to-remember codes. (Imagine if Skype had needed permission from AT&T or France Telecom to register skype.com.)

Because mobile phone networks are centralized, they are more easily controlled by governments than the Internet. Filtering and censoring the Internet has proved a frustrating cat and mouse game for both governments and activists. Despite millions of dollars spent to filter the Chinese internet, hundreds of thousands of Chinese users access and publish banned content. By contrast, Ethiopia simply turned off SMS services in June 2005 over fears that students were using the technology to organize protests against rigged elections – and services remained turned off for more than two years.

Secondly, Yochai Benkler notes that the expense of traditional computers puts them out of the reach of individuals in the developing world, thus limiting the radical redistribution of capital that has occurred in the West. Although mobile phones are affordable and increasingly powerful, Benkler reckons they may be a Faustian bargain that “comes at the expense of a truly open, neutral network.”

As we think of ICTs for development, we must understand that the challenge is a focus on widespread distribution of high-capacity devices, in the hands of a highly skilled population, over open networks running simple and non-proprietary standards.  Devices must be cheap enough to be widely distributed as basic background features, owned by individuals in a pattern uncorrelated with pre-existing power relations.  Devices must be accompanied with skills training in the use of the device and the open network, so that the difficulty of use does not continue to drive people to the simpler devices that deliver the more predictable, controlled, and “safe” applications.  In the near future, this may mean programs focused on women, much as micro-lending has been, or youths and children.  In the longer term, it must mean an emphasis on cheap computers from the lineage of the personal computer, not souped-up mobile phones.  Or, in the alternative, it means that we need a heavier focus on regulatory interventions that will require mobile phones and phone networks to be more open and flexible—although this is a harder row to hoe.  And in all events it means devices coupled with training.

The networked information economy and society promises a radical shift in power and capabilities from industrial, centralized forms to decentralized forms that counterbalance market dynamics more effectively with social dynamics.  To achieve this, a highly distributed physical and human capital structure is necessary.  Understanding this requires that our focus on ICT for development should be on achieving the radical, decentralized distribution of flexible, open, physical capital throughout the population, coupled with the necessary training to harness the wisdom, insight, and creativity that is already there.

This is not to say that mobiles for development should be sidelined. I believe quite the opposite, in fact. But these reminders of the properties and structure of the mobile phone ecosystem should weigh heavily on those working in ICT4D.

[P.S. These are from a new collection of articles posted by Berkman in preparation for the high-level Sept. 23rd discussion on communication and human development.]

Update: Steve Song has posted his recent presentation on the Village Telco project that seeks to create a better network.

Manuel Castells, for those that don’t know, is one of the most prolific, well-respected scholars of our time. I know his work around the networked society – the ramifications of the information and communication revolution – but he is also a ground-breaking student of sociology, urbanization and politics.

He is currently spending some time in South Africa giving various talks at universities. Tonight, I attended one at the University of Cape Town (somewhat poorly) entitled “Prospects for Cities in the Global South.” Instead of trying to synthesize it, I thought I’d post some striking points:

• Castells sees two linked processes shaping our world: globalization and metropolitanization. To him, urbanization refers to an out-dated model of change. Instead of cities as popularly understood – city center surrounded by suburbs and followed by rural areas – population concentration these days comes in the form of “metropolitan regions.” He didn’t specifically say it (he used examples from China or Europe), but think of D.C., Philly, B-More, NYC (and maybe even Boston) – regions of urban areas with policentric metropolises. The metropolitan region is the spacial form of our era, and it is not equivalent to the cities of yore.
• Although the world just crossed 50% urbanization, Latin America has been 80% urban for ten years. Brazil is 85%!
• This is an inevitable trend because metropolises are necessary for face-to-face interaction which define high-level activities. The globally networked nature of these regions allows this high-level interaction to be transferred internationally to more low-level activities. This spacial concentration enables innovation (think Silicon Valley), but you need both the concentration (nodes) and the dispersed network.
• Universities are not necessarily creators of knowledge. They need to actively generate development from their knowledge and create “self-programmable learners” because the skills they learn in school will soon be obsolete.
• In rural areas, people have no chance at survival. They know this – every effort to stave off rural-to-urban migration has failed. [Aside: then why is Sachs & Co. working on the Millennium Village project?]
• Spacial concentration has a number of challenge, for which we must prepare:
  • Major environmental crisis: our livability on this planet is in danger because even though cities are the major engines of economic growth, the are a major cause of environmental damage.
  • Concentration of poverty and social exclusion at unprecedented scales. Highly linked to ecological threats such as pandemics: “Viruses don’t stop at the door of the a rich neighborhood.”
  • Lost public spaces to private centers, and therefore lost identity.
  • Mobility has become a recipe for immobility. Notion of relying on the automobile is unrealistic when space is limited and plenty of people cannot afford them. “We are in permanent gridlock.”
• Although the metropolitan region is the key size for this century, we lack the institutions to plan them.
• Cultural tolerance and openness will be key due to population migration.

