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Mobile technology is being used by citizens all over the world as the most affordable and massively adopted piece of technology. How can we harness this technology for advancing human rights and civil society participation? This dialogue is a space to share and discuss many ideas for "Using Mobile Phones for Action."
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[Photo: from the Private Sector Development blog]
Using Mobiles | SMS (Short Message Service)
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Intro
Mobile technology is being used by citizens all over the world as the most affordable and massively adopted piece of technology. How can we harness this technology for advancing human rights and civil society participation?
Our outstanding resource practitioners for the November-December tactical discussion shared and discussed many ideas for "Using Mobile Phones for Action". You can still contribute your ideas, questions and experiences!
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Philippe Duhamel - in his interTactica blog - Harnessing new technology for new tactics provides some great examples to get our creative ideas flowing.
- Sending out an SMS -- Supporting human rights work and activism with text messaging, or SMS - Short Messaging Service - functionality
- Organizing demonstrations -- Such as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine
- Coup de text -- Like ousting a president, it happened in the Philippines
- Protest Ringtones -- Highlighting corruption, it's being used in the Philippines
Links from the dicussion:
Mobile as a tool
Hi Noel
"It is important to emphasise that mobile phones
and other ICTs are only tools, and not a solution
in themselves to the problems encountered in the
conservation and development arenas. In this
respect, ICTs should be seen as tools of wider
strategies and programmes..."
This quote is from a report written back in 2003/2004 (http://www.kiwanja.net/ICT_Report.pdf), when people were seeing the mobile as a potential solution to all sorts of world problems. But of course, it's not. It's a tool, and as a tool it can be used to support and build on wider initiatives. I think the importance you stress on relationship building and awareness-raising are important ones. Mobiles are not a panacea to all our problems, but they can play a very valuable communication and support role in the work we all do.
Ken