Documents and Resources
The MW4D IG has published the following documents:
The MW4D plans to develop a set of documents which are described in the Deliverables section of the charter.
The draft version of these documents are developed collaboratively on the group’s wiki.
There is also a set of ressources relevant to the activity of the MW4D and which have been developped by W3C since 2006:
Reasons for joining
The objective of MW4D IG is to gather all stakeholders in a global forum in order to identify the key challenges of using mobile phones as an ICT-platform in Developing regions.
The targeted players are Web experts, Mobile specialists, Academics from Developed and Developing regions, NGOs with field expertise, and International organizations working on reducing the Digital Divide. W3C believes that only a joint coordinated
action could lead to the identification of all challenges and also to
the identification of the right actions to be launched to have a real
impact. The MW4D IG, while not limited to these topics, will investigate the following areas:
- technical issues related to the mean of deployment (sms, voice, web,...)
- technical issues related to accessibility for illiterate people, people without technological background, people without prior dewsktop experience,...
- technical issues related to specific types of applications (m-health, mgov, ...)
- Social issues: how to capture the real needs from the targeted populations, how to have a bottom-up approach that will integrate NGOs into international organization agenda and work
- Social issues related to empowerment: how to enable local people to master the technology to develop and deploy the applications they need, how to leverage local contant and applications development
- Social issues related to sustainability, entrepreneurship, ...
The following types of actors should be able to contribute to the mission of MW4D, and learn from other participants:
- Charitable Foundations funding and/or managing Development projects
using ICTs
- Companies or Organizations providing ICT-related products, services,
content, applications or infrastructure in Developing Countries.
- People with grassroots experience on the use of ICT in Development
- People from the ICT for Development (ICT4D) domain
- People with a mobile background
- Web experts
- Accessibility experts
- Digital Divide experts
- People expert in mobile HCI in Developing Countries
- People expert in the use of mobile phones in Development
How to give feedback?
Feedback on MW4D documents is very welcome on the public-mw4d@w3.org list (archive).
To subscribe to this list, Send an email to public-mw4d-request@w3.org with the word subscribe in the email subject header. To unsubscribe, send an email to the same address with the word unsubscribe in the email subject header. For additional help, consult the W3C's public email list pages.
Feel free To contact either Ken Banks, co-Chair of the group, or Stephane Boyera co-Chair and W3C Staff Contact.
Teleconferences
The Participants of MW4D are meeting regularly by phones. The teleconferences are taking place the first and the third monday of each month at 8:00am EST time (Boston time). This schedule follows the Daylight saving time of Boston (i.e. it is always 8:00am EST time any day of the year). To find what time this is in your region, you can check the world clock meeting planner.
The archives of the meeting minutes are available online
Teleconference and IRC Information:
Face-to-face Meetings
The first MW4D Face-to-face meeting took place during the W3C TPAC 2008 on Friday 24 October.
Read the minutes.
Workshops
One of the MW4D IG objectives is to create an inter-disciplinary forum involving Web and Mobile experts, NGOs with field expertise and experience, academics from Developed and Developing regions, and International organizations involved in reducing the Digital Divide and providing services to under-privileged populations.
Some of these actors are not yet connected or working with W3C, and it is essential to outreach these communities. Organizing public workshops is one of the most easiest and effective ways of gathering people from different background at the same place, and agree of the issues.
Future Workshops
The future workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies in Social and Economic Development will take place in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania, 4-5 June 2011. See the Call for Participation.
Past Workshops
W3C organized a first workshop in December 2006, in Bangalore, India as a preliminary action which led to the creation of MW4D IG.
A second workshop on the Role of Mobile Techonologies on Fostering Social Development was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 2nd and 3rd 2008. Read the executive summary report.
A third workshop on the Role of Mobile Techonologies on Fostering Social Development - Africa perspective was held in Maputo, Mozambique, April 1st and 2nd 2009. Read the executive summary report.
