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 A personal collection of thoughts, ideas, opinions and feelings on a range of
topics and issues - when time permits... A public version of this Blog - where
you can link to specific entries and post comments - can be found at
http://blogspot.kiwanja.netFor more general kiwanja.net news, check out
the News page. An
RSS feed
of this Blog is available along with a recently compiled
collection of favourite entries (pictured
-
PDF, 1.5Mb)
Africa through my grandparent's eyes Back in what I believe were most likely the 1960's and 70's - perhaps a little earlier - my grandparents from my mothers side embarked on what at the time would have been an epic world journey. My grandfather retired quite early after a successful corporate career working for an oil company of all things, and the two of them grasped the opportunity to see some of the world. I remember, as a child, reading their letters and postcards. I was always particularly captivated by this place called Ceylon, a name now long consigned to the history books. It's been called Sri Lanka since 1972.
After my grandfather passed away in the early 1990's - he was preceded by my grandmother - all of the films went into storage in an uncle's loft, somewhere in deepest darkest England. Shortly after that he emigrated to New Zealand, and the films were forgotten. Forgotten by everyone except for me, it seems. Once or twice in recent years I've tried to find out if the films are still around. I'd almost given up all hope, but my mother emailed her brother again recently and it turns out the films are still sitting in that loft. In June, once I'm back from Stanford, I hope to meet up with my uncle, and hope to get a chance to transfer some of those films onto DVD. I know my grandparents spent quite a lot of time in Africa - Kenya and Uganda for sure, most likely Nigeria, too. And I think Egypt. Seeing these places through my grandparent's eyes, 40-odd years after they were there, is going to be incredible. And one thing is for sure - there won't be a mobile phone in sight... THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2008 To Kate. 21/02/06
Shedding light on the charging challenge Barely a week after blogging about the challenges of charging mobiles in developing countries (see February 5th post), I had the chance to meet Clemens Betzel, President of G24 Innovations, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. G24i develop a range of solar charging solutions, some of which are geared towards developing countries, and mobile phone users in particular. I left our meeting with a portable solar charging pack for the ZTE mobile which I recently bought in Uganda, and here it is down my local village green at the weekend (yes, we do occasionally get sunshine in England).
Here's the breakdown. My basic, no-frills ZTE phone comes in at around $22 new, putting most rival entry level handsets in the shade. And the solar panel to charge it? Add another $20. So, suddenly, for about $42 we have a works-out-of-the- box rural mobile solution. (Just one short year ago the handset alone would have come in at around that). What's more, the owner of the solar charger could earn a little extra income running a small charging business on the side. Maybe one day these panels will come as standard in Village Phone programs around the world, if they're not already. I couldn't help but leave the meeting with thoughts of grassroots NGOs running solar powered FrontlineSMS hubs off OLPC's or $200+ Acer EEEPC laptop computers. Now that really would be empowering. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008 And the winners are... Most of my ideas come on trains and buses. nGOmobile was no exception. The 1645 Kings Cross to Cambridge train was responsible this time around, after I'd spent the day getting 'processed' by the American Embassy in London. It only seems like yesterday that we launched the competition, and yet here we are, five months and over seventy entries later, with the four winners.
nGOmobile is a text message-based competition aimed exclusively and unashamedly at grassroots non-profit organisations working for positive social and environmental change throughout the developing world. Non-profits were asked to send in proposals on how they sought to use mobile technology, with the top entries getting laptops, modems, phones, software and cash to enable them to implement the work. It was tough turning down so many other amazing and worthy entries, and the hope among all the Judges is that we can scale this further and provide further prizes and opportunities when we re-run the competition in the coming months. Mobile World Congress has been a great platform to announce and profile the winners, and there is widespread interest in what nGOmobile is trying to achieve. For a project which only took five weeks and $20 to set up - I couldn't get anyone to donate the URL - it's a great example how it needn't take months and cost thousands of dollars to get a project up and running. Rapid prototyping is a strong theme in all my work. Last night I introduced the four winners to each other, and they've already started sharing their stories and experiences via email. In the next couple of weeks we will profile these projects in more detail on the competition website, and begin to plan ahead. It's very early days, but the potential positive social and environmental impact of nGOmobile is there for all to see... WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008 Scary Spice While most of the delegates here at Mobile World Congress have been busy fighting over next-generation GPS-enabled phones, playing with Nokia's latest N-series or scrambling to get their hands on an Android-powered device, I went out in search of something a little more spicy. During one of my recent trips to Uganda, I bought a ZTE handset from a street vendor. It was pretty basic, as you would expect for a phone which costs a little over $20 new. As much as possible had been stripped out to make it this price competitive - no browser, no data capability and no Java, and a monochrome LCD display with a bulk-standard orange backlight. But it worked, had good battery life and had four of the key functions demanded of a phone in this kind of market - a phone book and an alarm, and the ability to make and receive calls, and send and receive SMS. I thought this was about as basic as it could get - after all, what else could you possibly strip out to make it even cheaper?
