Mobile phones are intimate. They are our communication devices, our business consoles, our photo albums, our entertainment centers, our pocket connections to the world. For our generation, they are integral to our lives -- we even sleep with them so they can be our alarm clock in the morning and allow us to read emails while still in bed.
What if we could use this intimate object for good? To connect youth from around the world, to let them share their life stories, and to create a funding circle that would encourage philanthropy from resourced young people to help those in the developing world? What if our mobile phones could link young social entrepreneurs in Nairobi or Rio or Mumbai with micro-financing and creative business ideas? And then tell the story of how it happened?
This is the next generation, and it’s called Mobile Movement.
We believe through our mobile devices we can create a new model of Active Philanthropy, a social movement that promotes global community service and partnerships.
Mobile Movement is an innovative network that uses storytelling and social networking to channel both micro-funding and professional advice through ubiquitous mobile technology. In phase one of the prototype, this project will link 15 groups of young Kenyan social entrepreneurs with a network of young North American professionals and students, who can give creative business advice and micro-funding via their mobile phones. The center of the network will be a storytelling website with professional-quality videos and mobile photos/videos from the groups in Nairobi that will document the relationships between the participants and their projects over time. And as the project grows, so will the continents we can reach.
Many young people from the developing world don’t have a personal computer or a stable internet connection, so mobile phones have created an unprecedented opportunity for them to join the global community and experience the internet. We are using mobile technology as a communication bridge between the west and previously digitally-marginalized people. The combination of propriety networks (carriers) to securely transfer funds, open the communication channel and distribute the message via the internet is the future.
This kind of international initiative with phones is unprecedented. First, supplying mobile phones to grassroots youth groups in slums around the world and asking them to broadcast their stories on the web and to interested audience members via SMS/MMS is historic. Second, to create a web/mobile social network that connects young people from all over the world with a social mandate, who can interact in real time with “business partners†in a micro-finance program to seamlessly and effortlessly transfer funds has never been done before.
The use of mobile phone technology makes this project unique in the international development and philanthropic fields, and we feel it may become a model that is applicable to other UN and government development agencies and international NGOs, as they learn from the interaction we create and sustain using technology that is more affordable, accessible and intimate.
Pilot – Phase I Overview
Youth in Kenya constitute over 60% of the population and the majority are living in abject poverty. They have, in the past been on the forefront of the country’s development. However since the late 70’s they have been systematically excluded from the decision making process of the country. Facing a collision between traditional culture and modern technology -- as well as likely long life under-employment and an education system that makes it hard to attain university entrance standards – youth in Kenya face significant obstacles. And yet the young people who Mobile Movement has been working with, under the guidance of Environmental Youth Alliance and UN-HABITAT, are capable and committed young leaders in their communities. They are seeking opportunities – and have embraced the mobile phone as a tool to uplift themselves and future generations. Theirs is not a unique story. The World Bank’s World Development Report in 2007 states that 1.3 billion young people are now living in the developing world – the largest ever youth group in history.
Mobile Movement fills a need that UN-HABITAT has identified: to connect young urban entrepreneurs with a community of professionals and micro-finance donors. This project is designed to inspire young professionals in North America, and around the world, to explore how they can connect with youth from other countries, participate in community development and begin sharing their wealth of resources – and the impacts are far-reaching for all participants in the global North and South. By giving young social entrepreneurs in informal settlements the means to use mobile technology to support their own initiatives, network, and ultimately engage with young people around the world, we are bridging the gap between rich and poor through transfer of technology, transfer of micro-funding, transfer of knowledge. We are creating business partners and perhaps as siginifcantly, we are creating new storytellers.
Mobile Movement is part of an historic retelling of the traditional story of the urban poor. To quote Barack Obama we put our hands, “on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day."
Opportunities for expansion of Mobile Movement are seemingly endless. Revisit the number again: 1.3 billion young people are now living in the developing world. The writer of the World Bank report followed this statistic with the following warning: “Most developing countries have a short window of opportunity to get this right before their record numbers of youth become middle-aged, and they lose their demographic dividend…with youth unemployment running at up to twice the adult rate, failure to seize this opportunity to train them more effectively for the workplace, and to be active citizens, could lead to widespread disillusionment and social tensions.â€
Mobile Movement is mobile. It is a model of active philanthropy that can be expanded to any community where youth are engaged in social/economic entrepreneurship and supported by an NGO or Agency. There has never been a better time to invest in youth.
Phase I Development
The MacArthur Foundation and Microsoft Research India have generously awarded Mobile Movement enough funds to conceptualize the first phase of the Mobile Movement prototype, which is to build a functioning storytelling website where the public can engage with 15 youth groups/entrepreneurs on the web and on their mobile devices. The project-to-date will be presented in mid-April at the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Showcase.
Through UN HABITAT's ‘Urban Entrepreneurship Program’ 15 youth groups in Nairobi have been given mobile phones, trained on their use, and can now communicate their small business ideas, needs and successes through their phones. If the audience abroad would like to contribute micro-funding, we can facilitate that through PayPal, and give groups cash and credit on their SIM cards through Vodafone's MPESA program.
Currently, we are engaging 40 test users -- ranging from interaction designers to youth-led development specialists, from digital pioneers to high school students -- who are currently engaging with the fifteen youth groups. We are learning valuable insights and getting important feedback in order to optimize the website. In April, we will launch the next phase of our prototype.
Phase II Prototype Research and Development: May 2009
One of our challenges comes from world wide participation. While the internet is global (protocols and standards that all www users adhere to)... all of the participants are using private carrier networks (and there are a number per country and a lot of countries i.e. ATT, Cingular, Bell Canada, etc) with which to interact. Having all of these networks work seamlessly together is challenging. We are looking for a global third-party to provide SMS API access so we can bridge all of these networks together and make fund transfers consistent and smooth.
In addition, we have learned that the youth groups have varying degrees of skill in how they use the phones and share their story. How do we program the phones to create ease, immediacy and allow for the transfer of knowledge, which literally can be at their fingertips? How can we create programs that not only facilitate learning how to tell stories in text and video but also understanding the information being shared?
We are anticipating the audience will get involved in Mobile Movement in various ways, and we want the website to showcase different ways of contributing -- to tell the stories of the young professionals who get involved, to try to inspire others to engage even more deeply. We have broken down our website audience into four tiers so as to create points of entry for each of these types of participants, and to try to target a meaningful experience for each, with the idea that people may begin in one tier, give a small donation and become so excited they naturally move into a higher tier by getting their school, colleagues, friends and family involved. The next tier is to actually engage in a business initiative with one of the youth groups. Currently, on our test user site, a jewelry designer from NYC has answered the call to action from a collective of bone crafters and they are sharing design ideas as we speak. And the final tier is to initiate a larger venture – from building a waste recycling centre to a school.
Phase III: East African Expansion
We anticipate by the end of 2009, we will be ready to expand our youth entrepreneur base to 3 East African cities, likely Kigali, Kampala and Addis Ababa. Currently, we are discussing with UN-HABITAT how to work with them and their NGO partners for service delivery. Â
Phase IV: Broad Public Launch
We plan to launch in early 2010, and will organize both a viral and media marketing campaign.
Phase VI: Replicating the model in Asia and the Americas
We will look to expand the program and continue our outreach.
