1. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Program (MW4D) Stéphane Boyera W3C France

2. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum W3C: Leading the Web to its full potential W3C Vision: Universal Web Access: The Web Anywhere, for Everyone, at Anytime, on Everything : 1994: Creation of W3C for standardization and interoperability of Web technologies 1997: Creation of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): To make the Web Accessible 2005: Creation of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI): To Access the Web from Mobile Phones 2008: Creation of the Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group (MW4D) to investigate the role of the Mobile Web to bridge the Digital Divide Founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee in 1994...

3. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum ICT to sustain Economic and Social Development ICT is a great opportunity to deploy services toward rural communities and underprivileged populations in Developing Countries: –Government Services –Education –Health –Banking –Communities services –Business –...

4. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum The power of Mobile Phones 4 Billions+ of mobile phone of subscription >80% of the world population covered by a GSM network Can Mobile phones be an ICT platform? How?

5. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Vision –Proof of concept already exists: many success stories –Still limited impact at the global level only a small set of services available only a small set of contributors only a small set of users What need to be done to change this situation ?

6. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum MW4D Objectives Assemble an inter-disciplinary forum –Web, Mobile specialists –Usability, Accessibility experts –Digital Divide Specialists –NGOs, academics with field experience and expertise –... Understand Access barriers and potential ways to lower them –Illiteracy –Usability/computer literacy –Localization Understand authoring and deployment barriers and potential ways to lower them –Empowering NGOs and grassroots –Empowering entrepreneurs –Empowering Governments –... Develop resources about relevant players and mobile devices and infrastructure information

7. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum MW4D Overview An Interest Group open to public participation Chairs: Ken Banks (kiwanja.net), Stéphane Boyera (W3C) Lenght: 16 months Home page: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/ Wiki: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/wiki/ Public Mailing-list: public-mw4d@w3.org archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-mw4d/

8. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum Preliminary Results R&D/Standardization actions –Providing information to people with low reading skills –Providing information to people in their languages –Providing information to people with low computer literacy Supporting actions –Tools –Training potential entrepreneurs and NGOs –Business model/monetization of services Community Building –Raising awareness –Leveraging replication and minimizing competitions

9. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum Conclusion W3C Goal: to make the Web accessible, relevant, usable and useful for under-privileged populations and rural communities Mobile Web for Social Development IG is building a dedicated community, establishing a state-of-the-art, populating a directory of resources and defining a roadmap Draft of the roadmap available, final version for Summer 2009.

10. Session 4a, 6 May 2009 IST-Africa 2009 Copyright 2009 Digital World Forum References Contact: Stéphane Boyera (boyera@w3.org) MW4D Home Page: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/ MW4D Charter: http://www.w3.org/2007/12/MW4D/charter1.1.html MW4D Directory of resources: http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/wiki Executive Summary of the W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development, Latin America perspective: http://www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/exec_summary.html W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development, Africa perspective: http://www.w3.org/2008/10/MW4D_WS/