Highlights of the Mobile Tech in Social Innovations Series
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2011-06-23 12:48
Thanks to everyone who joined us for Echoing Green's Mobile Technology in Social Innovation series, where we invited mobile tech leaders to discuss the current and future position of mobile in social innovation. Here are highlights of the online interviews.
The four advocacy panelists discussed the evolving trends in text-to-give campaigns, and how technology is influencing how individuals organize. Highlights:
Holly Ross of NTEN: “I think it's all about mobile and geo-location to organize and mobilize communities.”
Michael Sabbat of Mobile Commons: “With today's technology we can deliver advocacy calls to the right legislator at the right time. We can track those calls to know how many calls are being made, who the most active advocates are, and all associated data. We've come a long way from posting a switchboard number on the homepage and hoping people take action.”
Emily May of Hollaback!: “As more and more people turn to mobile technology to tell their stories, it is government’s responsibility to listen.”
Stephanie Shih of DoSomething.org: “ I think more and more our mobile phones will become the home base of the technology we use, like a kind of universal remote control almost.”
On the second day of the series, the panelists provided insight on how technology is changing the face of journalism, especially as it empowers the “citizen journalist” in conflict zones. Highlights:
Esra’a Al Shafei of MidEast Youth: “We see the true value of this in the number of media outlets that have now embraced crowd sourced material for their own reporting, anything from videos to photos to live updates of a situation.”
Melissa Ulricht of Mobile Active: “The ubiquity of mobile phones also creates opportunities for bottom-up reporting and grassroots-level viral information sharing. Mobile communication is inherently insecure and exposes rights defenders and those working in sensitive environment to risks that are not easy to detect or overcome.”
Next up was a lively conversation about the extensive field of education and mobile learning. The panelists considered the roles of language and literacy, mobile phones in the classroom, group learning with tablets, and how technology interventions affect human capital. Highlights:
Nick Ehrmann of Blue Engine: “As an educational tool, phones have many possibilities. They can be “pocket libraries” with free Amazon access to the classics through Kindle e-books. Texting and mobile chats (even Facebook posts) can increase information sharing on both the teacher-student and student-student level.”
Allison Druin of Human-Computer Interaction Lab: “We believe that, as with all technology, designers must consider the affordances of tablets such as iPads in designing for them.”
Nick: “The technology is great, but is every teacher willing to learn something new and will administrations hold teachers accountable in using the new technology? As for students, are schools providing the equipment? Is it an expectation for students to have smart phones?”
Allison: “One of the greatest hurdles facing mobile learning adoption is that mobile devices are often discouraged or outright banned in many learning environments. Teachers and administrators are concerned that students will be distracted by their mobile devices and be taken out of the learning situation. We believe that educators should leverage the ubiquity and power of mobile devices and encourage their use in ways that are appropriate for the learning task at hand.”
The fourth day of the series focused on mobile commerce and banking. Panelists debated the advantages and disadvantages of the mobile payment system, reaching the bottom of the pyramid, and gaps in the infrastructure. Highlights:
Arjuna Costa of Omidyar: “…meaningful savings in time and the actual cost of accessing financial services. From the providers’ perspective, mobile money has the potential to drive down delivery costs significantly, which should allow for greater innovation and a wider array of financial services that will eventually be accessible by the poor.”
Shital Shih and Jesse Frip of ShoreBank International: “The disadvantage of the modern mobile payment system, as it stands today, is that it has not moved beyond payments.”
Arjuna Costa of Omidyar: “Traditional microcredit has relied on in-person, trust-based relationships (between the lender and the loan officer, and between members of a lending group in the group-based lending models) as a way of increasing people's likelihood to repay their loans. Eliminating this “socialization” of risk and making these interactions virtual could result in lower repayment rates.”
David del Ser of Frogtek: “One could argue that the mobile operators are themselves large companies that have reached deeply into the bottom of the period. In their wake, other sectors like consumer packaged goods or insurance are exploring different ways to repackage their offering through phones.”
Shital & Jesse: “Because of the different contexts from country to country, we see different business models emerging. It is not really possible to just replicate a mobile banking model from one country to another.”
The information branch of mobile technology was discussed from two ends of the mobile user spectrum. Highlights:
Humberto Kam of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch: “We’re taking it to the next level, letting users tell others about the sustainability of the seafood they find. Mobile lets us get that data while it’s still fresh in people’s minds, so they don’t have to go home to their PC and remember what they had.”
Volker Heistermann of Yushan Ventures: “Mobile operators could be like internet service provider—you get the connection from them—that's it. Then hardware can be bought anywhere and configured easily with your flavor of operating system. Apps, data and content will be stored in the cloud, and you'll access them in a variety of online/offline modes.”
Humberto: “The ubiquity of mobile computing will radically change things, as will changing attitudes toward technology and privacy.”
The final day of the series featured a vibrant conversation about mobile health, especially in developing countries. Panelists discussed development challenges, advancing health outcomes with handheld devices, and bridging the gaps in resource models. Highlights:
Isaac Holeman of MedicMobile: “…need to fund and build capacity for national information systems that integrate multiple health care providers (i.e. ministry, nonprofits and mission organizations), and find a way to support these projects long term.”
Josh Nesbit of MedicMobile: “Mobile technology is repeatedly presented as a solution. It's not—it's a tool that transforms into a solution when people use it within a health system.”
Josh: “…rather design systems for the users' future as opposed to making assumptions about the permanence of past skills (or lack of skills).”
Andre Blackman of Pulse+Signal: “Now with mobile devices health workers are able to collect data from home visits with patients and send the results back to central repositories of patient records. This provides incredible increases in productivity and cuts down on turnaround time for hospitals/clinics to provide valuable service to their communities.”
We concluded the Mobile Technology in Social Innovation series with an invigorating global Twitter chat. You can see an archive of the conversation by searching the #mobileinnov hashtag.
