Around 150 participants joined the Open Aid Data Conference in Berlin. The event was full with discussions and exchange on how open data can be used to achieve more transparency in the developing aid sector. The first day was split into two workshops – an ‘Aidinfo Data Training’ and ‘Hackday,’ to explore potential data sets and applications to make developing aid more transparent.

In this post I would like to share my experiences from the Hackday as a co-organizer. There was an interesting mix of participants, from different backgrounds, who worked in teams on different issues greatly facilitated by Marek Tuszynski from Tactical Technology Collective. Here is a link summarizing the discussions, some available data sets, and these are the main questions we dealt with:

- What do we need to know about Open Data for aid transparency?
- What data is out there?
- Who benefits from developing aid? Organizations?
- How does an organization implement Open Data?

The last question was answered by one of the groups and put together in a document.
Other teams took a look at the kind of data offered in the German development aid sector. To begin with, the status of information is disappointing and proves the main purpose of the conference: Information is fragmented, almost no data is offered as open, and detailed data for financial spending is not available at all.

It is also impossible to find a list of organizations (NGOs, Government Institutions, etc.) funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Not to mention a list if disbursed funds for each project. That led to one outcome at the Hackday: To initiate a freedom of information act request to the BMZ.

Another team found out that not a single German developing organization offers project information in an open data format, so that it could be easier analyzed. Furthermore, it is very difficult to find out in which countries all these organizations have projects. It can only be found out by clicking through all the websites of hundreds of organizations funded by the BMZ. Imagine how long that takes and how non-transparent that is!

However one interesting database is offered by the OECD, which is called Creditor Reporting System and offers project information for over 50 years. Member countries such as Germany contribute their data about their funded activities under the umbrella of the Official Development Assistance (ODA). We took a look at the data and potential visualizations.

As an outcome of the Hackday, it became clear that we need to invest more time into data analysis to bring more transparency in the sector. Therefore, I will start developing a data catalogue to monitor German aid money better. More to come soon.

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The past year I have written on many occasions about the potential of open data and why it is much needed particular for the development aid sector. So I am happy to announce a Hackday I am organizing as part of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. The Hackday is linked with the Open Aid Data conference held in Berlin, which is organized by Openaid.de, Boell-Foundation among others. Click here for full further information.

Join the Open Aid Data Hackday!

Help us find innovative solution for aid transparency and make development aid more effective.

Germany is one of the largest donors in development aid worldwide. Every year over 6 billion euros are spend alone by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development  to provide humanitarian relief and tackle poverty around the world. The Open Aid data conference will bring together practitioners from various organizations to discuss and exchange about new solutions and how technology, the Internet and particular open data can make aid more transparent – because not all of the money is spent effectively.

Prior to the conference, we will organize on the 28th of September a Hackday at the Böll-Foundation in Berlin to bring developers together to experiment on technical and data solutions to improve development aid. We are looking for programmers, designers, coders and others who want to learn more about the field of development aid and would like to share their wisdom. In the morning, we will introduce you to the theme and then brainstorm on possible approaches to make aid more transparent. During the rest of the day we want to work through a code sprint on a real solution. Be part of the event!

There are a range of activities around open aid data worldwide, such as the recent conference in Amsterdam or a Barcamp in Kathmandu for aid transparency. By the way, an interesting fact: The Kenyan government has offered an open data portal, while the German government is still debating on such a platform.

Open data and new bottom-up solutions for development aid are a rather new field but with some promising developments. Around data there is an initiative called IATI (International Aid Transparency Initiative), which propagates a common standard for data sets for financial and other project related data. So far in development cooperation, only a tiny fraction of financial data is openly available, which is, at the end of the day, the tax payers’ money. Watch this excellent movie from Publish What You Fund on why financial aid transparency is needed.

One driver of IATI is Aidinfo.org, a co-organizer of the conference and member of the IATI secretariat, who has done some pioneering work in the area. Check out the AidInfo Labs to see what is possible through such data sets. We are curious to hear your ideas and projects.

Another driver of open aid data is the World Bank, who will also present their work on the conference. The World Bank has not only opened up its data, but also made an app competition, where many great solutions have been developed, to use the data, for example games about development indicators, amazing visualizations and crowdsourcing approaches. The aim is to make development aid more effective. Initiatives, such as Ushahidi in Africa, demonstrate the potential  of new forms of technology. Come join us at our Hackday to network with great people from the community.

You can apply here or contact Christian.Kreutz {at} okfn.org for further questions. The Hackday is organized by the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany.

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Google Maps has been an incredible service in the past years. Not only it was Google’s engineers, who invented the slippy map, which revolutionized digital maps, but its approach to offer such a service for free and shock competitors with a free routing service. Google has a tremendous overview on all activities on the Internet; billions of search queries everyday say a lot about people’s personalities. With analytics in websites, Google tracks people’s paths from one page to the next.

We are just at the beginning of this massive data collection endavour. TomTom now throws out their gadgets for free just to get real-data from their users. Ironically, it came out recently that they sold the real-time traffic data to the Dutch police. That kind of data collection is not appreciated, all other data collection is agreed on with a small click by accepting the terms of service.

The author Daniel Suarez is worried about the future with his new book: “Understanding the Daemon.” It is still fiction, but that can change soon: “Computers have learnt from us with every Google search, with every „I like“-click. Now they are beginning to change us“. Every time we click, we feed the system called Internet and the outcome is not yet known. Ironically, the features of web 2.0 have incredibly helped to feed the system. Each recommendation, rating, each link, makes the data analysis better. But I am really worried that this is not always for the better. The open available data sets are peanuts compared to data sets of Google or Facebook likes. The question is also what data shall or can be public?

Data becomes more important than hardware. Apple is so eager to collect data that they spy on iPhone users activities and obliged users to do so over their terms of services. I have read a nice comparison: It is like buying a car and you are obliged to not use the seat belt. But things are not for free, although many services draw that illusion. Companies will at one point need to earn money with these adventures.

That’s why Google Maps has changed their terms recently. Websites, which use Google Maps are from now on obliged to “forward display any advertising delivered in the maps imagery“. An obvious and, from a company perspective, understandable move. Perhaps Google will invade millions of pages with advertisement soon. I am sure it is only a matter of time when these companies start to make money with personal data.

That’s why projects like Openstreetmaps are so important because there is an attempt to offer valuable geo data without restrictions. There is an uneven race for getting data open for more transparency and, for example, for better citizen services. Recently, companies, such as Nike, have started to provide open data. However, I get the sense it is just a public relation move; or will they soon provide data up and down the supply chain, so one can follow up how sneakers are being produced? The crowdsourcing potential for such open and free data will keep growing if more and more people join the process. However, these type of data collection is tiny compared to the huge commercial data sets. Ironically, commercial companies now “exploit” Openstreetmap data because it is so good.

That is one big reasons why I co-founded the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany two months ago – to work more on transparency projects.

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David Wilcox asked me on Quora this question, which I also want to publish as a response here to discuss the topic further. Would be great to get some more thoughts on that topic from you. I imagine we can learn a lot from digital inclusion in Africa. Here are some points:

The art of improvisation

When it comes to access, the innovation under constraints is amazing in Africa. Look, for example, how the challenge of energy supply has been greatly mastered. I think that in Europe we address inclusion only from few angles and should be more creative. We could focus a lot more on mobile phones and offer real needed services even through SMS. Suddenly, we can potentially reach over 90% of people, but most important, we need to play a lot more with technology and hack it where we can. A lot is happening in this regard in the UK, on the contrary Germany, where technological skepticism is still hampering innovations, or where one faces legal implications when offering open wifi.

I like these to posts very much:

• Innovation from Constraint by Ethan Zuckerman
• If It Works in Africa, It Will Work Anywhere by Erik Hersman

However, to me one of the biggest challenges is media competency, and not only in Germany but in the rest of the world.