Could this be the future of "handsets for the masses" in developing countries? SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2008 kiwanja at Mobile World Congress
It's going to be a fascinating week. This is my schedule so far: Monday February 11th Tuesday February 12th Wednesday February 13th Thursday February 14th It promises to be an interesting week. Thanks again to the GSM Association for their support, without which it would have not been possible to attend. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 08, 2008 Early morning. Bushbuckridge. September 2003 Women begin their long wait for water...
I use this photograph a lot, particularly during my "Keeping it Relevant" talks. It was taken back in 2003 during one of several research trips to South Africa and Mozambique for the Vodafone t4cd project proposal, and the "Mobile Phones: An Appropriate Tool for Conservation and Development?" report, which I co-authored with good friend and colleague Richard Burge. Looking back, 2003 seems remarkably early to be attempting something like that, and it was indeed challenging at a time when mobile phones were only just beginning to show their potential. We even discussed an idea for mobile payments, although this didn't get into the final document. If only I'd had the time and resources to explore that one... I wanted to use this image on the front cover of that report, but was voted down in favour of a more 'traditional' photo. Most people just never got what a picture of women queuing for water had to do with appropriate technology. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2008 The charging challenge and the entrepreneur
Users in many African countries - and not just those in rural areas - face similar problems. In Uganda, this "charging challenge" is being met head-on by a growing band of local entrepreneurs and business people. Rural users are able to charge their phones from a car battery (top), charged up by a local entrepreneur when power is available, or charged in a nearby town with better supply and transported back. In urban areas, where grid power is generally more reliable, kiosks (below) dotted around local markets provide charging services to passing customers. The spread of mobile technology in developing countries has opened up income-generating opportunities on a massive scale. But what is most interesting is how local entrepreneurs have taken advantage of this growth using their own skills and ingenuity. According to the Uganda Communications Commission, the telecoms sector there provides direct employment to a little over 6,000 people. Indirect employment - which includes mobile charging entrepreneurs, airtime vendors, accessories sales-people and mobile repair shops - comes to a staggering 350,000. Classic grassroots, bottom-up business development, and not a hand-out in sight. (These, and other images of mobiles in use in developing countries, can be found in the Mobile Gallery. For further examples of African ingenuity at work, visit AfriGadget.com). MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2008 Social mobile and the long tail Erik Hersman at White African talked about it. The Economist also recently talked about it. And Tactical Tech are talking about it. Three commentators and a common theme, even if they don't realise it. What am I talking about? Social mobile's long tail, that's what. So, why the long tail? Well, it goes something like this. There's no disputing that the mobile for good space is hotting up, with near-daily announcements extolling the virtue of mobile phones in promoting social and environmental good the world over. The problem is, despite the excitement we're still struggling to scratch below the surface, meaning the majority of non-profits, particularly those in developing countries, can all but sit back in awe at the incredible things these little devices are doing. Solutions are tantalisingly close, but without the tools and a practical helping hand most of these NGOs remain passive observers. It's these - the ones who aren't yet able to do anything - that interest me the most. Let's look at the graph.
