Category: Development

The hidden library

As interest in the phenomenal impact of mobile technology grows, so does the volume of literature on the subject. Reports are now published on an almost weekly basis, although many are commercially-produced and come at (quite) a price. Other more freely available studies are generated through high-level research by Phd candidates or Professors at western universities. Sadly, less seems to come from the developing countries themselves – those who find themselves most directly affected by the mobile revolution. But this may be beginning to change.

Recently I was fortunate to meet Christiana Charles-Iyoha, editor of a fascinating book published in Nigeria late last year. “Mobile Telephony: Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities for Socio-Economic Transformation in Nigeria” describes the impact of mobile telephony from an African perspective. Dominated by the voices of women’s groups, market traders, businessmen and women, students and members of the public, the book gives a unique insight into the impact of mobiles at the grassroots level of Nigerian society. It’s also full of little gems.

Take, for example, a survey on the obstacles to use of mobiles in rural areas among market traders. Some of the replies are particularly enlightening:

87% had issues with erratic power supply
75% were worried about the risk of theft
75% highlighted the high cost of re-charging
52% were worried about network failure
47% were concerned about network congestion
42% had difficulty understanding the phone menus
37% had issues with the low validity period of top-up vouchers

Gaining a better understanding of these kinds of issues is critical when planning and designing mobile-related projects in developing countries, but sadly it is also often lacking. For those who have overcome these barriers, however, the book is also full of quotes and nice anecdotes on the huge benefits that mobile telephony is bringing to Nigerian citizens.

“It has helped me to communicate easily with people. Many people would readily confess that they do not have to travel as before to get in touch with others who live far away”

“Given the number of people, especially the youth currently involved in the commercial phone business, there is no denying the fact that GSM is a tool for job creation in the country today. It has reduced the rate of unemployment”

Mobile phones may have made it easier for us to organise our social lives or keep in better touch with our friends, but for people in the developing world the technology is proving to be a real lifeline. Although we hear much about the positive impact it has made on the everyday lives of Africans, it’s not until we get to hear the story directly from the horses mouth that we begin to realise how positive this change really is.

And the winner is…

Few would dispute that we’re living in an age of tremendous innovation. It’s hard to believe that the PC has only been around for 20-odd years, and the mobile phone half-of-that. The personal computer may have blazed the original consumer IT trail, but what is happening today with the mobile phone is potentially hugely more significant. Let me explain.

Successful companies understand their customers better than unsuccessful ones, at least that’s what we’re led to believe. Back in the early days of the personal computer, customers were medium- to higher-wage earners, or at the top end the early adopters. It was the same with the mobile phone, considered toys for executives in the early days and only more recently essential devices for the masses. What’s different today is, unlike the PC which stalled price-wise at the lower-end of the developed western markets, mobile manufacturers have very quickly begun looking at the very bottom of the pyramid, the emerging markets, the billions living in poverty in the developing world. The rationale behind this is two-fold, at the very least. Firstly, the developed world (if we can call it that) has reached saturation point in terms of mobile ownership, so it is natural to look towards new markets. Secondly, mobile phones are incredibly, and perhaps uniquely, empowering socially and economically, so people don’t tend to see the move into emerging markets as an exploitative one.

For me, most significant is the interest that mobile manufacturers (and operators, come to that) are taking in development issues – poverty, gender, health, literacy, infrastructure, economic empowerment and so on. Just take the MOTOPOWER charging kiosk (pictured, courtesy of the Mobile Gallery), rolled out in Uganda earlier this year. Not only does it solve a major charging problem for mobile users (it runs on solar power, by the way), but it creates opportunity for micro-enterprise. Many women now run these kiosks.

This is just one example of how manufacturers and operators have quickly understood that poverty – in all its forms – are barriers to ownership, and as a result they’re making significant efforts to understand it. This, I believe, is a potential revolution in how big technology business views the developing world. Think, only recently have there been wide scale (global) attempts to build affordable laptops for the worlds poor – OLPC, for example – but it’s taken decades to get there. Mobile manufacturers are already on the ball, in less than ten.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but there may well end up being more than one winner. And the world’s poor may just be among them.

