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 :
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- 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
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Next Step ?
- Bridging the Digital Divide
- Connecting the next 4-5 billions of people
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Since 2006: W3C explores 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 ) |
Needs of ICT?
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ICT is a great opportunity to deploy services toward rural
communities and underprivileged populations in Developing Countries:
- 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 Mobile Phones:
- Taking advantage of the existing 2.7+billion of mobile phones
- Taking advantage of the GSM cover (>80% of the world
population)
Can Mobile phones be an ICT platform? How?
Proof of Concept: SMS Applications
 |
- Principle:
- Send an SMS to a specific number with specific keywords
- Receive the answer in an other SMS
- Success Stories
- Banking
- NGOs-run SMS based system: e-gov, business (market poll),
health, ...
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- But few problems:
- Interoperability problems
- Discoverability of services
- limited interaction
- costly/inappropriate infrastructure
- no standardized development kit
|
| (Photo Source: Vodafone) |
Tomorrow?
- The Mobile Web: Unleashing the power of Mobile Phones
- No interoperability problems
- Discoverability through portals and search engine
- Enhanced interaction through forms/voice/multimodal interaction
- Cheap/free hosting
- Standardized technologies and development platform
Challenges
- How to make the Mobile Web usable by underprivileged people ?
- accessibility of mobile browsers: configuration, interface and
interaction...
- accessibility of web content: "natural" interface and interaction,
illiteracy,...
- How to identify the needs in ICT-based services to leverage development
?
- tools to help people and to enhance their way of working or
living
- How to empower people, build local capacity, and leverage local content
authoring ?
- What about sustainability ?
- ...
Next Steps
W3C to launch a new group to in April/May 2008:
- Create an inter-disciplinary forum between experts in technology (Web,
Mobile), experts in Social Development, experts in sustainability and
entrepreneurship, people with grassroot experience (NGO sector), and
experts from Developing regions
- Identify the challenges of unleashing the power of mobile phones as an
ICT platform and leveraging the use of Mobile Web technologies in Social
Development projects
- Identify the most promising directions to follow and establish a
roadmap
W3C to organize a workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering
Social Development
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
- But what are the specificities (technical, social, cultural,...) of the
targeted people and how to take them into account ?
- Join the process of gathering the critical mass of experts to start the
work
This work is part of the Digital World Forum project
supported by the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7)
