Mobile Web For Social Development

In May 2008, as part of the EU FP7 Digital World Forum project, W3C has launched the Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group to explore the potential and challenged of mobile and Web technologies to deliver social-oriented services to underprivileged populations of Developing Countries.

The objective of this group 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, and to draft a roadmap to work on. 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 group,
while not limited to these topics, is investigating 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, ... "