We have three categories. Firstly, there are high-end high-cost solutions running SMS services across national or international borders, with little chance of replicability for your average grassroots NGO. These are represented by the red part of the curve and generally get the highest amount of exposure. Then we have lower-cost custom solutions, developed by individual (often mid-level) non-profits to solve a particular problem in a particular country or region, or to run a specific campaign. These have a slightly better chance of replicability for grassroots NGOs, are represented by the amber, and generally get a medium to high level of publicity. Finally, we're left with the simple, low-tech, appropriate technology solutions with great opportunities for rapid, hassle-free replicability among grassroots NGOs, represented in green (even better, take out the need to replicate altogether and actually give them the tools to do the work, a gap FrontlineSMS is working hard to fill). These projects generally get the lowest level of publicity, if any, since few have an international profile of any kind. Notoriously hard to communicate with, and with little or no money, it's perhaps no surprise that most of the attention on the long tail is elsewhere. In order for the mobile revolution to truly become a revolution, we need to be inviting infinitely more non-profits to the party. So much can be done, but so few are active. Going by my thinking, that means we need to be working on the green, because that's where most grassroots NGOs sit, and that's where help is needed the most. As kiwanja's nGOmobile competition seems to prove, social mobile is not about a lack of ideas or a lack of understanding, but a basic lack of tools... (A fuller, expanded version of this Blog entry is available as a PDF here) THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2008 View from the front row One of the best things about being a consultant, freelancer, wanderer or independent (choose whichever title you think best fits) is that I'm not tied to any one cause, NGO, company, community or website. Since I don't actually work for any of them I can openly communicate, engage and contribute to many sites in many different areas and in many different ways. I quite like this. It helps promote my whole ethos of shared, open learning, and means that information and knowledge I pick up from one can often be equally shared with another (non-disclosure agreement permitting). Sometimes not being paid can have its advantages, too (although I do, occasionally, take on temporary consultancy work with some of them). Right now, in the "mobile for good" space, we're in the middle of very interesting times. We're also, perhaps, at a crossroads. And the role that I've managed to carve out for myself, intentional or not, means that I consistently find myself at the centre of many of the current - and newer - initiatives. Take, for example, mobile communities and mobile portals (call them what you like). In recent months we've seen the launch, and re-launch, of numerous sites. Indeed, one of my FrontlineSMS-related plans involved the creation of one. I've since had a major re-think, although with users in over forty countries there is clearly a perfect opportunity to build a community of some kind. Building a truly vibrant community website around the wider social and environmental use of mobile is never going to be easy, and I would argue that no-one has yet managed to crack it (indeed, building truly active communities around anything can be a real challenge). Right now I have a little experiment going on through Facebook. The Social Mobile Group is an attempt to bring people together who share an interest in mobile, from developers through to practitioners, bloggers, researchers, academics, writers and the general public. Since the Facebook structure was already present, it took ten minutes to create the group, and it now stands at around 1,150 members from a starting point of about 20 six months ago. I'm not sure where it's going, but it slowly seems to be taking shape and it requires the minimum of effort. I've also tried to involve the members as much as possible, creating "Rotating Group Officer" roles which provides them with the opportunity to help grow and develop the group in their own way. There are, of course, other sites out there acting as 'mobile information' points. Even the kiwanja.net site has an element of this with the Downloads section, Mobile Database and Mobile Gallery, although this is not its primary purpose. Other sites include a mix of the old and the new, and it will be very interesting to see how they evolve over time, and how many cross over and blend into others. Last year I began to note down the number of sites I've either become involved in, or provided input into, or spoken to people about, in the mobile space. This is what I came up with:
PAMONET
W3C Mobile Web Initiative
ShareIdeas
Mobile Advocacy Toolkit
Although many of these sites - and others like them not listed here - SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2008 The Cobra's Heart
This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there - about encounters with them, and time spent together. The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist." Ryszard Kapuscinski, "The Cobra's Heart", 1998 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2008 When actions do speak louder than words Winston Churchill once famously remarked that it was "better to be making the news than taking it. To be an actor rather than a critic". But there are times when this simplifies, and trivialises, the complementary roles that 'actors' and 'critics' can play. Half-a-century on, modern technology has empowered 'critics' in ways Churchill could never have imagined.
