W3C Workshop Overview and Summary

Stéphane Boyera

http://www.w3.org/2008/06/sb_gdln/

W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development

Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 3 2008

W3C: Leading the Web to its Full Potential

Founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee in 1994 ...

• W3C Vision: Universal Web Access: The Web Anywhere, for Everyone, at Anytime, on Everything :

1994: Creation of W3C for standardization and interoperability of Web technologies 1997: Creation of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): To make the Web Accessible 2005: Creation of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI): To Access the Web from Mobile Phones 2008: Creation of the Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group (MW4D) to investigate the role of the Mobile Web to bridge the Digital Divide

Context: W3C Mobile Web for Social Development

	Vision Mobile Phones have the highest potential to be the primary ICT platform 3+billion phones >80% of the World Population covered Proof of concept already exists Joint coordinated action required to move to the next step, a World with thousand services available.
(Photo Source: Vodafone)

MW4D Objectives

• Assemble an inter-disciplinary forum
  • Practionners
  • Academics
  • Industry/Business players
  • Regulators
  • ...
• Identify the key challenges and the most promising direction to follow (roadmap)
  • How to deploy content and applications on mobile phones ?
  • How to make illiterate-accessible content ?
  • How to enable people and leverage local content development ?
  • ...
• Develop resources about relevant players, mobile devices and infrastructure information, ...
• First step: an international Workshop to gather input from the community

Summary of key points

http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/

• Lots of activity going on in the field, but still disconnected
• a Wide range of technical solutions to deploy services
• Integrating feeback from grassroot critical
• Taking into account the social context of Technological Development is essential
• Governments, Regulators and policy makers impact deployment
• Education / capacity building essential

Technical Solutions

• Lots of options: SMS, Voice, Mobile Web, Radio, TV, Box
• All of those are potential delivery channels of Web content
• Choice based on multiple factors
  • profil of targeted users
  • regulatory policy
  • type of applications
  • Price Scheme for users and service provider
  • Operator independence
• Mobile Web today is not widely available due to prepaid access (no data) and absence of browser
• Adoption by NGOs based on simplicity, replicability, cost, technical expertise required,...
• Specific issues: privacy, illiteracy

Integrating Grassroot Experience

• Understanding factor of adoptions by communities/population
• Taking into account cultural specificities
• Taking into account specific usage (e.g. shared phone)
• Understanding the context of work

Role of Governments and policy makers

• Potential of Mobile phones still not obvious at government level
• Regulatory context preventing access
• Regulatory context may be a booster (data access, price scheme,...)

Education / capacity building

• Essential to empower communities because they know what they need
• Essential to develop curriculum on Mobile Technologies
  • will create a new mobile service sectors and leverage the number of services
  • let people propose innovative services and approaches
  • will create employments (entrepreneurial aspect)
• Replicability, and easyness of implementation of the curriculum is essential

Conclusion

• Lots of different challenges and issues discussed
• Lots of activity in this field and lots of different type of findings
• Essential to take into account the social context of tech. development
• It is essential to pave the road to the next step
  • Connect the different parties together to have a coordinated analysis
  • Identifying clearly where we are today: what's doable, how, ...
  • Identifying the key blocking/limitating factors for a large scale availability of services
  • Identifying the requirements for future solutions
• It is critical to to break silos and have practitionners, academics, government and policy makers, and business sector to work together