Mobile Web for Social Development (MW4D) | The MW4D Interest Group closed in April 2013. It explored how to use the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Mobile phones as a solution to bridge the Digital Divide and provide minimal services (health, education, governance, business,…) to rural communities and under-privileged populations of Developing Countries.<br/>This is an archived version of the MW4D IG blog, the information on this page is historical and is no longer maintained.

Minutes of September 1st teleconference published

Posted on September 15, 2008

The MW4D IG held its fifth teleconference on September 1 2008.

The approved minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2008/09/01-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of August 18 teleconference published

Posted on September 1, 2008

The MW4D IG held its fourth teleconference on August 18 2008.

The approved minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2008/08/18-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of August 4 teleconference published

Posted on August 18, 2008

The MW4D IG held its third teleconference on August 4 2008.

The approved minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2008/08/04-mw4d-minutes.html

Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of July 28 teleconference published

Posted on August 5, 2008

The MW4D IG held its second teleconference on July 28 2008.
The approved minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2008/07/28-mw4d-minutes.html
Previous meeting minutes are available from the teleconference archives

Minutes of July 7 teleconference published

Posted on July 28, 2008

The MW4D IG held its first teleconference on July 7 2008.
The approved minutes are available at http://www.w3.org/2008/07/07-mw4d-minutes.html

Workshop report: Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development

Posted on July 1, 2008

W3C officially published the executive summary of the W3C workshop on the role of Mobile Technologies in fostering Social Development. Read the complete News about it.

Workshops on the role of Mobile Technologies in fostering Social Develoment

Posted on June 4, 2008

W3C hold during 2 days (june 2-3) a workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development.

The workshop site has all the submitted papers, the ones selected for presentation and the corresponding slides linked from the agenda

The participants will work on the executive summary in the next few weeks and publish it afterwards

Stephane

W3C launches the Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group

Posted on June 4, 2008

W3C invites participation in a new group chartered to explore the potential of mobile technology to help bridge the digital divide. The Mobile Web For Social Development (MW4D) Interest Group will study the issues that rural communities and underprivileged populations face in accessing information and communication technology. The MW4D Interest Group provides an multidisciplinary forum for discussing these issues, and in doing so, contributes to the W3C mission of making the Web available to all.
Participation to this group is open to the public and not limited to W3C Members.
See details on the Participation page.
The two chairs of the group are Ken Banks (kiwanja.net) and Stephane Boyera (W3C).
Read the full content of the Press Release
Stephane

Documents and Resources

The MW4D IG has published the following documents:

08 December 2009: Mobile Web for Social Development Roadmap (HTML version)
- See also the PDF (color) version of the roadmap
- See also the PDF (black and white) version of the roadmap

The MW4D plans to develop a set of documents which are described in the Deliverables section of the charter.

The draft version of these documents are developed collaboratively on the group’s wiki.

There is also a set of ressources relevant to the activity of the MW4D and which have been developped by W3C since 2006:

Reasons for joining

The objective of MW4D IG is to gather all stakeholders in a global forum in order to identify the key challenges of using mobile phones as an ICT-platform in Developing regions.

The targeted players are Web experts, Mobile specialists, Academics from Developed and Developing regions, NGOs with field expertise, and International organizations working on reducing the Digital Divide. W3C believes that only a joint coordinated action could lead to the identification of all challenges and also to the identification of the right actions to be launched to have a real impact. The MW4D IG, while not limited to these topics, will investigate the following areas:

technical issues related to the mean of deployment (sms, voice, web,...)
technical issues related to accessibility for illiterate people, people without technological background, people without prior dewsktop experience,...
technical issues related to specific types of applications (m-health, mgov, ...)
Social issues: how to capture the real needs from the targeted populations, how to have a bottom-up approach that will integrate NGOs into international organization agenda and work
Social issues related to empowerment: how to enable local people to master the technology to develop and deploy the applications they need, how to leverage local contant and applications development
Social issues related to sustainability, entrepreneurship, ...

The following types of actors should be able to contribute to the mission of MW4D, and learn from other participants:

Charitable Foundations funding and/or managing Development projects using ICTs
Companies or Organizations providing ICT-related products, services, content, applications or infrastructure in Developing Countries.
People with grassroots experience on the use of ICT in Development
People from the ICT for Development (ICT4D) domain
People with a mobile background
Web experts
Accessibility experts
Digital Divide experts
People expert in mobile HCI in Developing Countries
People expert in the use of mobile phones in Development

How to give feedback?

Feedback on MW4D documents is very welcome on the [email protected] list (archive). To subscribe to this list, Send an email to [email protected] with the word subscribe in the email subject header. To unsubscribe, send an email to the same address with the word unsubscribe in the email subject header. For additional help, consult the W3C's public email list pages.

Feel free To contact either Ken Banks, co-Chair of the group, or Stephane Boyera co-Chair and W3C Staff Contact.

Teleconferences

The Participants of MW4D are meeting regularly by phones. The teleconferences are taking place the first and the third monday of each month at 8:00am EST time (Boston time). This schedule follows the Daylight saving time of Boston (i.e. it is always 8:00am EST time any day of the year). To find what time this is in your region, you can check the world clock meeting planner.

The archives of the meeting minutes are available online

Teleconference and IRC Information:

Teleconference bridge :
- +1.617.761.6200
- Conference code: 6493 ("M4WD")
IRC: Access Directly the MW4D IRC channel through the W3C IRC Web Interface
IRC Raw information:
- Channel: #mw4d
- Server: irc.w3.org
- Port: 6665
It is mandatory to read the Teleconference How-to before joining your first teleconference
Read the instruction about the irc bot zakim managing the teleconference
Read the detailed instruction on how to use IRC and the W3C teleconference system

Face-to-face Meetings

The first MW4D Face-to-face meeting took place during the W3C TPAC 2008 on Friday 24 October. Read the minutes.

Workshops

One of the MW4D IG objectives is to create an inter-disciplinary forum involving Web and Mobile experts, NGOs with field expertise and experience, academics from Developed and Developing regions, and International organizations involved in reducing the Digital Divide and providing services to under-privileged populations. Some of these actors are not yet connected or working with W3C, and it is essential to outreach these communities. Organizing public workshops is one of the most easiest and effective ways of gathering people from different background at the same place, and agree of the issues.

Future Workshops

The future workshop on Mobile and Web Technologies in Social and Economic Development will take place in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania, 4-5 June 2011. See the Call for Participation.

Past Workshops

W3C organized a first workshop in December 2006, in Bangalore, India as a preliminary action which led to the creation of MW4D IG.

A second workshop on the Role of Mobile Techonologies on Fostering Social Development was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 2nd and 3rd 2008. Read the executive summary report.

A third workshop on the Role of Mobile Techonologies on Fostering Social Development - Africa perspective was held in Maputo, Mozambique, April 1st and 2nd 2009. Read the executive summary report.