The Future of Mobile Apps, Hope, and Why Pro-Poor Won't Work
“There is a fascinating discussion about the fuure of mobile apps going on over at http://Change.org. Nathanial Whittemore started it all with a hopeful and visionary blog post on how mobiles will be changing the world. The discussion thread turned into a thoughtful discussion on mobile appplications and how this emerging eco-system of tools scales and interoperates to maximize resources.”
Can a cell phone change the world?
A cell phone modification potentially brings on-the-spot disease detection and monitoring to even the most remote corners of the world, and sparks an online discussion of how the emerging ecosystem of mobile tools might be scaled and linked to maximize resources. See also http://mobileactive.org/.
Humanitarian Assistance Training Simulator
”...training simulator called Virtual Peace for students interested in humanitarian response. The platform brings together digital learning technologies and serious gaming for humanitarian aid education….”
The Internet and the Struggle for Voice in Repressive Regime Contexts
Post regarding a research seminar on Digital Media in Repressive Regimes, exploring the public sphere, civic engagement and political mobilization.
Facebook and the anti-FARC Rallies
How do real and virtual spaces influence on another in the field of political activism? This DigiActive research product draws on the Facebook-mediated anti-FARC protests in Colombia to assess the potential of the Internet in globalizing geographically specific political contests.One of the key factors used in quantifying this relationship is access: who has the ability to express themselves politically in a virtual space?
Resources for Online Youth Activism
Description:It is said that the future of the world is left in the hands of the youth. More than ever, young people are using the Internet as a tool for advancing social change. Recently, a coalition of youth-oriented nonprofits got together and demanded that they have had enough of extremism worldwide, and are now putting those who use violence as a method on notice...
Digital Tools and the Greek Riots
“While DigiActive does not condone the violent nature of the actions taken, we do acknowledge the value of discussing the digital activism techniques used, as they may be of value to nonviolent campaigns for change…”
Campaign: Homeless Nation offers a place to tell stories and interact
Description: Homeless Nation was started by Daniel Cross, a documentary filmmaker who has highlighted Canada’s homeless population in several of his films. While gathering thousands of stories given by the homeless, most of which wouldn’t fit into the films, Cross envisioned a space where these reports wouldn’t be lost....
TSF Assists Congolese Refugees in Uganda
Telecoms sans Frontieres has initiated humanitarian calling operations in Matanda, a transit camp in Uganda situated 30 kilometers from the Congolese border where an estimated 10,000 people are sheltered. After registering at the camp, each family is given a voucher to make a call anywhere in the world. In a single day, more than 120 families were able to contact a loved one.
“Over the past two years, Web 2.0 technologies have matured and so have the methods activist use to employ them. In 2008, activists from around the world used Web 2.0 to take command of the digital airwaves pioneering new forms of political mobilization. From Student’s for a Free Tibet’s live streamed protests in Beijing, to RNC protesters coordinating actions and monitoring police movements on Twitter to mass digital mobilizations for humanitarian relief and election protection, Web 2.0 is no longer just for social networking and fundraising.”
Building Mobile Apps for Africa
“I’m going to ask you to contribute to this at the end, so start thinking…
What do you think people should know before they build a mobile phone service or product for Africa. Got any tips for? Lessons to remember? Make sure you do/don’t do something?”
Mobile Banking for the Bottom Billion: An iRevolution?
”...The poor are bound to be affected by today’s synchronized global recession. Two processes in particular are at work: 1) decline in demand; and 2) contracting remittance flows, down -12% to -14% in some developing countries. However, micro finance banks are immune to economic downturns. To this end, mobile banking, also referred to as branchless banking, may provide one way to increase the financial resilience of the bottom billion…”
Mobile cell ubiquity connects urban poor to global markets
Author Bruce Sterling discusses mobile technology and urban poverty: ”...academic researchers who still focus on the inequalities of traditional broadcast media systems have completely missed the most significant - and most disruptive, says Sterling - innovation in communication. Mobile technology has already brought about social change, connecting the poor, the illiterate, and the disenfranchised worldwide to the global conversation. Welcome to real social change.”