Service models

If we have not reached enough people through the Internet, it might be that most services do not address a real need and do not offer sufficient help. Isn’t the Internet in Europe largely focused towards the middle class? Where are web solutions or services focused on marginal groups? Here information literacy is the key: “… empower people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals” UNESCO

I wish there would be more solutions such as “Rate my Prison“ from the first social innovation camp or or “My Police“. Unfortunately “Rate my Prison” seem not to have been developed further.

Look at the public sector for example and see how little is offered here in Germany. There is a city website, but hardly any online services. On the other hand, Fixmystreet is still a rare exception. The whole world of apps unleashes here a new creativity, but if you really want to get inspired for future mobile services, you need to look at Africa. In Africa solutions such as Farmer’s friend (SMS price information) attempt to reach also poor people in remote areas. Where are such business models in Europe?

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Connection Speed in Europe

On my last post, I talked about how slow websites can trigger higher search costs. In this post I want to further elaborate on the bandwidth divide that exists within and between countries, and which is largely ignored by website developers. There is also the notion that we have unlimited capacities for websites – the more the features, the better the website. On the contrary, especially now with the increasing usage of the web, low-bandwidth websites are more important than ever.

Connection speed comparison

Average connection speeds by Pingdom

Check, for example, the latest “real” connection speed overview from Pingdom based on Akamai data. South Korea has been leading in terms of bandwidth for years, while other Western countries have considerable less capacity available. I did a little heat map to show the geographical variation across the world. Would you have guessed that Romania has the fastest connection speed in Europe?

On the bottom of the list are countries such as Nigeria, Indonesia and Iran, which have 1/3 of users with less than 256kbs per second connection. If that speed is really available, it still needs 6 seconds to load the Wikipedia page example from my last post. Take a book and select a page and then wait 6 seconds before you open it. Do that for a few pages and you will see how frustrating can slow speed can be when doing research.

Website speed and search engine ranking

Although the mobile web is growing exponential, only a minority offers customized websites because most such changes take time, skill and resources. Even Google is taking website speed into consideration. Its primary goal probably is to save resources for their crawlers. In the tool Google webmaster you can see your website’s speed performance. This example is with 5 second slower loading time than the majority of other websites. 

Google Webmaster Tools

Some hints to dive into website speed

You can also use tools such as webpagtest.org and see that, for example, the new World Bank page still has 900 kb to load. This means that with a fast connection, it still takes 8 seconds to load. Check here for details. With a low-bandwidth connection, which is the situation in many developing countries, it takes over one minute to load the front page.

Content Delivery Network

One other great approach is content distribution network (CDN). They distribute your files around the world and put them closer to the user’s end. So, if a user visits your site from Asia, then he gets the files from a server in Asia instead of Europe. Basically, you distribute the same files across servers. Wonder why is Google so fast? Because they have servers around the world. If your audience is let’s say in Uganda, you better not only host the website in the US, but also in Kampala or Kenya. However, it all depends on your audience.

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Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia)

There are a number of reason why websites are slow; and the results of this lead to raising searching costs and leaving users. A faster website requires skills and resources often not available to great information-rich pages. With a low-bandwidth connection you have two amin major challenges: A slow connection needs to deal with increasing loaded websites, and low-bandwidth is often what you get with a mobile data connection.

Search costs

“Our experiments demonstrate that slowing down the search results page by 100 to 400 milliseconds has a measurable impact on the number of searches per user of -0.2% to −0.6%.”

“The most compelling results reveal that two seconds is the new threshold in terms of an average online shopper’s expectation for a web page to load and 40 percent of shoppers will wait no more than three seconds before abandoning a retail or travel site.”

Bandwidth is not keeping pace with page size

Credit: www.aptivate.org

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The same way the fishing industry has found more efficient methods to get most fishes out of the oceans, is exactly how we find more ways to digitze information that was previously only available offline. Imagine a massive fishing-net bringing us the greatest fishes, but emptying the oceans. What would be then the fishing-net or, in this case, the opportunities and consequences of digitizing all the information? Nobody really knows.

Thanks to the Internet, we now double every two days all stored information. The estimated amount is 5 exabytes according to Eric Schmidt (Google) and it took human kind 2000 years to get a similar amount of archived information. Traditional governments and companies collect information and stored it as digital data. The non-profit sector is increasingly engaging in such efforts because technologies have become more widely available in many cases even as open source software.

Text recognition (OCR)

Text recognition software has become very sophisticated and can understand even hand written texts. Cloud services such as Evernote analyze each note uploaded for texts, being it a business card, wine label or any other document. Thanks to such softwares the UNdemocracy.com project scanned thousands of documents by the United Nations and offered better search capabilities. Another project by HP Labs in Bangalore wants to offer an email service written by pen on paper. An image through a mobile phone and text recognition shall make it possible. And if it is not recognized by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), then our support through the well-known reCaptcha helps make sense of words. For Recaptcha we help decipher texts from medieval books.

Voice recognition is far from being new, but it has become much better over the years, and its services are much easier available. Latest voice actions make such a service available for all Android driven mobile phones, where you can read outloud, for example, the text of an email. Ushahidi text-based service is now also available by voice to report about incidents. They work with Cloudvox a voice service application. This and services such as Twilio make such voice affordable and available to low budgets previously reserved only to companies and government.

The open source solution Freedom Fon even offers an interactive voice response system so, for example, iliterate people can provide information.

In recent years a lot of mobile softwares for data collection have been developed. Here are some open source solutions. Mobile phones are in the hand of half of the world population and many collect data passively or actively. Google collects already data through a GPS, if users have accepted to join it, for traffic information. In remote areas innovative solutions try to bridge the 160 character limit of SMS. A simple paper wheel is used to report critical health information from the country side in Cambodia.

More and more cameras and particular mobile phones have a GPS functionality and increasingly the photos are uploaded to the Internet. Flickr photos in the world map gives a first impression. Flickr has already 117,025,830 geotagged items. In few years in most locations around the world a series of blog posts are available. Google Street view will then “only” have the streets. Talking of Google, their Goggles service tries to deliver additional information on physical objects. Take a photo from an object such as a restaurant menu or a sight seeing spot and it will provide you with information and store the image in a database.

In the next days comes another post with more examples and thoughts on consequences.

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There is often that notion that once you have access to the Internet or to other information and communication technologies (ICT), the whole world of information lies rights at your feet, so you only need to pick the best of it. But in contrary, it can become incredibly time consuming to verify information and to make yourself a trusted source. In the field of ICT4D, this issue is particularly important. In many cases people do not have years of experience working with ICTs and have actually learnt them just the auto-didactic way – using the Internet for their own benefit. Let’s take the case of farmers in rural areas of Africa.

Kenya. Photo: © Curt Carnemark / World Bank

Farmers in developing countries

The other day I had an interesting conversation with a colleague, who has been working already for decades in the rural development and agriculture field around the world. We talked about the potentials for ICT in agriculture and in specific farmers. One of the major challenges is neither access nor literacy, but simply trust. Why should a farmer trust an information coming from somewhere as an SMS? Farmers make careful elaborations, before they change certain practices. Information from a website can help, but at the end of the day what counts is the advice of trusted colleagues. So, we have to realize that information through ICTs often have only a small impact.

ICT and agriculture

In the case of agriculture, behavioural change through extension advice is even more difficult to happen through ICTs. For decades, it has been well known that advise has no effect if simply some guides and brochures are sent to farmers. More effective is a participatory process, where farmers learn from each other directly. So why should farmers change practices they have done for years when they get advice through SMS or any other channel? “It needs a lot more than ICTs,” pointed my colleague.

In contrast, market information particularly through mobile phones is more successful because of the price information, which are much easier to trust than a particular advice for the next cultivation. But even in this case, they had to be introduced in groups of trusted people. Otherwise, who would trust a SMS from anywhere? Would you? There have been cases where rumors spread through SMS have even led to violence.

Demystify the Internet in Rural Africa

Take yourself as an example, how many sources do you really read or how many people do you speak to before you can take the information for granted? ICTs allow for incredibly easy publishing and disseminating of information; but the information is still not worth a penny if it is not trusted. Linda Raftree has a great post, where she describes her experiences during ICT training courses in Ghana.

“Another question that surfaced was ‘Is the internet true?’” This led to a great discussion on how information comes from all sides, and that anyone can actually put information online. It’s truth, and anyone can’t believe everything one reads, it’s not regulated, you need to find a few sources and make some judgment calls.”

Although all this information is not new at all, so many ICT approaches forgot exactly about that challenge. The information has to only be delivered somewhere and that should bring change. The problem is that trust is built slowly through social relations and these take a lot longer to grow online.

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DFID blogs.dfid.gov.uk

In addition to my recent Twitter analysis, I wrote another article on development organizations and social media on the web2fordev blog, which I crosspost also here.

Many organizations have approached the social web and new technologies from different angles during the last years. Large organisations have engaged in one or another way, in social media. But did they fully embrace the participatory web? Let’s take a look at how development organisations have approached the social web and where the status quo stands.

A general objective for development organisations is to increase their outreach. Social media are used to spread news and other information across the social web. Reaching an audience directly has many advantages, but are organisations ready to address the challenges inherent to a two-way communication interaction?

Video

Video channels are a popular form. All large development organizations have their own channels on Youtube: World Bank (2 236 subscribers), United Nations (6 608 subscribers), UNDP (1276 subscribers) USAID (43 subscribers) and CTA. While some organisations rely on the production of professional videos, USAID is still experimenting with a blend of professional and grassroots video productions. Like USAID, on its vimeo platform CTA offers both professional and in-house productions while on its official video site CTA offers a range of professionally produced multimedia related to agriculture and rural development.

Across the sites the number of subscribers confirms of the interest that people have in multimedia related to development cooperation. The download statistics of the World Bank, which exceed one million, support this assessment.

Twitter

Another area of involvement are social network websites such as Twitter. Many organizations have Twitter accounts such as UNDP , UNICEF, UNHCR , UN , USAid, CIDA , AfDB , CTA, etc. The World Bank has various Twitter accounts such as news of an Asian section.

While videos are used to broadcast news, I wonder whether these organizations use Twitter to nurture two-way communication. A quick analysis indicates that this is not the case. Out of ten organizations, only two reacted to their audience and replied with a message.

Blogging

The blogging efforts from the World Bank and DFID are certainly different. The world bank has blogs covering different thematic areas such as conflict , governance or private sector development and these are linked to debates and interactions with the wider blogosphere. DFID has taken a different approach and provides “real life perspectives from those working on the ground to fight poverty”. It offers surfers to join the debate. DFID’s bloggers trigger quite some discussions on some posts, but also leave some questions unanswered. Other blogging efforts are being conducted by the United Nations and the Overseas Development Institute.

Facebook

Another popular approach are the Fan pages on Facebook, which are mostly used as an alternative channel to broadcast organisational news (e.g. USAid) and create a space where fans can post questions and remarks. In the case of the World Bank, its page has 7758 members, with whom the organization is interacting quite actively. CTA has launched its Fan page on Facebook and accounts fora few hundred members so far.

Use of multiple social media

An more advanced approach is taken by some NGOs. A good example is Oxfam, which actively taps into the potential of the participatory web. Their blogging portal combines many different social media forms. Discussions are linked to different communities and Oxfam has built a far-reaching audience, with which it is engaged with.

Drawing the line

So, in conclusion, if one looks back at the time of the Web2forDev 2007 Conference , a lot has happened and some organisations have invested considerable resources to engage with social media. Nonetheless despite the promising signs for two-way conversations, it seems many organisations still have to define a well-though strategy and deploy the necessary resources to make the most out of the social web and its potentials.

In parallel some organisations are increasingly investing in integrating “social features” into existing internal web communication. This aspect will we be discussed in a forthcoming post.

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Mobile phones have tiny screens and keyboards, and need an agile finger to handle them. Yet some pioners believe mobile phones might be a key learning device for the future, and have even come up with smart ideas to make learning on the go a motivating and interactive approach. No doubts that if mobile learning (mlearning) works, it can potentially reach millions of people, who have difficulties to get access to learning materials, otherwise.

Moodle for the Iphone

For Steve Vosloo “…The cellphone is the kindle of Africa, until the prices of ebook readers come down…” (Tweet) Steve Vosloo from the M4Lit programm at the Shuttlewoth Foundation in South Africa sees here a potential for youth education. He experiments with an interactive mobile novel (www.kontax.mobi). “We want reading to be social (community) and engaging (interactivity). We’re reaching teens where they are — on their mobile phones”. He points out, “Teens don’t write enough”, but “teens love their phones.” So, could technology be an incentive to make youngsters learn?

My friend Inge de Waard is working on another interesting mlearning project around health. In her case, physicians working on HIV/AIDS care, in remote locations, are offered to learn through mobile phones about the latest medical information. “The didactic material consists of 3D animations simulating interactive clinical cases which are adapted to mobile devices.” The project is currently developing a mobile version of the well known learning plattform “moodle.” This way doctors not only get the course material to their mobile phone, but potentially can interact with colleagues around practice experiences.

For Robert Hawkins of the World Bank the future of education is around ubiquitous learning. “With the emergence of increasingly robust connectivity infrastructure and cheaper computers, school systems around the world are developing the ability to provide learning opportunities to students “anytime, anywhere”.

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Cairo

Johannesburg

In this blog post, I will dive into the latest buzz: Google Buzz.

Google Buzz is a huge jump in location-based services as it happens all around the world at once. I have browsed through the map of Google Buzz’ mobile phone version, where statuses can be combined with your location – it is striking to see where all information pops up. Here are maps of three different cities – Johannesburg, Cairo and Mumbai – showing messages from the last 24 hours.

Mumbai

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There are over one billion Internet users worldwide according to a list from Wikipedia. Every day thousand of people joining social networks such as Facebook. How can these social networks be used to boost business? Are there differences between countries or regions how such social networks work? Mark Davies from Esoko, explains intriguing thoughts from his work in Ghana on market information systems through mobile phones.

The next billion

It is not easy to get figures, but the ones existing might come as a surprise to some. The largest social network in China, QQ has over 300 million active members. According to Appfrica, South Africa has 1.1 million Facebook members, Morocco 369,000, Tunisia 279,000, Nigeria 220,000, Kenya 150,000,and Mauritius 60,000.  Here are more details on social networks worldwide. The key role will be around mobile phones as the main way to access and interact in online social networks. According to research from Frost & Sullivan and Colibria, mobile social networks will grow ten fold to over 500 million users in Latin America and Africa in the next five years.

Culture and impact

But what happens in this social networks is what we know little about. What are the impact of such networks and their potentials beyond pure leisure exchange? This question has made me thought for a while and wonder what is the role of different cultures in such communities. For Anand Giridharadas, Facebook becomes an Indian village. Back at the ICT observatory I had an interesting discussion with Mark Davies around these questions, which I have recorded and transcribed below.

Christian: Hello Mark. We attended the last day of the ICT Observatory. We’ve had very interesting discussions the past days, and I would like to ask you, or discuss with you, the topic about social networks in Africa. Especially, you already mentioned that in your project, you really want to go in that direction using mobiles and the web for farmers, and to bring farmers and traders together. What do you think is the role of these networks and their potentials for the future?

Mark Davies: Well, I think it’s really interesting that we’ve been through a period of three or four years, where networks seem to be one of the most compelling and interesting uses of the web, or the web 2.0. We’ve experience FaceBook, Twitter, and these other, MySpace.

Sitting in Africa, where we’re working in Africa, and we’re working in commerce and trade, it’s all about social networks. You’re trading with individuals that you know, this is perhaps a friends, or an associate, or somebody within your village. There is some identity that you can associate with them, and there is an element of trust.

So it’s just intriguing to consider, if we took some of those principals of FaceBook, of Twitter, of MySpace, and we used it in a environment where, actually, social networks are even stringer. Does that mean that they are more or less appropriate? I think that’s what’s fascinating us.

Certainly in the case of European trade, or me as a businessman in America, I didn’t need to know the person that I was trading with. I working within legislative framework I was working where standards and grades existed, and we knew who and what we were trading.

In Africa, if you’re trading something, how do you insure that you get paid? How do you insure that the item that you’re trading is what you’ve agreed upon? How do you insure that these things are what they say they are? You use networks as a way to reinforce, in this informal sector, that kind of commence and trade.

I think that’s where we’re looking at using technology to reinforce those networks, and make it easier for you to extend your networks beyond, perhaps, the geography or immediate linkages that you currently experience.

Christian: So that would mean the physical presence, the face-to-face exchange, is very important. To which extent do you think it is possible to do something over the Internet, when it comes to something as serious as trader and business-to-business solutions through mobile phones?

Mark Davies: Well I don’t think you do trade over the web, I don’t think that’s what happens. But I think it’s about “how do you exploit some of your social capitol using the web?” I don’t think that means everything suddenly happens on the web, I don’t think that we’re going to see e-commerce anytime soon.

But how do I connect to somebody who might be in a different village, further away? If somebody has said that they have a product that I’m interested in, how can I use some networking tool to get closer to that person, to establish some identity or some reputation?

Perhaps I might find somebody that I already know in their community. And I can ask them “do you know so-and-so? Are they trustworthy? Can I send them the money before they send me the product?” I think that’s the way.

It’s a little more complex, it’s about minimizing risk. You’re using social networking, you’re using technology to minimize your risk. Not to replace complete transactional activities, which will still be, if not face-to-face, it will be mouth-to-mouth. You will be negotiating, you will be arguing, you will be qualifying the deal.

But you can certainly use technology to use society, and used linkages as ways of minimizing your risk. In the same way how Grameen, with finance and loans, has leveraged your community, your network to create social pressure on you to pay back during certain periods, or on certain dates. In the same way, we can use social networks to create peer pressure so that you’re not abusing a trade or commerce relationship, in a similar way, with a stranger.

Christian: Very interesting. You also told me that you, for implementation, that you think about reputation. The keyword is reputation. Can you imagine something like eBay for rating and reputation? To which extent could that work? Especially, also, what could be the role of mobile phones then?

Mark Davies: Well, I think that people trade in Africa based on reputation. They know that “I may not even get the best price from this person, but I know that I will get paid, and I know that I will paid quickly.” These are the sorts of reputations that are important when you are choosing “who might I trade with?”

So the fact is that I think people in Africa, more or less, are simply not digitized. They don’t exist in a database. They have have a SIM card. Do they have a phone number? Yes. Do they have a postal address, or in they in a electoral register? These thing are beginning, but in effect, they aren’t accessible. You can’t find a profile to find out whether this person has abused previous trading relationships or not.

So I think, that as we profile people and put them into these databases, and digitize communities, we can associate content, observations, and commentary about them that can help other people interact with them. And again, reduce their risk. Now whether, in the simplest form, that might mean “are you allowing that community to rank and rate an individual?” We don’t know.

It’s, I think, a very dangerous games to be in. Because people may have all kinds of reasons why they might want to rank you and rate you, that are not particularly objective. So I think we need to think very carefully about who can rank who, under what circumstances. How can we keep it objective? Do we have particular agents, or brokers, that have greater weighting, or ranking, to their own ranking of other individuals?

But very simply, you could see a system whereby I, on a mobile phone, could enter the could enter the mobile phone of the person I’m trading with, and just establish “does the person exist? Are they on a system somewhere? How long have they been on that system? If they’ve been on it for three weeks, can I trust them? And if they’ve been on for three years, maybe there’s some more credibility there. And can you tell me how many complaints have been approved by brokers within that platforms, so that I can see that there is quite some risk with doing a trade with this person?”

So very much like eBay. 73 percent score, because 300 people have ranked this person and had a positive experience. That introduction of reputation into markets in Africa, will have a profound impact on expanding circles of trade.

Christian: That means, of course, more sales for products, and more…

Mark Davies: Yes, I think it’s not only about trying to push product our of Africa, to the rest of the world. It’s within Africa, it’s within the sub-regions. It’s between Ghana and Burkina, that we find trade breaking down because there are barriers of language, barriers of trust, barriers of regulation.

A great deal of thinking is being emphasized on “how do we create inter-regional trade, so that the wealth can be rationed within these African communities? That we can increase production, that we can increase demand within national consumer populations?”

As such, I think these tools, and these technologies, can play a very important role in facilitating that, and allowing cross-border trade with people that you might not have traded with before. Even if it just means “how do I convert a price into my currency?” In northern regions of Ghana, where you’re trying to understand what the price is in Burkina, it’s in French and it’s in CFR, in their currency.

So it’s very difficult to kind of compare. “Should I go a few extra kilometer, and buy or sell that product.” Technology can be used, and it will be on the mobile, to breakdown those kinds of barriers or language and currency, so that you can judge for you self what is the opportunity that is presented.

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Location, mobile phones and the Internet, combined together, are becoming an attractive amalgam for new opportunities. There is a fascinating trend to see the convergence of mobile technologies connected to the Internet and the rising importance of location. This is not just another hype, but could really be interesting for the non-profit arena.

I have already written about the potential renaissance of the Internet of Things – how low-cost technology can be used for better transparency. In a recent paper Tim O’Reilly calls it the information shadow, which simply means “offline” things and their information are increasingly connected to the web. “All of these breakthroughs are reflections of the fact – noted by Mike Kuniavsky of ThingM – that real world objects have “information shadows” in cyberspace.”

At the recent KM4DEV conference, I tried to summarize my thoughts on these developments and their potential implications on development work and activism. I have uploaded the presentation, which is hopefully as self-explanatory as possible and, in this blog post, I would like to add some more remarks:

My initial attempt for the presentation was my reflections on “what would happen if the Internet becomes locational aware? What are the implications of the boost in geo-data? And, what are the consequences of the ubiquitousness of mobile phones?”

Presentation

I start with two interesting quotes:

“It is estimated that as much as 80% of data contains geo-referenced information.” (Liping Di)

“It is not about mobile any more. It is the convergence from the social web with the mobile. The mobile let you interact within a network in a highly contextual way.” (Teemu Arina)

A jump to Uganda, where Google, Grameen, MTN and Brosdi have established an SMS service for health and agriculture tips. It has attracted over a million in the first months. I have heard that it was free in the beginning and maybe that was also a reason for such high use. Interestingly Google needed local institutions to get the content as it is not as easy to collect in the African context. For example, statistical data is not widely collected and, in particular, local content rarely digitalized. That might be a reason why Google has sponsored the Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge.

Citizen journalism (action) from anywhere

The famous initiative around the mobile African reporters is just one way to use the mobile phone and report from everywhere. “Fix my Street” in Great Britain shows how citizens can report on street damages through their mobile phones and emails are send to public institutions. “Stop stockouts,” a recent project running with the Ushahidi software, allows citizens to report medical stockouts in pharamcies, which are obliged by law for a certain stock in Southern African countries. I have wondered for a while how these efforts can help to monitor and evaluate development projects in a different way?

What makes digital maps different?

I was recently invited to moderate an online dialogue on human rights and geo-mapping. It is fascinating to see how mapping can help to advocate human rights and also empower local communities to share their environment. One such project is Green Maps with projects all around the world or a Google Earth project with indigenous communities in the Amazon. Maps can reflect different perspectives, interests, constraints and demands for change. What are the implications of people worldwide mapping their environment and having access to these in any place through their mobile phone?

To get a further understanding of digital maps, we need to forget about the usual paper maps with typical street information. Digital maps can offer all kinds of information, but different to paper maps, they have all the underlying geo-data, which can be used in many other contexts.
There are countless things that can be mapped and might help others in the local context:

• Surveillance cameras in my neighborhood
• Accessibility of facilities
• Bike tracks in my city, etc.
• Environmental pollution
• Cheapest shoe stores

So we have:

1. Increasing geo-data available
2. Access to these data through maps or other applications on mobile phones wherever we are, and
3. Increasing contributions to this information base.

Such efforts can lead to all sorts of services such as the traffic information or to find public bus connections in Chennai, India, for instance, which I highlighted in my post on Maptivism.

Explosion of location-based services

There is an “explosion” in location-based services these days, and all big players have been buying map services. Apple has just bought a mapping company and Google has announced that they will offer free navigation services for Android phones.

The geospatial web

In recent years we have been able to see huge efforts to offer maps and geo-data. Big names such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft offer maps. OpenStreetMaps offers the geo-data behind it even for free because it is a worldwide voluntarily run project. Although Google has done some remarkable efforts to offer maps also in developing countries, I believe it is very important that such maps and the data behind them are a public good. A nice example is Kabul, which is only accurately mapped through the voluntarily run OpenStreetMap, and it is much better.

The geospatial web for development work

It is striking to see that so many development organizations seem to be sleeping when one looks at the potential for geo-referenced information. The World Bank is heading in this direction and the humanitarian and relief sector is doing a lot, as the recent crisis mapping conference showed. But many development organizations are still overwhelmed to offer their data in universal standards such as RSS or offer Application Progamming Interfaces to mix data.

We are struggling daily for better filters, particularly in development organization, but location could be a decisive third filter:
Information

• Filter 1: Topic
• Filter 2: Person
• Filter 3: Location

I finish with a great image by Andrew Turner, who has an inspiring, albeit rather technical presentation about the geospatial web. From global to local – lets get the Internet location aware.

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There is a wide variety of information and communication technologies, but even more ways to use them to deliver content. Particularly in constraint environments such as rural areas, a whole range of channels are offered to get information to a person needed. In preparation for next week’s ICT observatory 2009 by CTA, Pete Cranston and I came up with examples of such different channels used in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

They can probably be categorized in a different way and more easily. They should show that if one wants to deliver service models around ICTs, they do not necessarily need to be around mobile phones, as the exchange of video CD of farmers shows (Interview of Louise Clark below), although the latter is oundoubtly the most promising tool. I have followed the tweets from the Mobile Web Africa conference and read these fascinating statistics:

• The recently launched SMS service by Google, Grameen, MTN and BROSDI in Uganda for agriculture and tips received over a million queries in the first few weeks although the service charges premium SMS rates. The service offers answers out of search results from specific databases via SMS.
• Google mobile traffic has increased 5 fold since 2007 in Africa. Google search results on mobile use in Africa are the highest in Nigeria, followed by Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Cote d’Ivoire
• It is estimated that South Africa will have 10.1 million mobile web users by the end of 2009.  The popular mobile social network application MXit has already over 5 million users in South Africa.

So here are some categories to differentiate between all the possible different channels. I am sure there are many missing or overlapping. Please add more in the comments.

Channels

Radio

• Broadcasting
• Community Radio
• Feedback through mobile phone: SMS to radio

Basic mobile phones

• Voice
• Voice to text / Text to voice
• Short Message (SMS)

Mid-range mobile phones

• Mobile phones with additional features such as cameras and data transfers.
• Data Transfer through GPRS
• Mobile Application (e.g. Java software)
• Mobile WAP
• Additional features such as camera or bluetooth

Smart phones

• Sensor Rich Application (All Purpose Tool)
• Location based services through Global position system (GPS)
• Social Network Features
• Mobile Web
• Video and Audio recording and sharing

Direct sharing
Many different informal forms of content shared through different technologies.

• CD, USB or IPod (Video, Audio, Text, Image)
• Mobile (Video, Audio, Text, Image)

Indirect access
For people who do not have direct access to mobile phones, computers or the Internet.

• Infopreneur (Use of intermediary to access information)
• Village phone (rent a mobile phone)
• Village Area Networks (VAN)

Rural access
Specific approaches to offer access in rural and remote areas

• Internet Cafe
• Telecentre
• Rural kiosk
• Local networks through Wifi and WiMax

Back at the last KM4DEV conference, I had the chance to interview Louise Clark, who talks about an interesting alternative way of sharing digital content in Nigeria.

Transcription

Hello, Louise. We’re here at the KM4DEV meeting in Brussels, and you have just brought some very interesting experiences from Africa about local content in rural areas.

Yes. I went last month to Benin and Nigeria to work with the African Rice Center. They have a very interesting project of using videos to share information around rice processing technology. The history to this project is that it started in Bangladesh, so the first of the series of videos were made in Bangladesh and showed technologies of how Bangladeshi families were selecting rice and storing their rice seeds.

These videos were brought to Africa to look at the kind of South/South knowledge exchange, and then some videos were made with African farmers in the African context and we distributed the six videos together. I went to Nigeria with some staff from Africa Rice to look at how farmers were using the videos and what was their experience of video for processing. And their experience was great. The feedback that we got was very, very positive.

Farmers, much to our great surprise, has access to video playing equipment. They were using VCD formats. So the extension service had transferred it from DVD to a VCD format. And the farmers were using the videos as part of their group meetings. So when they would get together in one of the farmer’s houses, they would sit down and watch the video together, which we found to be really an innovation in itself, regardless of the innovations that the videos were promoting in terms of better rice processing techniques.

One of the great surprises was the accessibility of this equipment. There was one group that didn’t have its own VCR player, or VCD player, and had bought a laptop to watch the video. I asked them about what else they used the laptop for, but they said just for the video. And they didn’t think that was a waste of money because they now sell their rice for twice the price as they did before.

So that was a really great experience. Now Africa Rice have just released a new video looking more at Pproduction, soil management, crop management, different techniques, which is now being distributed across Africa.

You also told me that they are shared, in Nigeria in your case, these videos are shared between farmers all over the country.

In the Nigerian case, the farmers, there was a really high demand amongst the farmers for their own copy of the video. And that was one of the issues that we discussed, was how we could get better dissemination of the video, creating linkages with small enterprise in terms of making copies of the video for sale. Because all of the farmers reported that they would buy a copy for themselves and watch it in their homes. So we discussed the advantages and the disadvantages. They said the real advantage was that they could watch the videos over and over again. The disadvantage being that there was no extension agent on hand to ask questions.

So this is an interesting new challenge for us as knowledge management people, in terms of how we can improve the two-way flow of communication using a media like video. So the visual impact and the audio impact combined with farmers was very effective, but how can we use this to really encourage communication from the research institute like Africa Rice to the field and the farmers.

So if I have any more, I’ll keep you posted.

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At the Socialcamp in Berlin last weekend, a session dealt with “social business 2.0,” which turned out to be an intense and inspiring discussion on open innovation for appropriate technology through crowdsourcing – a sentence with many buzzwords. Essentially, many questions were raised, but among those were: How can innovative solutions and their implementation be coordinated through the web? And, what is the role of the web and which are its limitations? I hope this post may trigger some answers in the comments!

Appropriate technology development through the web?

Photo by Todd Huffman (CC BY 2.0)

A group of people who met over at the Betterplace platform – a German peer-to-peer aid platform –  and whom did not know each other before, founded a project request to build an new innovative toilet waste water system. Of course, there are many of such solutions out there already, but in their case, the group has no technical skilled members and it, therefore, seeked for people with a technical solution to help them out. I keep the description rather short, because the main discussion was more about the different dimensions of crowdsourcing. So, how such a complex, technical advanced project can be done through the web?

Definition of Appropriate Technology according to Wikipedia:
“Appropriate technology is technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social and economical aspects of the community it is intended for.”
And, according to Oikos:
“Appropriate Technology is technology that creates minimal environmental impact while serving basic human needs. Uses the simplest level of technology that can effectively achieve the intended purpose in a particular location.”

Crowdsourcing vs. Community building
It seems that, within the discussion, the term crowdsourcing is understood very differently. Can you even crowdsource a technical solution? Can you mobilize a crowd of engineers or do you need a community? Dan Woods asks “Does crowdsourcing exist as it is popularly conceived?” and replies “Yes, it does, but it doesn’t have anything to do with innovation.”

