I recently filmed this interview with Vishal Gondal, GOD-in-chief of Indiagames ltd, during my time at TED global in Oxford.

In the interview, Gondal discusses e local gaming industry, highlighting that in India, the biggest gaming platform is not the PC, nor gaming consoles…but the mobile phone! With 700 million mobile phone subscribers in India, a large portion of which are using their handsets to download games, this is no small achievement.

With a surge in the purchase of netbooks and lower-end PCs, Facebook gaming is also starting to take off in India.

To find out more about gaming trends in India, check out the interview above.

We recently came across Vodafone’s World of Difference International competition on Facebook, which gives eight people the opportunity to work abroad with a charity of their choice for 12 months.

Finalists were invited to submit a short film on the work they would like to do and Facebook users can then select the finalist of their choice to go on and take up one of the eight places.

At first we were quite enthusiastic about selecting one of the winners via Facebook – There are currently four finalists and two places left! However, all of them are incredibly enthusiastic about their work and all of the programs they want to be involved with are absolutely vital!

This got us thinking and we decided to take a look at Vodafone’s annual report for the last fiscal year…£44.5 billion! with 8.4% growth! And they’re asking users to choose between which two (out of four) charities should receive a boost. Personally, we think that all four candidates should be sent on placements…It’s really not going to leave a dent in Vodafone’s budget!

I recently came across this fantastic, interactive campaign by UNICEF.

A vending machine was placed in a busy US street offering consumers the opportunity to purchase a bottle of dirty “drinking water” for just US$1! The idea behind the vending machine was to create a novel way to raise money for UNICEF’s clean drinking water campaign, whilst involving supporters and educating them on the impact of contaminated drinking water in developing countries (and that a US$1 donation could provide a child with clean drinking water for 40 days!).

Not only did this great example of social trysumerism help to raise funds for the cause, either through a 1 dollar donation straight to the “vending machine” or via SMS, but also got potential supporters directly involved in the organization’s work right there and then on the street! Great, great idea!

During my recent trip to Johannesburg, I had the opportunity to meet Duane Raymond, the Head of New Media for the One goal campaign.

The campaign aims to get 72 million children who are currently not receiving an education, into school. In his interview, Duene discuss both the mobile and online tactics used to encourage supporters to join the campaign. These include celebrity endorsements online, widgets, SMS messaging.

According to Duene, the 1 goal campaign will also encourage its supporters to participate directly in actions themselves. This could include sending “yellow cards” to world leaders.

Towards the end of the interview, Raymond talks a little bit about his e-campaigning forum, described as the G20 of e-campaigning. This brings together leaders from the worlds of new-media and online campaigning to share ideas. To find out more, check out my interview!

A recent article published in ABC news has revealed the development of new software that will enable mobile phones to function in areas where there is no reception whatsoever!

The Australian researchers, at Flinders University, behind this new software, which has already been tested in the South Australian desert, assure that mobile phones will now be able to work anywhere, potentially helping to save lives in times of disaster.

According to the head of the project, Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen, the new software incorporates a compact version of a mobile phone tower into the device itself!

“With Haiti what was actually observed was that their mobile phone network and their landline phone network was essentially knocked out for the first 48 hours after the earthquake,” he said.

“The vast majority of the response to a disaster is actually from the local people there, so if we can provide them with ease of communications as soon as possible after the earthquake, not 48 hours, not 72 hours but potentially minutes after a disaster, then we can help them to start rescuing people from rubble and generally rebuilding, maintaining law and order.”