Using Mobile Phones for Action
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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."

Table of Contents

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[Photo: from the Private Sector Development blog]

Using Mobiles

SMS (Short Message Service)

Resources

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!

Evans Wafula Ken Banks Ellene Sana

 

 

Natasha Dokovska Noel Large Katrin Verclas
Clockwise from top: Evans Wafula (Kenya) Ken Banks (UK), Ellene Sana (Philippines), Natasha Dokovska (Macedonia), Noel Large (Northern Ireland) and Katrin Verclas (United States).

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:

kiwanja's picture

Great project - Africa similarities

 

Hi Ellene

I've read and heard a lot about your project, and have been in regular contact with some of the techie guys behind it for a while now. A great example of how SMS is being used by Filipino workers overseas to maintain a connection back home. In a similar way, this is what mobiles are allowing rural workers to do in places such as Africa, since many are 'forced' to go and seek work elsewhere in the cities.

Ken