Category: Reports

Report A paper presented at the IFIP Technical Commission 9 workshop at Makerere University, Uganda (22-23 March 2010) on how smallholder farmers in south western Uganda use mobile phones to reach markets and service providers. Rural communities found phones an easy, fast and convenient way to communicate, demand for marketing information was highest, and phone … Continue reading The Role of Mobile Phones in Improving Communication and Information Delivery for Agricultural Development: Lessons from South Western Uganda

Report A PhD thesis (MIT, August 2008) by Tad Hirsch that presents contestational design, design activity aimed at promoting particular agendas in contested political arenas. It applies the framework to two case studies: TXTmob, an SMS-broadcast system built with activists for the 2004 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and Dialup Radio, a telephone-based independent media … Continue reading Contestational Design: Innovation for Political Activism

Report A short theme-section article by Roxanna Samii of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) on the role of mobile phones in bridging the digital divide for the rural and urban poor in developing countries. It argues that mobile telephony is affordable, scalable and self-sustaining, and includes a box on how mobile phones overtook … Continue reading Mobile Phones: The Silver Bullet to Bridge the Digital Divide?

Report A 2009 collection edited by Mirjam de Bruijn, Francis Nyamnjoh and Inge Brinkman (Langaa and the African Studies Centre, Leiden) on how mobile phones are changing everyday life in Africa. Chapters include the history of the telephone in Buea, Cameroon; the mobile phone and modernity in Khartoum, Sudan; mobility and marginalisation in Tanzania; the … Continue reading Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa