Life in optical

On Monday I went to Amsterdam for a very cool meeting called Mobile Monday. This was the 12th edition and my first.

Mobile Monday brings people together with an interest in mobile technologies. Anything that you can do from an SMS gateway to smartphone apps. But why was I interested in this particular one? Well it was about mobile opportunities in emerging economies.

This is really interesting because through UNAWE, I know that there is a lot of appetite for connected science education but that in developing countries the infrastructure is not quite there yet, at least not for your average rural primary school. I have also learnt through my travels and readings that the mobile phone is the way to go. Everywhere I travel, whether in India where mobile phone numbers are more important than email IDs, or in South Africa, where mxit and other mobile services are rocking the place, the mobile phone is the key to connectivity.

I remember in the mid-90′s there was one way to send free text message anywhere in the world from a website. That website was in South Africa. If anyone remembers what it was called, please let me know. How nostalgic!…

So this is why I turned up at a very cool event with great expectations.

At first, the classic unease of yet another ‘emerging economies-developing countries’-event organised in Europe with 99.5% Europeans made me suspicious. I was hoping this would not turn out to be a mutually congratulatory meeting of people who ‘help’ and pat each other on the back for that.

The good news is, it wasn’t. The audience was a bunch of techies who were curious and inspired and mostly there to learn. The speakers were doers. From Opera (check out this report) and their policies to respond to the massive demand in emerging countries, to mobile health information services (check out TextToChange), in 4 contributions we were given a picture of what is happening. If this was not exhaustive, it left us with an inspired urge to find out more. And that’s the best such a meeting can achieve.

The last speaker of the day, Mariéme Jamme from Senegal was very outspoken about aid to any developing region, but in particular Africa. Refreshing!

It would seem that an increasing number of voices are rising, that have strong opinions on the way aid should come to developing countries: it should not be seen as help but as collaboration (implying mutual learning), and local empowerment, although I’d prefer to talk about local ownership of development initiatives. But let’s get back to the subject at hand. The mobile, and what it can do for development.

One of the very good points that were raised was about ‘pilotitis’ a neologism meaning that most initiatives are piloted over and over again, and that there is not enough selection of successful projects and real investment into upscaling them. That is the only way such programmes can become real instruments of development rather than anecdotal, however laudable and successful. And that’s where I think Marieme Jamme’s business sense comes in. She sees development as a business with tangible returns. I got a general feeling of real potential and that there are people around to make it happen.

In that perspective, another impression I have is that people trying to ‘sell’ their well-doing mobile-based initiative (mEducation, mHealth, mDevelopment, mEtc.) are perhaps formulating it in a confusing way. And understandably so, but if someone tries to promote a programme that facilitates education through the use of mobiles, it sounds odd to everyone but their collaborators to hear that they “do mobile education”. The mobile is a catalyst, a facilitator, a tool, the world-changing means to an end. The mobile is not education, nor is it health, or ‘the solution’.

This has to be made clear, otherwise it is like you’re sending text messages with maths formulae to the pupils instead of using books. Not useful, not innovative, not new.

All in all I’ll say that MoMo #12 reinforced my conviction that mobile technology has loads of potential development applications but that like any new-ish technology, it should not be used simply as something to do old stuff with new tech. It should not merely replace an existing system, simply because it’s new. And the true innovators who manage to make the most of it are the ones who are going to make the biggest contribution.

As a desert, here is some link love :)

• Voices of Africa Mobile reporting <– Ditch Youtube, this is awesome!
• Kubatana’s freedom fone
• Ushahidi
• MobileActive.org
• Kiwanja.net
• RapidSMS.org
• #momoams hashtag search on twitter

Please send me links that you think should feature here…
Thanks :)