Today, modern-day blogging is creating mini-Michael Bourke's the world over. Human rights violations, environmental vandalism, political killings, oppression against citizens, animal cruelty and unlawful detentions make the news from all corners of the globe, made possible by brave souls empowered by mobile and internet technologies. The line between 'actor' and 'critic' is becoming increasingly blurred, if it exists at all anymore. Recent events in Kenya - which have spurned the creation of Ushahidi.com - is a perfect case in point. A few short days ago, good friend Erik Hersman (who Blogs as the widely read and highly respected White African) aired his frustration at the lack of news coming out of the country from the man and woman on the street. In "It's Not About Us, It's About Them", Erik noted:
From a personal perspective, Bloggers such as Erik have been hugely supportive of kiwanja's work, without which there would have been little chance of initiatives such as FrontlineSMS and nGOmobile ever getting off the ground. nGOmobile alone has generated interest from over seventy grassroots NGOs, all of whom are now in with a chance of winning equipment to run their own text messaging services. FrontlineSMS has empowered NGOs in over forty countries from all corners of the globe. Essential to this has been a dedicated band of supporters, including White African, ZapBoom, Tactical Tech, ShareIdeas, Textually.org, Ore's Notes, Total Tactics, Black Looks, Saidia.org and 160Characters, among many others. Whether or not we're 'actors' or 'critics' - and whether or not it really matters - we all have a valuable role to play. Ushahidi shows us just how valuable that role can be. MONDAY, JANUARY 07, 2008 Fuel, food and cellphone credit According to a report yesterday in the New York Times on the continuing crisis in Kenya, "fuel, food and cellphone credit are in short supply". Who would have thought, even just a couple of short years ago, that in a time of humanitarian crisis cellphone credit would be uttered in the same sentence as 'essential' fuel and food items? Many people have long argued that communications, and access to information, ought to be basic human rights. Maybe their time is coming. FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2008 Consequences Imagine, for one moment, that the recent Kenyan elections went peacefully. That voting went smoothly, results were counted on time and in an orderly fashion, and there was general calm. Then, following declaration of the winner, local NGOs make their own announcement - of widespread corruption, ballot-box stuffing, destroyed votes. Their proof? Thousands of text messages sent in from monitors, spread around the country, keeping a watchful eye on events. All hell breaks loose, and we see riots and widespread violence on an unimaginable scale. This isn't quite what happened, but it could have been. My knowledge of Kenyan politics is limited - I've only been to the country once in early 2007- although I do have a number of politically active Kenyan friends. But despite my amateur status I, like everyone else, never expected this. Hundreds dead, a hundred thousand fleeing their homes, tribal violence and accusations of genocide. Years of progress in one of Africa's most stable countries reversed in an instant, and no end in sight.
For a while there was interest in Kenya in repeating the use of my FrontlineSMS system, which helped monitor the elections in Nigeria last year. That election was relatively peaceful, despite widespread accusations of corruption. Although FrontlineSMS didn't feature, the whole subject does raise some awkward questions. The very work that I do, despite being thousands of miles away from where it is usually applied, does have consequences. And very real ones at that. I've been thinking more and more about this over the past few days. How would I feel, or anyone come to that, if they developed technology whose ultimate use lead to this level of violence and loss of life? This didn't happen in Kenya, but it could have. A few people have spoken to me about this over the past couple of days. Interestingly, while I was concentrating on the negative, they were thinking more positively. If something like FrontlineSMS had been used, they argued - and more reliable exit polls published as a result - wouldn't that have helped reduce the 'shock' of the result, for the opposition at least? After all, much of the initial violence was sparked by disbelief at the result, where early polls had indicated a strong lead for the opposition candidate. Could something like FrontlineSMS have allowed results to be trickled out to the public more slowly, reality-checking anticipated results on both sides? Election monitoring with mobile phones is still in its infancy, and there are a number of different schools of thought. Some organisations concentrate on equipping official monitors with the technology, while I believe more strongly in engaging citizens in the process. A mixture of the two is probably most likely the way forward - it doesn't need to be one or the other. But what NMEM did in Nigeria was a breakthrough. According to White African: "This type of election monitoring is ground breaking in Africa. I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued to be a case study for future monitoring efforts around the continent - it perfectly showcases how technology can be used to circumnavigate government and organizational inefficiencies by going directly to the people" And the consequences of this kind of monitoring? Well, I remain convinced that mobile technology has a significant role to play in spreading democracy and improving the democratic process, and not just in developing countries. Indeed, the positive impact of mobile phones in this area - and many others - has been well documented. But with all things technology, we need to be aware of the negatives. Even mobile phones, as great as they are, have some. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 02, 2008 Ring, ring... The grassroots is calling One thing I really enjoy about kiwanja's work is how it encourages NGOs to come up with their own solutions to their own problems, how it focuses on the grassroots and how it seeks to help those organisations looking to help themselves. While other initiatives appear more interested in what people are doing with technology, a large part of what interests me is how we empower organisations who aren't there yet - those that have the ideas but lack the capacity to see those ideas through. For example, for every NGO using mobile technology in their work there are dozens, if not hundreds, who aren't.
