W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Program

Stéphane Boyera

http://www.w3.org/2008/08/sb_msoc08/

mSociety 2008

Antalya, Turkey, September 19 2008

Outline

• Overview of W3C
• Providing Web access to the Bottom of the Pyramid
• W3C Vision
• Mobile Web for Social Development mission and objectives
• MW4D audience and Status
• Digital World Forum
• Conclusion

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 2008: Creation of the Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group (MW4D) to investigate the role of the Mobile Web to bridge the Digital Divide

The Web in the World

• ~1.5B Web users in the World
• Missing ~4.5-5B to be Universal
  • Mostly in Developing Countries. e.g. Firefox3 download map

    

  • Mostly at the Bottom of the Pyramid

  How can the Web benefit the BoP and improve their lives ?

ICT for Development

	ICT: a cheap and scalable solution to bridge historical divides: Access to health services Access to education Access to finance services Access to employment Access to government Services Access to information Access to trade and commerce ...
(Photo Source: Der Spiegel)

How to provide access to ICT?

• With cheap laptops and low-cost broadband access
• With Mobile Phones:
  • 3.5 Billions+ of people having access to a mobile phone
  • >80% of the world population covered by a GSM network

Can Mobile phones be an ICT platform? How?

(Photo Source : The Economist )

Proof of Concept

	Many Success Stories m-banking agriculture government .... But lots of activities but still disconnected a limited impact at the Worldwide level high barriers for grass-root/non-profit high barriers for the BOP
(Photo Source: Vodafone)

W3C Vision

• Empowering and enabling those who are responsible for providing services to the BOP
  • NGO/Grass-root
  • Government
  • Social entrepreneurs
• Understanding and Bridging gaps to lower the barrier of Web access by the BOP

W3C Mobile Web for Social Development (MW4D)

• Launching a global inter-disciplinary concerted effort
• Understanding how to lower the barriers of developing and deploying development-oriented services on mobile phones
• Understanding the key specific challenges of each targeted sector
• Identifying key challenges of access

Service Development challenges

• Understanding available technologies
  • requirements, domain of applicability, constraints... of each mobile technology: SMS, Voice, browser, widgets, native applications,...
• Understanding education/capacity building needs
• Identifying tools needs
  • software
  • guidelines
  • ...
• Raising awareness

Access Challenges

• How to make relevant, accessible, usable, useful and affordable services
  • Service needs
  • Accessibility and Usability issues
  • Affordability
  • ...

Audience

• A required inter-disciplinary approach:
  • Mobile Industry
  • International Organizations
  • ICT4D Specialist
  • NGO/Grassroots
  • Business/Entrepreneurship specialists
  • Academics (from developing and developed regions)
  • Government Representatives

MW4D Expected Results

• A Handbook about how to deploy social-oriented content and applications on mobile
  • Audience: NGO/grass-root/non-profit, potential public sector
• A roadmap identifying the key actions to launch to lower the barriers for deploying social services, and for accessing it
  • audience: standardization organization, foundations, operators,...
• A set of resources
  • Information about mobile infrastructure and device characteristics
  • links to existing tools and material
  • relevant actors and stakeholders
  • ...

MW4D Factsheet

• Launched in end of May 2008
• An Interest Group open to public participation
• Chairs: Ken Banks (kiwanja.net), Stephane Boyera (W3C)
• Lenght: 12 months
• Home page: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/
• Public Mailing-list: public-mw4d@w3.org archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-mw4d/

MW4D Status

• A public workshop to gather input:
  • W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development (june 2008): http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/
• A draft framework document
  • Draft Framework document: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/wiki/mw4dframework
  • MW4D focus diagram
• A wiki for public contributions: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/wiki/
• Next step: a new workshop in Africa 1stQ09

About Digital World Forum

• An EU-FP7 Project - International Relation Unit
• From January 2008 till June 2009
• Area: ICT for Development
• 3 Topics:
  • Mobile phones
  • Low-cost laptops
  • Low-cost broadband access
• http://www.digitalworldforum.eu/

Conclusion

• W3C Goal: to make the Web accessible, relevant, usable and useful for under-privileged populations and rural communities
• Mobile Web for Social Development IG starts with building a dedicated community, establishing a state-of-the-art and defining a roadmap to understand the challenges of both the access side and the development and deployment side
• MW4D is open to public participation

Come and join MW4D work !

Stay tuned about the announcement of the next MW4D workshop

References

• Contact: Stephane Boyera (boyera@w3.org)
• MW4D Home Page: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/
• MW4D Charter: http://www.w3.org/2007/12/MW4D/charter1.1.html
• Executive Summary of the W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development: http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/exec_summary