So I think you need to have a community involved in such a project, otherwise how could you motivate people to participate and evaluate such a solution voluntarily?

But then again, we realized we focused too much on the solution and too little on implementation. One needs to focus on the implementation and on what the people who are using it really want. There is the famous failure of the solar cooker, which led to eye injury from its parabolic antenna and ignored that what people wanted was to cook in the evenings.

But, for appropriate technology aren’t the people living in the local context the real experts? How can a bridge be build between scientist and local practitioners?
There are interesting platforms, which can be used in many different ways to use the web for innovation:

• Appropedia is a site for collaborative solutions in sustainability, poverty reduction and international development.
• Nabuur, where volunteers worldwide help to find solutions for villages.
• Scientist without borders
• Innocentive, a platform to find scientific solutions with a for-profit purpose.
• Social Innovation Camp is an experiment in using social technology for social change

Connecting the local and global: Local vs. global knowledge
These four initiatives have very different approaches and do not necessarily aim to open innovation. Who owns the solution and who decides for the solution to be implemented? The discussion goes onto whether it is possible for the technical part of the solution to separate the solution in different parts? Or would that mean competition? But what if each engineer has different solutions, then which one should be taken? Clearly, you need expert knowledge, but it is even more important for such a project to learn together, on the path for a such a solution and to be open to all problems and feedback.

So, peer-to-peer aid has to do a lot with peer-to-peer learning. But to be inclusive is quite tricky as many rural areas in developing countries have no easy access. There is an interesting initiative by Stephan Wolak to make this link through mobile phones and connect the local to the global.
Do you know any more examples? What is your perspective for the potentials and limitations of such crowdsourcing efforts for open innovation?

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The Internet of Things is a rather old story within the web. But through simple, low-cost technology such as RFID chips (Radio Frequency Identification Tags) volunteers worldwide gain another potentially powerful monitoring instrument. Such crowdsourcing efforts can unseal environmental damage, give valuable data to advocacy organizations and development projects.

Internet of Things
Originally, the Internet of Things was thought for modern household. Household appliances are connected to the Internet, so that the refrigerator sends out a message when it is running out of orange juice or eggs, for example. Not surprisingly this advancement in technology has not made a big impact nor made it to the daily life of millions as yet. Such technology are RFID chips, which are low-cost, simple stickers, which can be put on commodities.

Things become connected
Businesses such as logistic enterprises use them to follow each article or package easily. These little stickers can store information. So, for example, logistic companies use them to document the travel route of a package. You only need to scan the piece within the range of a few meters and then see where it comes from. Environmentalists use the same technology to monitor the route that logged down trees from the rainforest take.

Barcoding to save the tropical forest
According to TreeHugger: Will Barcoding Trees Save Tropical Forests? This video shows how these barcodes can be used to find out where trees are really originally from and whether they are protected or illegally cut down. In this case, however, it is offered by a company. Of course, such barcodes can be removed, but they can also be as small as only a few millimeters.

Crowdsourcing transparency
Imagine that volunteers worldwide could check how products go along the supply chain. Another interesting project in this regard is Sourcemap, a collective tool for transparency and sustainability, which is looking into the unsealing of the supply chain of products. But this does not only have to be done through radio frequency identification technology. A project called Citizen Water works with inexpensive water quality test kits. Here, people check across any country the water quality, and then map the results in a transparent way in the Internet, to show the different levels of water quality in different areas.

So far, this technology has been used mainly by businesses or governments. Nowadays, more and more governments are planning on adding it to passports. Regarding privacy, these attempts are quite scary, since you as a customer or citizen cannot control what gets on or off thes echips nor who can or cannot read the stored information. It is time to use such technology for openness.

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Inspired by a post on ICTWorks, I have compiled a comprehensive list of 400 ICT4D twitter members. Almost a year ago, I started a second Twitter account for news around ICT4D. I had previously offered the ICT4D feed (subscribe) for a while and publish the best pieces of that feed on Twitter. Although the feed has around 30 resources each day, it also attracted already some 50 subscribers.

A year ago, only a few people were twittering around ICT4D topics, but nowadays, a year later, Twitter has developed into so many niche topics and brought so many people together interested in ICT4D. Twitter offers new ways to find synergies and the people who are part of it might not otherwise get to know so much about their topics. More importantly, it becomes a fascinating community tool, which helps spread ideas around ICT4D and lessons learnt – something that is much needed. I have uploaded a list of 400 users in a Google Spreadsheet, and I am still sure I have most probably missed some people.

Therefore, if this is your case, please feel free to add yourself in the open spreadsheet or add users in the comment area. I have also included the location information from each account, so most users are represented in a map. It is already looking nicely populated. What do you think?

Update: Please be patient to see the map. It can take longer. (sorry!) Thought that Google map gadget works well quicker. Click here for larger map.

Update 2: The map shows only one marker per city, so be sure to check the table below for the full list.
Download the list as an Excel file (26/08/09) or export yourself the latest version in Google spreadsheets.

By the way, it is quite nice what you can do with Google Docs these days. Every table with geographic information can be transformed in such a map. I wrote about it in another post on the web2fordev gateway. You may want to follow web2fordev also on Twitter.

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In the recent edition of the “Participatory Learning and Action” magazine titled “Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development”, I wrote an article about blogging and whether writing blog posts could make a difference in the development work. In this times of breathtaking web changes, blogging seems already outdated, therefore, in my article I argue that blogging can enhance transparency, support the process for openness and be the key for sustainable network building and quality discourse.

• Download full article: Exploring the potentials of blogging for development

• Also, check out the other interesting articles from the issue.

Extract

Accountability and transparency
Compared to normal development websites, bloggers both analyse and link information – and in the process, create meaning. Bloggers are also notified (‘pinged’) every time there is a new link from another blog to their own posts. It generates interaction between bloggers and also measures the popularity of a blog – e.g. citations and affiliation (i.e. a list of links to other blogs). Bloggers weave a web of knowledge, expertise and perspectives. In a way, blogging means linking conversations and other existing blogs, increasing the ebb and flow of information. This forms hubs or nodes within networks, where bloggers aggregate information, and give orientation and relevance – and also become effective filters of information. They act like fishers, who pick the most relevant pieces of information out of the net. This aggregation is important to find different blog posts with different perspectives. The advantage of filtering is that these bloggers give an overview on interesting topics.

The disadvantage is that a blogger decides that on a personal basis and it might be biased information. Critics such as Andrew Keen wonder where the added value of this growing content lies – compared to professionally compiled information by journalists. Many say that most blogs ‘copy and paste’ from other blogs or repeat themselves, often ending in an echo chamber of mutual confirmation. Networks of sympathising blogs often do develop where not enough perspectives are heard or discussed.

However, blogging proponents underline the strength to link information from different connections, disciplines and interests and highlight the possibility for direct feedback. The paradigm shift is that each Internet user is able to link information and can add values and perspectives – Wikipedia and worldchanging.com are good examples. These networks of blogs and their readers become a large conversation, where everyone can participate. New ideas and interpretations of them find their way to different blogs every day. Much of this kind of exchange was already happening through email mailing lists. However, these connections made by blogging are accessible to anyone online: they are not limited to a certain thematic mailing list and so are more transparent.

Examples in development
For development, this linking and exchanging becomes essential. Multidisciplinary approaches are key to tackling complex environmental problems. Blogs have opened up new channels for development communication.

One example is the UK Guardian newspaper’s ongoing Katine project in Uganda.  Villagers, journalists, scientists and aid workers are invited to write openly their perspectives about the project on a blog on the newspaper’s website. It entails controversial discussions around development aid, but also shows the complexity of community-driven development projects. For example, on the Katine blog, Richard M. Kavuma writes bluntly, “The trouble is, the need is much greater than the project budget.” This is a direct comment about the limitations of development aid. Blogging can allow us to be transparent about projects. It gives more space for opinions, different perspectives and reflections than traditional communication channels. These can help influence the course of a project. But here, the limits of blogging also appear: one blogger made the comment that, “At its best, the Guardian’s reporting allows us to analyse and think about life in Katine in a careful way.” Just blogging does not necessarily have a demonstrable impact on development.

