W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Program

Stéphane Boyera

http://www.w3.org/2008/06/sb_intro_mw4dws/

W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development

Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 2 2008

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

ICT to sustain economic and social development

	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 low-cost broadband access
• With Mobile Phones:
  • 3 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 )

W3C Mobile Web for Social Development

	Vision Proof of concept already exists Joint coordinated action required to move to the next step, a World with many services available. Needs to extend the frontier of the Web to make it relevant, usable, useful for rural communities and under-privileged populations of Developing Countries
(Photo Source: Vodafone)

MW4D Objectives

• Assemble an inter-disciplinary forum
  • Web, Mobile specialists
  • Usability, Accessbility experts
  • Digital Divide Specialists
  • NGOs, academics with field experience and expertise
  • ...
• Identify the key challenges and the most promising direction to follow (roadmap)
  • How to deploy content and applications on mobile phones ?
  • How to make illiterate-accessible content ?
  • How to enable people and leverage local content development ?
  • ...
• Develop resources about relevant players and mobile devices and infrastructure information
• First step: an international Workshop to gather input from the community

MW4D Overview

• An Interest Group open to public participation
• Chairs: Ken Banks (kiwanja.net), Stephane Boyera
• 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/

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 will start with building a dedicated community, establish a state-of-the-art and define a roadmap
• This workshop is a first step to gather input from the community
• Thanks to our hosts: NIC.br (Network Information Center), CGI.br Internet Steering Committee, and Institute CONIP
• Thanks to our Sponsors:
  • Gold Sponsor:

    
    

  • Silver Sponsor:

    Opera software

    MobileActive.org

Agenda

Agenda