Posts Tagged ‘mobiles’

This past Saturday Mobile Active and Cell-Life organized Mobile Tech for Social Change Cape Town. I did not have any connectivity, so I just jotted down some thoughts that I thought I’d share.

Opening Session

First Session: Fair Mobile

Steve Song organized a session on the fair mobile project that seeks to realign the mobile phone markets to be more equitable and innovative.

• Much of the conversation centered around how to frame the project: is this the age-old question of universal access? Is this about competition? Is there something unique about mobiles?
• The psychology behind ICT user behavior seems to be important to understand. What type of pricing will lead to socially desirable usage? Are more calls or texts necessarily better?
• Telecommunications, arguably by nature, seems to be a sector that requires regulation, but many of the African regulators are ineffective and were ill-prepared for the popularity of mobile phones.
• What levers exist to produce change? Consumer pressure? Is government compelling existing firms enough? Or is the market so skewed that new entrants must be encouraged?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of different sorts of mobile usage? Is SMS “an extension of the Internet” by nature or just happenstance? Are the troubles and expense of SMS/voice so problematic that we should just try to accelerate IP use?

Second Session: Monitoring and Evaluating

Following some tech demos, Jonathan Donner hosted a session on how to measure and evaluate ICT4D projects. Some key takeaways:

• There seemed to be general dissatisfaction with the M&E experience as it is traditionally conceived. Outside audits lack appropriate context, and inside evaluations are inherently biased.
• Whose criteria for success is used? The subjects? The actors? Donors?
• Regardless, evaluation is always more work and expense than you think.
• Perception is powerful, perhaps more powerful than facts; narratives, though not rigorous measurements, help people understand the goals and (potential) outcomes. But are narratives biased towards success?
• Evaluation is a great planning tool; build it into the process and institutional mindset.
• Is openness the key? By living publicly you can attract information and insight from experts you didn’t know existed.

Over all, a very stimulating discussion, and the deeper I dive, the more questions surface.

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.

Cell phones and the Internet are spreading in Cuba, apparently empowering dissidents. This follows illicit television that has been popular in Cuba for years:

Since the 1990s, television has been the censors’ Achilles heel. Thousands of Cubans, mostly in Havana, watch Spanish-language telecasts from Miami. U.S. State Department officials estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 parabolic antennas are in use in Cuba.

Will two-way communications empower more than TV broadcasts? Or will traditional power structures bring about changes in Cuba?

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Lots of good statistics about Internet usage in China.

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Another piece on the trade vs. aid debate, but with a heavier focus on African entrepreneurship. [For more information, see infoDev's page on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, including this report on the SME Financing Gap.]

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.

During the tragic post-election violence in Kenya late last year, a couple of technologists with ties to Kenya created Ushahidi, an innovative web service that allows witnesses to report crisis news from their mobile phone or computer. From the Swahili word for “testimony,” this non-profit has created a platform which allows for the crowdsourcing of reporting. It has already been proven useful in South Africa to track anti-immigration violence, and I’m sure sundry other uses will pop up.

I’m really excited for the possibilities this opens up. Ushahidi was an important tool for making the crisis in Kenya more transparent and capitalizes on the mobile penetration in Africa. Allowing more people to have the ability to express what they see is an important goal and Ushahidi is doing so in an open-source way which will make this as accessible as possible to all. Congratulations to the team!

The WSJ reports a surge of outside interest in the African telecommunications firms. With a population of nearly 1 billion people and a mobile phone penetration below 30%, the potentials for growth are astounding. Many non-African players are recognizing this including American hedge funds, British telecom giant Vodafone and Indian investors. Notably absent are American carriers including Verizon who today announced the purchase of Alltel to become America’s largest mobile-phone company.

In a way, I’m happy that AT&T et al. are not getting involved in Africa. They have shown a failure to innovate in the USA and using their billions to buy a stake in a quickly evolving market would likely lead to stagnation. I hope that the new players, regardless of location, recognize the need for investment to build out the networks and technologies in Africa.

Kevin Kelly has a new post where he relates a recent speech by Iqbal Quadir who is the founder of GrameenPhone, a Bangladeshi service which provides cell phones to those who traditionally could not afford them. The phone serves as a business (rented to others) and a source of connectivity to others. Quadir believes this distributed entrepreneurial approach is essential to eradicating global poverty.

Quadir is deeply skeptical of government spending to alleviate poverty, especially in unitary states. In his native home of Bangladesh, “everything of importance” was located in the capital, Dacca. I found this to be the case when researching development in Thailand last semester; Bangkok is disproportionately wealthy and healthy compared to the majority of the country – agricultural regions. The paper (PDF) I wrote sought ways to decentralize the state so that opportunities for advancement were present outside of the Bangkok Metropolitan Region. In both Thailand and Bangladesh, this centralization has led to corruption and stagnation. When all money flows through a couple hands, the potential for corruption is increased.

Of course, centralization has tangible benefits: increased productivity through ease of communication is an obvious one, efficiency another. However, Quadir thinks that “technologies that connect” are the key to bringing these advantages to decentralized systems.

Mobile phones are demonstrably effective in this regard. I do, however, worry that given the economies of scale and monopoly status of many telecoms, a new centralized power does, in fact, emerge. Although the Grameen organizations sought a mutually beneficial business ecosystem which alleviated poverty through profits, other businesses, ISPs included, may not be as socially responsible. Frequently, the head of the mobile phone networks in developing countries are related to the country’s leader. Serious thought should be given to the intermediaries’ ability to control “technologies that connect.”

Quadir is now examining other industries which might be “decentralizable” so that the benefits of, say, energy production can be distributed.

[Photo: MIT Legatum Center]

On Wednesday, the White House announced that it was permitting Americans to send Cuban relatives cell phones. This followed Raul Castro’s policy change which allowed the ownership of cell phones in the oppressive one-party state. To me this is a no-brainer and hopefully indicative of a broader American policy which recognizes the failure of the 40 year embargo which has neither removed Communist rule or bettered the economic position of the Cubans.

Not only should free speech and its tools be encouraged in the States, the agency enhancement – economic, political and social – which results from mobile communication should be actively supported abroad. For example, amidst Kenyan post-election turmoil earlier this year, a tool was created called Ushahidi which allowed Kenyans to report in real-time, via text message, incidences of violence. More generally, the merits of cell phones are often noted when producers need to determine distant market prices.

However, even though Cubans may now own cell phones, questions of infrastructure remain. A joint venture between the Cuban carrier and Telecom Italia is said to be expanding, but as long as we are in the business of providing wireless communication to Cuba (as we do with Radio and TV Marti) why not provide cell phone coverage and encourage Americans to send unlocked mobile devices?

No sooner had I returned from Berkman@10 than I learned of BlabNote, the purely vocal social network. Instead of interfacing through a web browser, like Facebook or MySpace, a user just calls BlabNote which recognizes the caller ID and allows them to do a number of typical operations: create groups, leave voice mails, conference call, etc. As TechCrunch puts it, BlabNote will have a long, uphill battle.

I’m interested in BlabNote for another reason though. As I chronicled in my recent post, mobile phones are incredibly pervasive in the world. Within 5 to 10 years more than 80% of people will own a cell phone and these will be increasingly powerful. This GapMinder animation shows the rapid adoption of mobile devices throughout the world.

Mobile communications right now are predominately vocal. Although advanced phones do include Internet browsing, the main form of communication is spoken. A major benefit to developing world users is that they need not worry about literacy. Where educational institutions are weak, vast swaths of the population can be illiterate or even if they can read and write in a local language, little online content is available outside of major languages like Mandarin or English. For example, take a look at the distribution of Wikipedia languages where English more than doubles the closest competitor.

These two trends make voice-only services a viable alternative in the developing world. The most obvious problem? The speech-recognition software which has improved dramatically for English is not available in Cheyenne or Zulu. If BlabNote could port the technology to other languages, they might have the possibility to provide a useful service to consumers and businesses in the third world who place great importance on mobile phones.