For many organisations, blogging offers the chance to enter into an ‘authentic two-way conversation’, enabling people to provide feedback in an open manner – and more easily than before. This bottom-up approach to speaking out about social, economical or political issues has the potential to engage a broader public sphere in the development sector. But it seems only a few organisations in the development field have discovered the potential of blogging – and not all appreciate this degree of openness.

Unfortunately, many of the existing initiatives are often only randomly linked – they are islands rather than networks. Yet Allison Fine (2006) argues that future organisations have to embrace this kind of openness and learn to improve their listening skills. For development organisations, which are non-profit and publicly-funded, there is a chance to improve transparency. Although there are examples of increasing political influence of blogs, particularly in the USA, the political blogosphere in most countries is still marginal. The communication power of blogs has not yet challenged development organisations – but they can act as watchdogs. As Daniel Kaufmann, Director of the World Bank Institute writes on his blog,

“Blogs are playing an increasingly important role for improved governance. Blogs do not face the restraints of commercial print media. The blogosphere is a planet apart from traditional PR departments of public institutions, enabling citizens to share unfiltered information, expose misdeeds, and freely express views. Blogs help make governments and public institutions more accountable.”

Some challenges to be aware of
Since the creation of the first blog, we have witnessed a huge boom. But not all blogs become vibrant spaces for discussion. Many blogs quickly lapse or are rarely updated. Finding an audience is usually a major challenge. Many also underestimate how much time and resources a blog needs. It takes skill and patience to achieve a vibrant blog with an active, commenting audience. Attention and visitors are not guaranteed. You need to persevere to find the audience or help the audience find you.

Issues of access and literacy
For the average, experienced Internet user, you can quickly learn the publishing process for a blog post. It should not take more than three mouse-clicks, including writing the text. But not everybody is as well connected or has the experience to use this tool and its opportunities. The participatory web has opened new ways of interacting on the Internet, but there are obstacles: access, cost, time, literacy and a certain degree of media literacy. Particularly in developing countries, few people have Internet access or the means (literacy and media competence) to engage in such a conversation. Also, just a few languages dominate and there are very few bridges between them. The majority of online development debates are in English and exclude many groups from participating. Some of these obstacles will remain or might even intensify.

The speed at which innovation is transforming how we use the Internet is breathtaking. Even so, bandwidth is a big constraint. One approach to bridging the online and offline world is social reporting, where knowledge-sharing is documented for the Internet and vice versa. Participants at events act as reporters to present the different opinions and perspectives articulated within a group. The results can be texts, videos or audio presented on a website.16 Reading blogs also means that the reader has to find content and then also filter it to create their own understanding. It takes a certain level of education and familiarity with different writing styles to do this. Also less ‘media literate’ people may take blogs as factual and ‘trusted sources’ in the same way they would a newspaper. Although there are numerous cases of blogging that have helped to empower people – it does not benefit all causes. With all technology, a best fit approach is key: focus on needs. Not all communication solutions need to technological.

In the development context, the key question must always be: how can this potential tool help?
Lastly, there is also a risk that the front-runners are far ahead of normal Internet users. I share the author of We-Think Charles Leadbeater’s (2008) concern: ‘Those already rich in knowledge, information and connections may just get richer.’

Conclusion
Blogging can have a positive impact on communication and empowerment, but nevertheless there are limitations. There is still very little evidence of blogging making a difference for development. In my opinion we are still at a very early stage in this whole movement. So long as the South cannot participate more easily and until northern organisations change their mindsets towards openness, blogs and all these other wonderful Web 2.0 tools will have limited effects.

Blogging is just one form of publishing and interacting. Many Internet users are publishing content on wikis or on social networks such as Facebook, which allow their “With all technology, a best fit approach is key: focus on needs. Not all communication solutions need to technological. In the development context, the key question must always be: how can this potential tool help?” members to interact and facilitate collaboration.

Mobile social networks go in the same direction, letting you interact from your mobile phone wherever you are. Nevertheless one key problem of all these initiatives is that they always struggle to get a spill-over effect to the offline world. It is not only about publishing, but interacting within your own networks. Enthusiasts see in this open collaboration promising times ahead, where development challenges are tackled collectively. So whether you choose to use blogs or any other Web 2.0 tools – remember, it is the people who form these networks and their exchange that create value, ideas and innovation.

Download full article: Exploring the potentials of blogging for development

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I started blogging at the Web2fordev gateway, from which I will crosspost some articles here from time to time to get some further discussions on web2fordev. I wrote the following piece together with Giacomo Rambaldi, the initiator of PPgis (Open Forum on Participatory Geographic Information Systems and Technologies).

Online Mapping for Development: Opportunities and Challenges

Maps are an effective medium which can be used for development projects. They help visualise the spatial distribution of complex problems their inter-relationships and promote awareness. In recent years the availability of free or low-cost digital maps and remote sensed images has unleashed unprecedented ways to make use of spatial information for a variety of purposes. Last week we analysed the potential of open data sources for development. Open maps are an excellent example illustrating the many ways to use and link information in creative ways. In almost any development project, maps can assist in the interpretation of spatial issues, foster awareness and support transparency. Le Monde Diplomatique, offers interesting examples on using maps to visualize complex conflict situations. Unfortunately in developing countries large scale maps are not always easy to obtain, data are often outdated or inaccurate or too expensive. Free digital maps offer an alternative.
Potentials and Opportunities

Here are a few examples:

• The Harvard university runs the AfricaMap project, where one can view the African continent through different data layers. It is a good place to experiment a bit. For example in turning layers on and off for display and adjusting their transparency allows users to superimpose data sets. Resulting thematic maps can be linked from other sites. .

• Back at the 2007 Web2forDev International Conference Paul Saunby presented some great simulations on maps using open data around the issue of climate change. That way he could simulate future forecasts for a specific coast. “Such maps could provide planners with valuable information on where to build new roads or houses. They could also give farmers a better idea of where to plant next season’s crops or how best to irrigate their fields.”

• UNEP offers the Atlas of the Changing Environment: “Through illustrations, satellite images, ground photographs and powered by Google Maps, this interactive media depicts and describes humanity’s past and present impact on the environment.”

• A renouned example for putting maps to work is Ushahidi which means “testimony” in Swahili, where human rights activists offers a platform that crowdsources crisis information. It allows anyone to submit information through text messaging using a mobile phone, email or web form. Resulting data are visualised on thematic maps. Recent initiatives covered the Swine Flu Epidemic and the elections in India. The same free and open source application has been used to spatially document the Gaza war and Eastern Congo conflict.

• The AGCommons project combines mapping with mobile phones and aims to equip “Africa’s farmers with location-specific information to reduce uncertainty and increase returns”. AGCommons was one of the organizers behind the WhereCamp in Nairobi, entirely devoted to mapping.

• Another ambitious project is done by scientists from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), who want to create the first detailed digital soil map of sub-Saharan Africa. “African soils are among the poorest in the world, and many farmers suffer from chronically low-yielding crops. With accurate soil maps, we find farmers can increase their yields by around 60%, and sometimes double.” (BBC)

But whoever plans to make use of online maps in Africa should have a look at Google maps and Open Street Maps. Both services offer already some impressive maps for some parts of Africa. Google Maps introduced lately a massive update of maps for Western Africa and Open Street Maps (OSM) added more then hundred thousand miles of roads lately.

Google Maps acquires map material and offers to combine it with third party data and on your own website. Open Street Maps goes a step further offers its complete data with all geo reference for free under the creative commons license. The license is currently changed to a an Open Database License Agreement. OSM relies completely on volunteer work. Thousand of GPS equipped mapers go through streets or parks worldwide and contribute to maps. The result are impressive and in some place the same as good as Google maps or even better. Check out how Mikel Maron initiated some detail mapping for Palestine.