I really have no where enough experience with these topics to criticize what seemed like a thoughtful and smart talk. Next week, though, I hope to attend the launch of his new book, Communication Power – a topic I am more comfortable with.

One of the most exciting projects I was involved with at infoDev was a website that aims to bring together knowledgeable people to debate the appropriate role of technology in education around the world. The aptly named Educational Technology Debate is already in its fifth month of existence and has hosted great discussions about 1:1 vs. communal computing, the effectiveness of ICT, and mobile phones vs. personal computers.

This month’s debate focuses on the educational content needed for teaching:

Will educational systems, and the stakeholders that support them, be able to adapt existing and new content onto these devices? Might this adaptation facilitate a more egalitarian content creation structure, challenging the existing pricing structures and vested interests of current curriculum production & dissemination models?

In addition, should this content focus on ebooks and other electronic media that replicates existing content? Or is this an opportunity to change the way in which content is created, teacher’s educate, and students learn?

We have two experts, Richard Rowe and Angus Scrimgeour, who will lead the debate, but we’ve tried to make this as interactive as we can, so post your thoughts in the comments and help shape the discussion.

My favorite class this year was about the rise of China and India as international powers. It was taught by a former World Bank economist who has done much of the work on these two countries’ “knowledge economies.” My term paper examined intellectual property in China and India.

Although many objective observers see stronger intellectual property rights as an amenable, even necessary, policy for China and India, there are significant downsides to increasing IPR protection and enforcement. Strengthened IPR is likely to disproportionately advantage the developed world, decrease the ability of China and India to diffuse productivity-enhancing innovations, prove both insufficient and unnecessary for promoting innovation, and even be counterproductive to the countries’ innovation systems.

Here’s the entire paper. (Also available for download here.)
There Is No Harmony In a Patent Thicket: Towards an Effective IPR Regime in China and India

(Some caveats: I’m relatively new to this subject, don’t have on-the-ground experience and haven’t yet read ‘Small Is Beautiful’.)

If you hang around ICT4D long enough (that is, more than a day or so), you’re sure to hear people promoting “Appropriate Technology.” The important idea is not widely understood outside the ICT4D community, but refers to designing and using technology with special consideration to unique environmental, cultural and economic situations. People that work on these issues know that the same technologies that are successful in Silicon Valley are unlikely to be successful in the Great Rift Valley – there are simply too many differences to make it possible.

Supporting “Appropriate Technology” (AT, to those in the know) is taken as something of an article of faith for ICT4Ders – worthy of my admittedly obnoxious capitalization. But, outside of broad (and rather useless) generalizations, how useful is the concept?

Take laptops. The OLPC was touted as AT because it was dust proof, highly readable, mesh networkable, etc. Where my MacBook Pro would kick the bucket in 24 hours, the OLPC would hum away contently. However, plenty of folks have argued that, actually, OLPC is inappropriate for education in important developing countries. In fact, maybe the ubiquitous mobile phone is better suited for educational technology. Or could it be radio? Or (*gasp*) simple paper?

My (half-formed) idea is that “Appropriate Technology” may, in reality, be of very little use to practitioners a priori. Obviously, the Mac isn’t right for a rural Rwandan classroom. But, in determining what specific technology to deploy, I think there are broader, more determinative, aspects of technology utlization such as the passion and dedication of the users and implementers, than simply designating some tech as appropriate and some as not. There are many possibilities and I worry that we lose sight of the non-technical aspects of ICT4D when quibbling about the ICT.

[By the way, infoDev has recently launched Educational Technology Debate, an interactive debate website, that will address issues such as this in the field of ICT for education. Check it out and spread the word - there are a bunch of fun debates coming up.]

