Travelling ICT training…

Sounds like the the E-tuk tuk went so well in Sri Lanka that UNESCO is working to launch similar projects. Here is a new press release about the “Mobile CMS”  for the Caribbean. This time it’s housed in a bright yellow converted shipping container, and will be rolling out in Jamaica:

“The Mobile CMC called iSt. Lab, which is abbreviation for “High Street Laboratory”, is a mini high-tech mobile unit configured in a garbage disposal wheeled bin consisting of laptop computers, radio transmitter, electronic community newspaper, wireless Internet access and other peripherals.

The goal for the iSt. Lab is to move across the Island to inner-city, rural and otherwise marginalised communities delivering a myriad of creative multimedia workshops to people who have never used a computer before and also those who want to increase their skills in using ICT to support their personal and community development.

Economist Article

This article from the Economist is an interesting counter-point to the New York Times magazine article recently and others about the prospects of using cel. phones as a link to the internet in developing countries. It basically argues that while mobile technology is being widely used for calls & text, using mobile phones to access the internet would still require a huge infrastructure investment. The article raises the question about whether governments should step forward to make this investment in infrastructure since it’s not clear that the private sector will.

Report on mobile phones and social change

some of you may have already seen this, but I just stumbled upon and thought I’d share. A recent report published by Vodafone and the UN Foundation on mobile phone use by NGOs and other activists…

From the UNF website:
“This second publication in the series—Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use—examines innovative uses of mobile technology by groups working to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. The report identifies emerging trends in “mobile activism” through 11 case studies, and highlights the results of a global survey of NGO usage of mobile technology.”

Might be a nice summer reading assignment

Appropriating phones for teen dating in the middle east

Following our discussion on Chipchase-envy, here’s another fascinating piece of anthropological-mobile use research:

“Hiyam Hijazi-Omari and Rivka Ribak wrote a paper called “Playing With Fire: On the domestication of the mobile phone among Palestinian teenage girls in Israel”. In their research, they analyzed mobile phone practices among Palestinian teenage girls in Israel. The Paper constructs a detailed account of mobile phone use among Palestinian Israeli girls who, at the time of the fieldwork (2003-2006), used mobile phones given to them by their illicit boyfriends, unbeknownst to their parents.

You can link to the research paper, or see some commentary about it here where I initially found it, on Global Voices Online.

TED Talks

Here are some links to the TED Talks we discussed in class today, as well as some others that might be of interest in regards to our class.

TED Talks Home

Jan Chipchase Talk

Iqbal Quadir Talk: The Power of the Mobile Phone to End Poverty

NYTimes - Can the cellphone help end global poverty

Check out the NY Times coverage on cell phones and poverty!

News this morning

Saw this in the NY Times this morning - yet another testament to the power of the text message.

A new phone for digital storytellers

Nokia has announced its answer to Apple’s iPhone, the N78.  But the real gem is the recently-released N82, a device specifically created for visual storytellers.  This spring Nokia sent four bloggers and visual artists to travel the globe while documenting what they saw along the way.  The GPS-tagged images and the blogs maintained by these lucky four can be read at the Urbanista Diaries series here. 

Warana

I saw this article relating to the Warana Village project Morana was talking about and thought it was a great supplement to discussion today.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998628,00.html?promoid=googlep

The good and the bad

The good news is I stumbled across another great website on the topic of mobile phones for social change. Similar to MobileActive.org which Prof. Bar had introduced us to a few weeks ago, this one is called ShareIdeas.org. It features case studies and “how to” guides.

The bad news is that even though mobile phones have enormous potential for social change, and development, and reconciling the digital divide, we must be aware of its potentially serious health risks…

The Independent (among most other news outlets today) has the story: “Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation.”

Yikes.