Bridging the knowledge divide

A common theme in my work, and in many of my conference talks, centres around a very simple message – appropriate technology. It’s nothing new, and as a concept has been around since the 1970’s with Fritz Schumacher’s defining book, “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered”. During my recent interview with Nokia’s “New Horizons” magazine, however, it was interesting that the conversation was entirely appropriate-technology focussed. I was expecting questions about FrontlineSMS, my work on wildlive! and my developing-country technology experience. Instead, the interview was dominated by my focus on “needs-based”, “human-centred”, “grassroots” and “appropriate” technologies. Believe me, I was more than happy to talk about these things – I don’t think enough people do.

It still surprises me – sometimes even saddens me – that we live in an era where there’s a general tendency to over-engineer solutions. Not only is this a waste of time in my view, but it’s a waste of money and effort. It also raises expectations. Believe me, there’s plenty of this going on as we speak (sorry, read). I come across this at conferences where I meet hugely technically-abled people who spend their time trying to find homes for the very latest technical gadgetry. And because of where I work, and the circles where I mix, the home they are looking for is usually in a developing country. This only serves to exaggerate the problem.

Take the recent use of my FrontlineSMS system in the Nigerian elections. FrontlineSMS is not rocket science. It’s so simple, in fact, that it slipped under most people’s radars. One comment on Slashdot discussing its use highlights this over-engineering view well:

It’s too simple. You guys don’t know what you are talking about. Doing it all with one computer and an SMS modem? You can’t future proof it that way. I want to see some mention of CORBA and SOAP. How can you have a system without middleware? Can you use dot NET? Everybody uses that these days. And what if I want to use it when I am already on the phone. Can’t it have a WAP interface as well? I want to sell a thousand copies of this thing and nobody is going to pay a million bucks for something which doesn’t use a single cutting edge technology

There is certainly no written rule that everything has to be cutting edge. Very little, in essence, is. Is Google cutting edge? There were plenty of other search engines around before they came along. All they did was see the opportunity, do it better and hit the target. Over the coming weeks I’m going to be spending a lot of time discussing mobile phone use, and web access, in developing countries. I’ll soon be presenting a paper – the same one presented at W3C in Bangalore last December – at the 16th International World Wide Web Conference in Banff, and sitting on an expert panel at the same event. And my message will be the same as it has always been.

Although it should come as no surprise that there’s a gulf between many developers and the realities of life in developing countries, there have been attempts to bring the two together. Some have worked better than others, but at least there’s a realisation that a meeting-of-minds is needed. If you want a simple, effective example as to why, take a look at the handsets being used by the majority of rural people in developing countries (see photo, taken in India this January). Then have a think about how Java, Flash Lite, WAP and smart-phone applications would go down with these users. Okay, one day these technologies will become relevant, but right now I would argue that they’re not. SMS is still the killer application, like it or not. And, on the subject of web access on mobile devices, I would also argue that we haven’t quite mastered it ourselves yet. Generally-speaking the user experience still leaves a lot to be desired.

I’m not the only person who thinks this way. Far from it. And I’m looking forward to meeting the others, and our technically-minded colleagues, in Canada next month. Time to re-open the debate…

Citizen journalism or citizen empowerment?

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It’s been a funny old week. After last weeks Mongabay.com interview, news broke on another subject – the use of my FrontlineSMS system in the monitoring of the Nigerian elections this coming weekend. NMEM, the Nigerian NGO who are running the project, will be using volunteer observers to text in any observations (good or bad) as they go through the voting process.

There has been a lot of talk in recent months (and years) about citizen journalism – people reporting on news in their area – but what is happening now, with software such as FrontlineSMS, is more citizen empowerment. The difference here is that with empowerment they not only report on their surroundings – they are suddenly able to fully engage and influence the outcome.

NMEM, whose mission is to “encourage the Nigerian electorate to participate in the electoral process”, are a non-profit group of young professionals in Nigeria advocating for social change through good governance. NMEM had the mission, NMEM had the passion and NMEM had the commitment and vision to drive this forward. NMEM also found FrontlineSMS, and they took the software and ran with it. With the exception of several emails and the odd 3am phone call (!) they have been pretty much alone in this venture. The story is really theirs.

This is just the beginning. The future is not citizen journalism – it’s citizen empowerment…