Evgeny Morozov on a potential downside of (unrealized) connectedness:

Here is the main problem with the new networked public sphere that has emerged to replace our national and mostly self-contained public spheres: when one node on the network blunders, all other nodes have to suffer through the consequences. In this case, the blunder is Britain’s and the rest of us have to suffer from interminable Savage coverage on television and the Internet, as both mainstream media and bloggers feel some desperate urge to air Savage’s juiciest and most offensive quotes over and over again. It’s a real pity that the British authorities still believe in a world that recognizes travel bans; whether we like it or not, the only use of travel bans in the world we currently live in is to trigger viral tsunamis.

Blaise Alleyne on false dichotomies in technology policy:

The spectrum of technologies Thierer presents has “tinker-friendly” and “safe and simpler” at opposite ends. Why don’t we demand both? WordPress defies this spectrum; a hosted blog at WordPress.com is safe and simple, but that code is available at WordPress.org for anyone to install and tinker with on their own servers. Few would disagree that Firefox is safe and simple, but it’s also “wide-open” free software with which anyone can tinker.

Hans Rosling on the media ignoring the real global killers:

I just went to a very interesting book talk by Stanley Nollen, a professor at Georgetown, and Neil Gregory of the IFC. Their new book, “New Industries from New Places: the Emergence of Hardware and Software Industries in India and China,” examines the reasons for the rise of different ICT sectors in the two Asian giants.

They began by showing graphs of the exponential rise in software revenues in both China and India since the 1990s, but when broken down into exports and imports, it becomes clear that Indian software is predominently written for exportation while Chinese software is for the domestic market. And although India does not have a similarly developed hardware industry, when that sector is analyzed, Chinese hardware is overwhelmingly exported while what hardware India does make is for domestic consumption.

A number of explanations are typically given for the difference, notably India’s English language proficiency, its higher education system that created a large labor pool of software engineers, and the overbearing regulation that was not extended to Indian software firms. The authors of this book believe that while these are necessary explanations, they are not sufficient. Using a variety of data, including firm-level interviews with 300 Chinese and Indian companies, they think they have flushed out the answer.

Their research suggests that Indian management, not labor, and their pool of larger, better educated professionals were largely responsible. The management can be applauded for seeking quality certifications for Indian software firms and utilizing the diaspora ties. Further, they strategically partnered with far more American software companies than the Chinese did – 60% of surveyed Indian firms had Western partners, compared to only 12% in China. (There was a lot of data thrown into the presentation that focused on the software industry, but I didn’t copy most of it down.) A final reason offered by the authors, more tentatively, was a cultural explanation – Indians tend to be more outspoken and tolerant of ambiguity. Because software creation is a creative enterprise, perhaps they have an inherent comparative advantage.

During the Q&A, Professor Mike Nelson offered some helpful insights from his time with the American IT industry:

• In hardware, you can thrive with 2-3 clients whereas in software, you need many more. Therefore, overcoming the “foreignness” of China is more of a factor than in India where multiple Western clients can be easily courted due to the relative institutional familiarity.
• Timezones shouldn’t be discounted – India is apparently much easier to schedule with than China.
• Given India’s relative governance instability, software (with lower fixed costs) is a more flexible industry – Wipro or Infosys can leave localities more easily than OEMs.

Overall a very interesting talk that adds great data to the debate while debunking commonly held beliefs like the importance of Y2K.

I just finished watching Nathan Eagle speak at O’Reilly ETech 2009 about his start up, txteagle.

Dr. Eagle’s interest in mobile phones and their broader roles in society brought him to East Africa where really fascinating innovations are taking place. While there, he saw a number of problems:

1. With unemployment in Kenya hovering a little below 50%, many relatively educated people have lots of idle time. With the exploding popularity of mobile phones, a cell phone is often present during downtime.
2. Cellular operators are searching for ways to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and to distribute the traffic volumes more evenly (less at peak times).
3. Corporations have millions of tasks that humans can do better than computers and cheap communication networks allow those to be distributed via crowdsourcing.

Dr. Eagle’s elegant solution pays Africans (in airtime or mobile money) to complete simple tasks like surveys, translations and transcriptions. As he says, think of it as “mobile Mechanical Turk.” And as he explains in the second half of his speech, there are a number of exciting secondary effects of this empowerment.

