This year’s Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona from the 11-14th February, attracted over 55,000 visitors and more than 8,000 delegates from across the globe.

The Congress’s Innovator Showcase was probably the most thought-provoking aspect of the event, showcasing mobile software aimed to ease consumer worries, including software to prevent child sexual abuse content from being exchanged and software that permits payments to be made securely and conveniently, a development that could be of particular interest to the social sector if this could be adapted for charitable donations.

Most interesting of all, however, were the software applications from innovators such as Createcna and Kirusa at the GSMA Mobile Innovation Marketplace.

Createcna’s 3G Mobile Studio allows mobile phone owners to transform their handsets into fully-operational reporting devices. Images are then sent back to a studio where they can be broadcast live on TV or the internet or saved on a hard-drive for later use. This eradicates the need for cameramen and heavy equipment and permits on-the-spot recording and instant delivery.

This could be an ideal way of keeping people up to date with social sector developments and campaigns without spending a fortune on heavy duty advertising, and also enables interested parties to stay abreast of social movements from a grass-roots level. Perhaps Greenpeace activists will soon be able to send valuable footage without a camera crew inhibiting their work. Perhaps anyone with this mobile phone technology can become a Greenpeace activist!

Another innovator, Kirusa, could also aid the sector by taking SMS alerts one step further with their Developed Voice SMS software. This enables SMS voice messages to be sent in any language, doing away with language barriers and overcoming literacy issues.

Could we soon be compiling our own political speeches to be sent direct to the President’s mobile?
Will the powers that be actually have to start listening?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Home, Mobile Mobilization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.