YouReporter is the platform of choice that gives a voice to anyone with a mobile phone, and thus a chance to shape society's views on current issues. The stories are submitted to RIA Novosti directly from mobile phones or computers using MMS. Over 25 stories are contributed daily since its launch in April, 2010
The project was created by the Ghana Journalist's Association for the Elections in December 2008. Mobile phone users were invited to subscribe prior to the elections. After the elections, they received SMS messages as soon as the Electoral Commission certified the results, giving them accurate information instead of rumors
Sector
Government
Author(s)
Country
Ghana
Website
Read more:
http://www.mobilecontent.com.gh/partners.php
Title
Ushahidi
Summary
Ushahidi is a platform used as a tool to easily crowdsource information using multiple channels, including SMS, email, Twitter and the web. The site has grown to become an important resource for citizen journalists in times of crisis like the Haiti earthquake. Ushahidi Liberia provides free customized mapping technology and ongoing tech support to humanitarian and development actors tracking conflict, peace building and the 2011 electoral process in Liberia. By offering individual maps for partner organizations and aggregated public maps on issues of national concern, Ushahidi Liberia aims to connect people across civil society, government and the media using a common platform for information sharing.
This Web Portal is an internet-based platform that is equipped to receive citizens' opinions and reports via a range of options using mobile phones and the web. Citizens can now participate in quality of service reporting by sending their text, video, or voice messages from mobile phones, or directly uploading them to the portal via web
The target audience of the web portal are :
Different public service providers (municipalities, upazilla parishads, directorates, local government offices, hospitals,etc.
Journalist & Media (local and national level )
Clients of the specific services (citizens and communities, for example, civil society members, youth groups, cultural organizations, academics, etc)
Access to mobile communications is credited with boosting local economies, but almost a quarter of the world’s population doesn’t have affordable access to wireless voice and data services. Altobridge Ltd. Developed a low-cost solar-powered wireless system called lite-site that aims to tackle 3 big barriers to extending wireless service to remote areas: high capital costs, high operating costs and high transmission costs.
Each base station in Altobridge’s system uses only 90 watts of power, making it possible for stations to operate solely on solar energy. And by compressing data transfers, the system needs only about a quarter of the satellite brand-width normally required, reducing transmission costs. Altibridge is a leading provider of 2G/3G; use of lite-site enables mobile network operators to bring mobile connectivity to remote communities at very low costs.
Sector
Mobile Communication
Author(s)
Altobridge
Country
Malaysia, Mongolia, Indonesia, Níger, Tonga, Oman, Kenya
The MzansiSMS not only aims to provide low-cost SMS to poorer South Africans, but also creates new income streams for vendors who sell MzansiSMS credit. Between 40% and 50% of all the revenue collected is shared with MzansiSMS vendors. MzansiSMS is thus an empowerment vehicle enabling anyone with a cellphone to start selling MzansiSMS credit.
Jokko makes it possible to communicate with a network of people by sending a text message the communications systems that utilizes a functionally dubbed ‘SMSForum’ that allows the community members to access a server in the Tostan office by sending their text to a magic number. This number feeds directly into the server which then forwards the SMS to a group of community members’ phones.
Spoken Web (a.k.a World Wide Telecom Web or Telecom Web) is a technology to enable the illiterate and the underprivileged with the power of information by using mobile phones (since its well known that mobile phone penetration is much more than computer/internet penetration in developing countries and ~70% of the people of the world don't/can't access internet).
This is a system for creating and accessing 'VoiceSites' (analogous to WebSites), VoiLinks (analogous to hyperlinks) etc. to potentially create a 'spoken' network of information. A VoiceSite can be accessed through any phone (even a landline) without a need to own a computer or knowing how to read and write. Spoken Web has been deployed through several pilots in different parts of the world with tens of thousands of users using the system.
Though primarily meant for the under-served in population in emerging economies, it has several applications for the developed world as well.
Souktel is a cell phone-based service that uses SMS and voice-menu technology to link young people with jobs and connect aid agencies with people who need help. Founded by Palestinian, Canadian and American graduate fellows at Harvard University and M.I.T. , Souktel has been changing lives across the developing world
The Desert PC provides affordable internet and information access to Mali's remote communities.
Geekcorps Mali created the Desert PC, which is a sealed, fanless system based on VIA Technologies' Mini-ITX form factor. The Desert PC has a heatpipe and external fan that allows for passive and active cooling. Geekcorps Mali replaced the magnetic hard disk with a solid state disk to eliminate moving parts, and customized its own Linux distribution, Kunnafonix, to minimize the number of disk writes. The Desert PC normally consumes only 35 watts or less of power, one-sixth of the electricity required for a regular computer. To solve the problem of costly internet, the team disabled graphics and installed low band to reduce data transmission consumption to 5-to-20 percent of traditional use. That reduced the cost of internet service (which is billed per kilobyte) by 80-to-95 percent, to approximately $30 per month. Since its installation, the Desert PC has drawn considerable interest from the press and private enterprise, including a partnership with VIA Technologies.
A large, global, and reasonably educated workforce remains underused because of poverty and isolation, especially in rural areas. With the rapid penetration of telecommunications in developing economies, Txteagle believes this situation can change.
Txteagle is a mobile phone-based SMS server application that takes tasks from
corporate clients (such as Nokia and Google), breaks them down into multiple microtasks, and sends them out for completion to registered users. Targeted users are the rural poor in developing economies, who, through their mobile
phones, supplement their incomes with these microtasks.
A key enabling factor in txteagle’s business model is its Accuracy Inference Engine (AIE), which, once tasks have been broken into microtasks, can monitor user performance.
The AIE platform is a set of computational routines that can
dynamically predict which available workers will be most likely to complete the given task successfully, correctly infer when the job has been satisfactorily completed, and differentially pay workers in proportion to their level of contribution, all to within a 99 percent confidence interval of accuracy. The firm also uses a database that monitors and records user performance.
With access to 2.1 billion consumers in over 80 countries, Jana’s proprietary technology platform provides the ability to quickly reach the “next billion” consumers in urban and rural areas around the globe. With a unique and relevant incentive structure of mobile phone airtime compensation, Jana is able to highly engage with respondents in geographies that have traditionally proven difficult.