On October 15, 2008, 12,000 bloggers banded together to discuss poverty.
Social media in closed societies
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Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher on the impact of information technology in developing nations, reports on his blog on a recent panel discussion, organised by the Open Society Institute, on new media in authoritarian societies.
The discussion started from the premise that our understanding of the effects of online media on society “are largely based on research in open societies, especially in the U.S. But there’s lots less work on the effects of new media in other parts of the world, especially in closed societies, and much of the work that’s done is incomplete and sometimes inaccurate.” Aside from Zuckerman himself, panels included John Kelly, founder of Morningside Analytics, who talked about the emerging networked public sphere and presented his maps of online social networks in Iran, Egypt, Russia, and China; Evgeny Morozov, who is writing a book on the Internet in authoritarian countries; and Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian-American writer who discussed how the Iranian diaspora uses the Internet.. (via Worldchanging) |
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The Tactical Technology Collective, an international NGO helping human rights advocates use information, communications and digital technologies to maximise the impact of their advocacy work, has just released “Mobiles in-a-Box“, a collection of tools, tactics, how-to guides, and case studies designed to help advocacy organizations use mobile technology in their work.
Included are sections on conducting surveys and petitions, mobile fundraising, creating a mobile website, setting up an SMS hub, and more. (via ShareIdeas) |
Enlightened Capitalism: Building a New Corporate Consciousness
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By Rachel Botsman
Besides changing our perceptions of the world and how we operate within it, the buckling of the “old system†of business is rapidly restructuring the relationships between employees, companies and society. The current convergence of global market failures and changing societal expectations of corporations is creating a widespread realization that we can’t continue with “business as usual.â€
By shifting their current perceptions of sustainability, companies can re-inspire employees (who are hungry for change) to play their part in bridging the gap between business value and societal needs. If they succeed, they could emerge from this crisis as trusted and sustainable 21st century brands.
In order to capture this opportunity, companies need to build a business culture that truly embraces sustainability and innovation. This is not about “greening†an employee base or organizing one-off community days. Nor is it about setting a target to reduce a carbon footprint or viewing sustainability in the narrow environmental sense. It is about building a cultural ethos that understands and embraces all the dimensions of sustainability -- planet, community, people, business and brands –- and the interactions between them.
Mobile Technologies Fighting HIV/AIDS: Project Masiluleke
A new project in South Africa leveraging mobile technologies as tools for public engagement to inform about and fight HIV/AIDS.
The goal of the Next Billion Network, founded and run at MIT, is to “deploy innovative mobile technologies that help people reduce friction in their local markets from the bottom up.” The Network manages point projects through an academic program and through partnerships to capitalize on increased adoption of mobile technologies in developing regions.
Tools: Twittering Crisis News in Mumbai
Tool Description: Most of the time, people use Twitter, a phone-based micro-blogging service, to tell their friends what they doing (â€walking 2 store w/ dogâ€), but following the terrorists attacks in Mumbai on November 26th, Twitter became a platform for participative news gathering and dissemination.
Activist Application: Following the terrorist attacks, residents of Mumbai used their mobile phones to “tweet†live updates of the crisis. By using the tag #mumbai, tweets from individual users were aggregated into a single channel (see below), which people interested in getting the latest updates could follow. In this way, news collection and dissemination became participative. People acted as citizen journalists by tweeting what they saw, and the aggregation function of the tag “#mumbaiâ€allowed for automatic broadcast of that news back to the public.
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Curated by:
Germination
Germination is a production company bringing people together to develop innovative solutions to social issues.
Lina Srivastava
Lina Srivastava helps agents of social change by providing socially conscious and business-savvy strategic consulting services.
Wai Mun Yoon
Wai Mun Yoon is a digital strategist and consultant who has over a decade of experience of using innovative technologies and emerging media platforms to communicate with global audiences.