One of the really nice things about nGOmobile is that NGOs get the chance to win a prize based on what they're going to do, rather than what they've done. While this makes the competition a little unique, it does make it more of a challenge from an organisational point of view. The competition was launched in October, and ran for three months. Getting news out to grassroots NGOs, many of whom struggle with their own connectivity issues, was never going to be easy. But thanks to some fantastic support from other mobile-related sites and bloggers, including White African, ZapBoom, Tactical Tech, ShareIdeas, Textually.org, Nokia, Ore's Notes, Total Tactics, Black Looks, Saidia.org and 160Characters, news broke fast, and a feature on the BBC World Service Digital Planet programme made a big impact. By the time the competition closed over seventy NGOs had submitted entries. Other, higher-profile and bigger-budget, better-established ICT competitions would have been happy to hit anywhere near that. Analysing the results of the competition makes fascinating reading, as did my first analysis of FrontlineSMS usage last month. What we've done, in essence, is taken the pulse of the grassroots NGO community. Where are they working? What is their focus? What concerns them? How will they solve a problem? How would mobile technology make their lives easier? What would the impact be if they had it? The pie chart above does indeed tell an interesting story. Health-related work came out on top at 19% - perhaps not a huge surprise - but conservation, running it close at 18%? That was a surprise. The conservation community has been a little slower than most to grasp the benefits of mobile technology, but it looks as though things are beginning to change. The human rights community has been increasingly active in this area, with sites such as ICT4Peace and New Tactics taking a lead, and agriculture- and fisheries- related projects have been responsible for some of the higher-profile mobile-based solutions, including Manobi, TradeNet and the 2006 WSIS Award winner, East African Fish Auctions. Entries in the competition reflect this. Interest in nGOmobile among the blogging community, grassroots NGOs and the mobile industry has been fantastic, and discussions are already underway on ways to scale the competition in 2008 and increase its own - and the winners - profile. It's incredible to think that it was only launched four months ago. The grassroots were given the opportunity to speak. And boy, are they calling...
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What
made my grandparents travels so intriguing, though, wasn't the letters or
postcards, or the various souvenirs which they brought back with them, or the
safari brochures. Most fascinating was the cine film. Believe it or not, my
grandfather somehow got hold of a cine camera, and they took it with them on
many of their trips. About ten years or so ago, we transferred one of the family
films onto VHS. There are the usual shots of us, as kids, playing on the beach,
my brother pushing me into the sea, one of my sisters screaming. But then, right
at the end, for about 15 seconds or so, there's a totally random clip of an
African village. To say it is fascinating is a total understatement. Where was
it filmed? When? Who were the people in it? Sadly, these questions may never be
answered.
what
i'd like to see
In
some rural areas, where the lack of reliable mains power might be the difference
between making it worth owning a mobile or not, a small solar panel such as this
could be a deal clincher. Of course, solar energy has been touted as a solution
for charging mobile devices for years now, but what's interesting about this is
the cost. Suddenly, it actually seems possible. And by possible, what I really
mean is affordable.
It's
been a fascinating exercise. We have projects from Kenya, Uganda,
Mexico and Azerbaijan
Well,
this week in Barcelona I may have found the answer. And the answer is,
apparently, the screen. 
This week I'm making my first appearance
at the 
Discussing the application of mobile phones in the NGO sector, the many uses
of FrontlineSMS around
the world and the global response to the
In
Following a meeting of African activist organisations in Nairobi
Following
on from their Bangalore workshop in December 2006,
The
A
recent Vodafone/Nokia-supported initiative,
Following
on from their successful 
The
Social Mobile Group
"I
lived in Africa for several years. I first went there in 1957. Then, over the
next forty years, I returned whenever the opportunity arose. I travelled
extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and
high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander
with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical
savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing
patience and good humour.
In
1984 a BBC news crew, accompanied by reporter Michael Bourke, travelled to
Ethiopia and brought news of a growing humanitarian crisis to the worlds'
attention. "A biblical famine in the 20th Century" and "The closest thing to
hell on Earth" was how he described it. The international community were shocked
into action, and the following summer saw
True
to his word, just five days later saw the launch of
I've been fortunate over the