As much as I know the reality is far from it, part of me always yearns for the cyberlibertarian utopia of the 1990s. Best characterized by Barlow’s Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, the hope that the Internet and other digital connections would lead to dramatically increased freedom has not come true. In fact, there are plenty of signs that the opposite is viable.

However, reading a post on Patrick Meier’s always interesting blog, iRevolution, a little bit of hope was rekindled. Writing about the role that ICTs play in Burmese activism, Patrick notes that two researchers found that the “Bangladeshi cell phone network extends well into Burma so activists can use phones from Bangladesh to relay information.” Further, Burmese citizens with Internet access are more likely to fancy themselves activists.

While I imagine it isn’t terribly hard to jam the Bangladeshi cell network, as it stands now, the spillover effects of the Bangladeshi ether is probably a boon to activists seeking connectivity outside of the official telecommunications systems.

In what other ways could governments, NGOs and activists utilize the spillover of digital networks to assist domestic dissidents? The United States has operated Voice of America and Radio Free Asia/Europe for decades, so the precedent for sending freedom-enhancing electromagnetic waves into authoritarian areas is there. Why not do so with the Internet and cell phone networks? It could even be better than VOA because it would take away that paternalistic feel of VOA et al. and allow the Burmese to speak for and to themselves.

Take any crisis in the past 10 years and there has been an increasing amount of digital content created immediately during and after the crisis events. For events like the Mumbai terror attacks in November, the amount of information is enormous and lasts multiple days. For shorter, more localized events like US Air Flight 1549 crashing in the Hudson, the amount is understandably lower. But in either case, pervasive new media allows citizens and professionals alike to create massive amounts of data. Sifting through and making sense of it all can quickly overwhelm an individual person or news organization.

Recognizing this, Ushahidi, the brilliant crisis mapping application, is approaching the question of how to filter through the information overload. Their simple approach is to “crowdsource the filter.” Writing on their blog, Erik Hersman calls this project “swift river” and will allow connected individuals to “go and rate the information as it comes in… where the more people you have weighing in on any specific data point raises the probability of finding the right answer. The information with greater veracity is highlighted and bubbles to the top, weighted also by proximity, severity and category of the incident.”

According to Erik, the prototype has successfully filtered a large amount of data and can combine experts and amateurs. When I first read this, I was understandably excited to see this in practice. During the Mumbai attacks, I watched as Gaurav Mishra chronicled the events by scanning blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and the MSM in order to synthesize and explain the story to his audience (in classic bridge-blogger style). His incredible public service kept me glued to my screen over Thanksgiving break. Amid his heroic effort, Gaurav occasionally mentioned to his appreciative audience how exhausted he was, and I can only imagine how much work it took. A reliable “Swift River” style tool would have allowed Gaurav to grab a couple more hours of sleep, knowing that the important truths would rise to the top. A look at the mock-up they provided shows a bit more what they imagine – individuals transparently describing their sources and adding “facts” that they trust to be true.

A mock-up of Project Swift River

No news consumers are completely autonomous; we all rely on some sort of filter. There is a spectrum from the obsessive consumers whose filter is minimal – reading and watching a ton of first-hand reports from Twitter, Flickr, etc. – to the mainstream consumers who get their news from CNN or even water cooler conversations.

My belief is that there is a sweet-spot for this spectrum of signal-to-noise filters – somewhere between (1) the exhausting work of reading all the information/analysis coming out of a crisis and (2) the lackadaisical, third-hand accounts which are colored by personal bias and memory.

The Spectrum of News Sources and Potential Downfalls

No one’s crisis news intake will ever be completely autonomous – even eye-witnesses only experience so much. But filters, especially the unreliable ones that exist in our world, can act like people in the children’s game “telephone” where each node can obfuscate the truth. Although news sources also add analysis, insight and context, my hunch is that during and immediately after a crisis, what matters most are verifiable facts. Ushahidi’s idea seems like a great way to find the sweet-spot for crisis reporting.

Although it will have to answer the same questions that were sneered at Digg and Wikipedia – who will trust a bunch of amateurs?! – a wealth of literature supports the ability of crowds to quickly and reliably reach consensus. Certainly there are some serious questions given the importance of the information that will be filtered (and I wish I had my copy of Infotopia to revisit how the wisdom of crowds can fail), but the open source nature of the project will allow for experimentation and revision that the New York Times or other news sources cannot do very adeptly.