MW4D IG bi-monthly meeting

 

 

approval of last meeting minutes

http://www.w3.org/2009/02/16-mw4d-minutes.html approved

Maputo Workshop summary

• Agenda with presentation
• Papers

Stephane made a summary of the Maputo workshop. this will appear in the Executive Summary to be released in the next 2 weeks.

Few themes:

Technology

• SMS: lots of tools but clear issues
  • text is a barrier (not enough or too much depending on the application)
  • no discovery mechanism
• Voice: some applications are showing up but
  • lack of technical expertise
  • lack of tools
• Web: almost here
  • gprs now available in many places far cheaper than SMS
  • more advanced applications possible such as transmission of picture (for eg agriculture advice, health diagnosis, crisis management,...)
  • browser available on low-end devices
  • browser can cope with low-bandwidth network
  • the use of graphic and icons in particular improve the accessibility of the interface
  • need of simple integrated tools

Infrastructure

• gprs growing but still unreliable/unavailable/unstable in many places

Content

• make it simple: simple services are the easiest to use and to deploy
• importance of making locally-relevant content based on local knowledge
• importance of localization of content in local languages

Mobile Apps Ecosystem

• importance of local ownership, and the ability to enable entrepreneur
• power of simple solution
• Scalability a huge issue
  • top-down vs bottom-up approach: big country side systems vs local simple ones
  • lack of cooperation, collaboration, documentatoin, share between local ngo that breaks interoperability.
  • importance of open linked data for aggregation of local information at higher level
  • vertical growth vs horizontal/organic growth through replicability
• business model
  • payment: critical issue for service provider to monetize their services
    • sms: peer-to-peer payment
    • voice: flexible but hard
    • web: lack of micro-payment
  • regulation: intelligent regulation is necessary to maximize the ability for entrepreneurs to expand market with new services, and to reduce barriers such as tax, licenses,...
• Capacity building
  • needs for training of existing actors
  • needs for curricula at universities

<Raphael> Was there any example of blocking regulations?

yes raphael

typically the need of an isp license for community radio to serve as a local hub

ken: impressive evolution in the domain since Sao paulo
... impressive discussions
... ws was a good opportunity and a momentum created

raphael: one world asia, e-agriculture.org 1200000 farmers in india coverd by lifeline

(name of the system) bt, cisco involved

<kiwanja> steph: good summary of workshop, and evolution since Bangalore/Sao Paulo

raphael: interesting to learn from those

strike by the numbers

mw4d ig can serve for information sharing

<kiwanja> arun/raphael: discussion around the agriculture discussion, and a project in India reaching 100,000 farmers

raphael: new participant for the group ?

<kiwanja> q

ken: enlighting agriculture and m-banking

most tension between top-down approach vs grassroot approach

internatoinal consortium vs local people in hte groupnd

ken: all systems competing, not open data

not sure how to move from pilot to big scale

raphael: subject for the wiki: competing solution is interesting to discuss

better R&D discussion

good to replciate to benefit more people

raphael: considered esoko for my liberia project

but was reluctant to make a solution not coming from liberian

but needing to pay yearly

focusing on one module only might be enough

lots of issues such as electricity

importance ofr server to be up

stephane: importance of local ownership is very important

ken: issue of replicability

some things are replicable some are not

impossible for people to replicable nokia lifetools or esoko for instnce at local level

raphael: unicef news ?

stephane: they were invited, but no time for them ot attend

ken: rapidsms and frontline are not exactly similar. they are pushing rapidsms in unicef projects

focused on deploying their solutions,

not aware of anybody else than unicef to use their tools

not focusing on replicability by others

<Raphael> +1

<kiwanja> steph: thoughts around a workshop promoting/evaluating mobile tools

<kiwanja> steph: challenges in regulation and other tech adoption (fibre, etc) which we have little control over

<kiwanja> steph: discussing latest news on wiki - parts that need work, expansion, etc.

ken: what is the audience ?

providing practical help

what people could actually do today

raphael: sorting application based on criteria such as accessbility, replicability,...

ken: tactical tech doing similar things, partnership possible

<scribe> ACTION: steph to come with a document structure and summary of each section [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/04/06-mw4d-minutes.html#action01]

next meeting

Steph: next meeting == doha ictd2009

i propose May 11 (may 4 impossible for me)