Question 1 for discussion Monday 17 Nov.
Here is the first question to for our forum discussion (beginning Monday, 17 Nov. 2008 ). Please reply with your experiences, thoughts and ideas: Describe the characteristics and success factors of applications of mobile telephony in rural areas. Tell us about the people/actors involved, how they use telephony, what information is exchanged, and the processes that occur?
Pete Cranstron wrote: [quote] 4. I am sure we need applications using both SMS (targetted, low content potentially high interactivity applications - low infrastructure needs, albeit still expensive for many) and voice (richer content, more complex infrastructure). I agree with those who argue for the value of simply being able to ask a simple question to another human, and SMS or voice can work as well. Is that interactivity the key added value of mobiles in any mix?[/quote] The Rural e-Services Project in Madhya Pradesh, India has been using camera phones in the context of a farmer owned producers company. These are provided on a shared basis to 'service providers', thus spreading costs. The queries are sent asyncrhonously to a website that is read by the company's agricultural advisor, who can then respond by voice. (http://linux.odi.org.uk/eservblog) Yes, interactivity is a factor, but also the existing relationships between the advisor and the farmer is very important. Andy
Andy, the Rural e-Service project seems to be very interesting. I'm also a photographer and so I'm always fascinated by the use of images in sustain of development project. In this specific case, I think images can have a great benefit in terms of usability of the services as well as voice. I mean that pictures can be a wonderful substitute to overcome problems such as: languages, length of messages, difficult descriptions, lack of technical skills and specific training, illiteracy and other problems. Would you tell us a bit more about the social innovation of the this visual application, maybe in the thread about "[url=http://www.e-agriculture.org/550.html?&no_cache=1&view=single_conf&cat_u... is innovative about the application of mobile telephony?[/url] Cheers, Luca (FAO)