Tag: GSMA

Joining forces with the GSMA

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Good mobile data is hard to come by. Much is either speculative, out of date or – if based on more recent research – expensive. And what is freely available is often spread far and wide across the Web. If you’re into mobiles for development then today your life is set to become a lot easier with the launch of “Mobile for Development Intelligence” (MDI), a new open data platform from the GSM Association which aims to educate and unite all who want to harness the power of mobile for good – “Closing Mobile’s Data Divide” – June 2012.

Exactly one year ago I had the pleasure to blog about the launch of Mobile Data Intelligence, at that time the latest in a line of GSMA m4d initiatives designed to help unlock the potential of mobile technology for development. MDI has made great strides during its first twelve months. If closing in on 3,000 registered users wasn’t enough, the site tracks over 100 mobile data metrics – everything from network coverage to mobile penetration – and profiles well over 2,000 products, services and organisations. The site has become a rich, unique and valuable source of baseline data for practitioners, researchers and developers all seeking to maximise the huge developmental potential of mobile technology.

Given my enthusiasm for the GSMA’s commitment to providing access to valuable data and analysis to a broader community of people, I’m excited to start working with the team as part of my return to consultancy to help build further on their early success. At various times during my ten years in the m4d sector I’ve regularly blogged about the challenges of data scarcity, the challenges of measuring impact and ways we can achieve scale – however you define it – and the GSMA is uniquely placed to fill many of these gaps.

Over the next few months I’ll be working with them to build new tools designed to help decision makers identify the right tools and services for their project, use my own experiences in the field – and as a software developer – to provide fieldworkers and practitioners specifically with the kinds of information they currently lack, and think about how the GSMA’s services can be extended to appeal to new audiences.

I look forward to working with the growing m4d team, and everyone at the GSMA, to help further an aim that we all share – to support organisations, educators and innovators the world over, and to help them use mobile technology to its full potential in their social change work, whatever and wherever that may be.

Closing mobile’s data divide

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Good mobile data is hard to come by. Much is either speculative, out of date or – if based on more recent research – expensive. And what is freely available is often spread far and wide across the Web. If you’re into mobiles for development then today your life is set to become a lot easier with the launch of “Mobile and Development Intelligence” (MDI), a new open data platform from the GSM Association which aims to “educate and unite all who want to harness the power of mobile for good”.

A key objective of MDI is to help increase investment and activity in the mobile for development field, and in turn amplify the social, economic and environmental benefits the technology can bring. That positive impact has already touched a wide range of development sectors from education and health to financial services, government transparency and democracy, and agriculture. With mobile phones now in the hands of the very people the development community have historically tried to help – billions of them, and counting – exciting new opportunities have emerged. According to the GSMA:

The mobile phone’s ubiquity is uniquely well-placed to drive economic and social development in emerging markets. Investments in the mobile and development sectors are rising yet there is limited data on which to base these decisions. MDI is designed to bridge this information gap.

These gaps include:

  • The lack of data for business cases, product strategies and programmes
  • Limited visibility of organisations and communities
  • Limited understanding of the impact of mobiles on development
  • Fragmentation of platforms and limited cross-sector convergence

In line with these challenges, MDI aims to provide:

A freely accessible, online repository of data and analysis
MDI will aggregate, cleanse and categorise data from multiple internal and external sources into a single, centralised data repository. Users will have the ability to manipulate, visualise and export the datasets (below: the ratio of total mobile connections to total population, 2009-2011).

Visibility of organisations, products and services and community
MDI will provide an online directory where users can access information about organisations and their products, services and initiatives. It will provide the “who, what, where and how”.

Clarify the impact of mobile on development
Develop impact pathways for each specific sector to find and map evidence of socio-economic benefit, and host impact metrics from other GSMA departments e.g. the impact of mobile on GDP.

Thought leadership on technology convergence
Working outwards from user needs to design common platforms to deliver them.

Future functionality will include an investor hub, document repository, online community and coverage maps making MDI a one-stop shop for NGOs, international NGOs, government departments and the private sector interested in leveraging the power of mobile technology for development.

You can visit the MDI site here.

Congratulations to the GSMA team, partners ThoughtWorks and PwC, and investor the Omidyar Network.

Phones4All?

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According to a GSM Association spokesman quoted on the BBC Online website today, “The mobile phone is the only viable technology that can bridge the digital divide”. This is quite a bold statement in a debate which has been running for a fair old time. It goes along the lines that by putting something digital – a mobile phone in this case – into the hands of the worlds poor you can economically empower them, among other things. If it were only this simple.

It goes without saying that the mobile phone is revolutionising the way Africans talk to each other. Often described as a “leapfrogging technology” the mobile is bringing communications to areas which have never seen, and in many cases would never be likely to see, traditional landlines. And once these phones are unleashed on a population it’s true that quite amazing things happen. Budding entrepreneurs quickly spring up providing battery charging services, others sell carry cases, chunks of call time, car chargers, replacement covers and top-up cards (a huge percentage of third world customers use the ‘Pay-as-you-go’ service due to a lack of credit history, a bank account or even an address). One of the more remarkable examples of entrepreneurship is the building of tall wooden towers which users climb, for a fee of course, before making their call in areas with a bad signal. Who’d have thought of that?

During field-based research for a report I co-authored a couple of years ago, we called this “organic growth”, the secondary effect of the mobile revolution. At that time the knock-on effect of providing mobile coverage to a population wasn’t really appreciated, but sometime later Vodafone showed they had their eye on the ball when they published a comprehensive study of the socio-economic impact of mobile phones. It’s well worth a look.

As far as economic empowerment goes, it is true that some will benefit. But many others will be left behind. Being able to send a text or make a phone call alone isn’t going to drag everyone out of poverty. The mobile phone as a political empowerment tool though? Well, that’s another matter. Voting in elections with your mobile? Being done. Spreading a political message? Being done. Campaigning? Being done. Political activism? Being done. Quite clearly the more phones out there equals more opportunity.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that many developing countries are struggling with the democratic model, and perhaps no coincidence that in a fair few dictatorial regimes reign ‘supreme’. (Is Thabo Mbeki the only African leader not trying to change his country’s Constitution to stand for a third term?!). In places where free speech can land you in a whole load of trouble, mobile technology can give people a voice (or text, as the case may be). And an anonymous one at that. And this should not be underestimated.

The GSM Association can certainly do their bit. But let’s not get carried away. Unleashing 12 million $30 handsets into developing countries may grab the headlines, but a handset alone isn’t going to solve the complex problems that many of these people face on a daily basis.