Leveraging Web access for rural communities and under-privileged populations

Stéphane Boyera

http://www.w3.org/2007/11/sb_africacom/all.htm

Africacom 2007

Capetown, South Africa, November 22nd 2007

W3C: Leading the Web to its Full Potential

Founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee in 1994 ...

• W3C Vision: Universal Web Access: The Web Anywhere, for Everyone, at Anytime, on Everything :

1994: Creation of W3C for standardization and interoperability of Web technologies 1997: Creation of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): To make the Web Accessible 2005: Creation of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI): To Access the Web from Mobile Phones

Origins of MWI: How to leverage Mobile Web usage

Barcelona Workshop in 2004: Convergence between:

• W3C Goal:
  • Extend the Web, its accessibility and its universality
  • Fight against walled gardens and Prevent fragmentation of the Web between mobile and desktop
  • Ensure that mobile users are first class Web citizen
• Mobile Players: Create a joint initiative to:
  • Increase the ARPU
  • Open and enable a new market

Challenges of leveraging Mobile Web Access

• Issue: Bad user experience when accessing Web on mobile phones
• Issue: Developer: High Costs when developing mobile Web content
• Potential solutions:
  • For content authors: Mobile Web Best Practices for Web Developers
  • For developers: Access and use of phones characteristics
  • For browser makers: Test suites to improve browser interoperability
  • For users: MobileOK for Web sites following Best Practices

The Mobile Web Initiative

• Launched in May 2005
• 3 Technical Working Groups
  • Best Practices Working Group
    • Mobile Web Best Practices (read the flipcards)
    • MobileOK trustmark
  • Device Description Working Group
    • Improve access to device description information
    • Standard API to Device Description Repositories
  • Test Suites Working Group (future: MobileOK for Software?)
• Driven by the MWI Steering Council
  

Next Step: Mobile Web for Development

• 2007: W3C MWI to explore how the Web on mobile phones could be a potential solution to bridge the Digital Divide and leverage Web access in Developing Countries

(Photo Source : The Economist )

ICT to sustain development

	Primary Goal: offer a scalable and affordable platform to develop and deploy eServices: Government Services Education Health Banking Communities services Business ...
(Photo Source: Der Spiegel)

How to provide access to ICT?

• With cheap laptops and mesh networking: One Laptop Per Child?
• With specific/special phones: Microsoft FonePlus?
• With the Mobile Web:
  • Taking advantage of the existing 2.4+billion of mobile phones
  • Taking advantage of the GSM cover (80% of the world population)

Today: SMS Applications

	Successful Mobile Applications Banking NGOs-run SMS based system: e-gov, business (market poll), health, ...
	But few problems: Interoperability problems Discoverability of services limited interaction costly/inappropriate infrastructure no standardized development kit
(Photo Source: Vodafone)

Tomorrow?

• The Mobile Web: the platform to leverage services development, deployment and adoption:
  • No interoperability problems
  • Discoverability through portals and search engine
  • Enhanced interaction through forms/voice/multimodal interaction
  • Cheap/free hosting
  • Standardized technologies and development platform

W3C Roadmap

• Enabling the Mobile Web
  • What is the current situation in the device markets ?
  • What are key applications that could enable the Mobile Web ?
    • M-Government services
• Identifying the usability factors and how to take them into account
  • Working on the guidelines on how to deliver Mobile Web Applications to under-privileged populations and rural communities
  • Working on how to take into account the specific conditions (network, devices,....)
• Building local capacities: empowering people
  • Organizing training
  • Setting up a Mobile Web Applications curriculum

Next Steps

• New EU FP7 project Digital World
• Workshops in Africa and Latin America in 2008

Joining the work now

• The Mobile Web in Developing Countries Home Page: http://www.w3.org/2006/12/digital_divide/public.html
• A public-mailing list: public-mwi-ec@w3.org archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-mwi-ec/
• A public Wiki: http://www.w3.org/2006/12/digital_divide/wiki/
• Stéphane Boyera : boyera@w3.org

Conclusion

• W3C Goal: to make the Web accessible, relevant, usable and useful for under-privileged populations and rural communities
• The Mobile Web is the most promising platform for low-cost large scale development, deployment and adoption of ICTs
• There is a huge business opportunities for all mobile players to enable the next generation of Mobile Applications
• Join the process of gathering the critical mass of experts to start the work

References

• MWI Home Page: http://www.w3.org/Mobile
• Public Mailing-lists attached to Test, Best Practices and Device Description working Group :
  • public-mwts@w3.org (archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-mwts/ )
  • public-bpwg@w3.org (archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-bpwg/ )
  • public-ddwg@w3.org (archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-ddwg/ )
• W3C Membership
  
  • W3C Membership Information and Benefits : http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership.html
• MWI Sponsorship
  
  • http://www.w3.org/Mobile/Sponsoring