Aidworker shows how OSM maps are even much better in developing countries on the example of Kabul and Tiblis. So in the case of OSM you can download entire geodata, whereas in Google you somehow are bind to their digital maps, which allow impressive presentations.

Challenges

There are undoubtedly also some challenges. In the context only some parts and mainly urban areas have been mapped and there is a need for a critical mass of mappers to enter and cross-validate data in order to achieve a satisfactory degree of accuracy. The dilemma is that where maps are needed most, not enough volunteers are available and in other countries such as in Europe, maps have been developed the furthest. The transparency of maps can also be used for critical issues and lead to discrimination as the Times report from Japan.

Nevertheless digital maps have catapulted cartography into new dimensions in recent years. As a most information is location-specific, mapping offers great opportunities to support communication in development. In the past mapmaking was the realm of a few. Today mapmaking has become a widespread activity accessible to experts and non-experts, well minded and otherwise. Collaborative mapmaking offers great opportunities for development organizations to share and collect data.

Words of Caution

Said that a few words of caution are necessary: Users of online mapping facilities should have a close look at the terms of service they sign up before submitting their contributions. In the case of Google Map Maker upon submission of the data, the service provider acquires “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, distribute, and create derivative works.

Further, the frenzy of geo-tagging and online publishing of images, videos and other type of information without obtaining prior informed consent from the concerned parties may result in the infringement of privacy and intellectual property rights. With Open Street Maps in the old and new license, the contributed data is free for reuse and can be used for commercial purposes as well.

At WhereCampAfrica, a gathering which brought together geographers, cartographers and mobile mapping specialists to discuss the potential – and difficulties – of the ‘geographic web’ in Africa, participants expressed their concern that indiscriminate online mapping could feed tensions over land ownership and resource use and control (BBC).

The Inportance of Good Practice

In times where online mapmaking has reached exponential growth rates, there is the need to be increasingly aware of the implications and impact of making geo-located information publicly available and on the need to adhere to the ethical principles of privacy, confidentiality, of obtaining prior informed consent and avoiding exposing knowledge holders at risk.  Practical ethics in the context of participatory mapmaking are discussed on an article published on Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) in 2006. The article is available in 12 languages.

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Why and how does the mobile phone play a role in activism in Africa? What makes it be different from other forms of activism? And what are the potentials and challenges behind it?

I tried answering these questions two weeks ago at the Medien Jour Fix,  an interesting German network around communication and development, organized by MICT. I presented the latest developments around mobile phones in Africa, which did not seem to have been that much noticed in Germany. In most of presentations the radio played a key role as an instrument for media work.

I had mused before about potential future trends of mobile activism, but this time I highlighted the differences between the all-purpose-tool, its different uses and its implications. I was curious to do such a presentation on ICT for development in front of a German audience, which was widely mixed with delegates from media, NGOs and scientists.

I uploaded my presentation here and thanks to Creative Commons License I found some great photos.



I began my presentation with the well known satellite image of the world at night. On it one can see how dark Africa is and it seems as if not much is happening there. But because it is always difficult to generalize about the continent as a whole, I chose some examples:

• Mobile innovation even comes from Africa such as mobile finances.
• The highest growth rate is on the African continent.
• 99%
 of 
Tanzanians 
are 
in

 direct
 reach
 of 
a 
mobile 
phone.
• The highest traffic to the BBC mobile website comes from Africa.

But what makes mobile phone so special?

It is so especial because it combines all former media, such as telephone, Internet, and even radio and television, and because one can:

1. Communicate and receive information (radio, television and Internet)
2. Document and collect information
3. Publish information in text, audio and video
4. Can network in different ways on a peer-to-peer basis

So a passive recipient can become an active user or citizen.

The excellent Pomise of Ubiquity report from Internews has some fascinating statistics such as the different media access. In most countries, 2008 signified a turning point as more people owned mobile phones than televisions. So, the mobile phone becomes a key instrument to receive information via Internet, listen to radio (FM mobile phone) and watch videos although the latter has not worked yet and is unrealistic due to high costs. Location-based services will be very promising.

“A world in which nearly everyone owns a mobile linked into networks advanced enough to offer video and location-based services is years, not decades, away.” Internews

Different spheres of mobile activism

I looked, during my presentation, at political activism and focused on four different spheres and examples even though there is still a lot more happening (and much more in many African countries than in Europe).

1. Public sphere
   The mobile phone will become an important tool to shape the public sphere. Two examples are Voices of Africa and mobile African reporters. I showed a great footage from Cameroon about a Guiness factory polluting water sources. This example shows the potential to report better from the local context. But I also wonder when will there be a critical mass of an audience for such reports?
2. Participation
   The radio still plays a decisive role, because it reaches many more groups of people and particularly illiterate listeners. Combining a mobile campaign with the radio can be a great package. The organisation AZUR in Congo launched a while ago an SMS campaign, where they asked women to report about cases of domestic violence. The answeres were then portrayed and discussed in a radio show.
3. Transparency
   For some years now, the monitoring of elections has been happening in different African countries such as Zimbabwe or Nigeria. Digiactive has a great comparative case study analysis. In Barcelona, I followed an insightful presentation by Ethan Zuckerman, where he describes a great example from last year’s election in Zimbabwe:
   “SMS is an effective tool for monitoring all sorts of large, dangerous mammals. You can make the argument that Morgan Tsvanagarai was able to challenge the first round of Zimbabwe’s presidential elections in no small part due to SMS. A change in polling law meant that every local polling station in Zimbabwe was required to post local voting results publicly. Zimbabwe’s opposition party, MDC, organized an effort to collect these results via SMS. As a result, the MDC knew, within a few hours after the close of polls, that they’d received more votes than ZANU-PF.” By the way, an organization called Sokwanele has also been doing some pioneering work in Zimbabwe for mobile activism. Another one is Kubatana, which developed the Freedom fone.
4. Networking
   A bit more than a year ago cotton-workers in the Nile delta striked for a higher salary. They went into strike for a few weeks long because of the inflation, which took most of what little was left. Unrecognized by media in Egypt and internationally, an Egyptian woman, who did not use to be an activist, decided to set up a Facebook group to solidarize with the strikers. The group grew in a few weeks to more than 70,000 members (Egypt has about around 700,000 Facebook members). There is an enormous potential to use social networks for campaigns and protests. I think these networks will be working over the mobile phone in the future as I described here. Nevertheless in this case the protest could not made it to the the street, as the Egyptian authorities hardly allowed any protests on their streets. But mobile phones play a decisive role in protest coordination. Patrick Meier, also from Digiactive, did a great presentation about Mobile for Advocacy and Activism.

Challenges

Unfortunately, there are numerous challenges to mobile activism in Africa and, therefore, it is even more incredible how many initiatives are happening.  Just to name a few:

• Usage
  The costs of mobile communication or SMS are still very high. Although rural areas a now much better connected, there is a disparity between rural and urban areas, where one part becomes only passive recipients of information.
• Government
  Mobile networks can be even easier controlled such as the Internet, because they belong to one provider. Recently, it came out that half state owned Vodafone in Egypt gave out its customers data about the above described strike to the Egyptian police.
• Mobile Provider
  As much as mobile providers have done positive for the dissemination of mobile phones , they have their own business interests, which do not necessarily fit and promote activism. Such are walled gardens, where companies can and want to control what is offered and exchanged.
• Activism
  Although mobile activism is at least 8 years old, since the Estrada campaign in the Philippines, it has just started and a lot of experimenting is happening. It is also clear that it can also be a tool for a mean and cannot be useful for any form of activism. A theatre group might have more impact on the issue of HIV/Aids than an SMS campaign.

The presentation lead to a discussion around the quality of information, which is a typical debate in Germany, where journalists and bloggers continuously battle over who is better. Ironically, a journalist from the Deutsche Welle, who hosts the annual Blog Awards, asked me how the information from mobile reporters could be verified or controlled. Luckily, that was an exception, as there were many interesting examples for media communication work presented from Laos and Cambodia.

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