Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Sharing on Government Transformation by Crimsonlogic Pte Ltd

Topic: eGovernance to yield greater socio-economic impact

Speaker: Mr. TAN Sian Lip, Vice President

Public private partnership company

• built by Singapore government
• run as a private company
• providing government services

Singapore Trade Facilitation Journey

On the last 20 years

• Almost everybody in the trade-sector changed their technology
• Administrative roles changed in the last 20 years
• The public didn’t experience any change

Tradenet

• Harmonizing trade admission procedures for companies evolved
• “TradeNet -World’s First Nationwide Electronic Data Interchange System”
• Minimizing processing time for admission to 1 minute
• there exist 2 business case studies, it has been well documented
• many international partnerships, facilitating trade on ports worldwide

Singapore eJudiciary

LawNet

• Platform for processing legal information
• Keeping data digital
• Less hardcopies
• Higher clearance rate
• Cases take shorter time
• Transparency through online availability of cases
• good rating in international comparison

Lessons learnt - Principles of eGovernment

• The application of IT to transform the way governments work, to make them friendlier and more effective
• It is not (just) a large portfolio of technology projects
• It is a large ongoing program of activities involving public administrators and technologists in rethinking how government & the public can work together, and then applying technology to effect the changes

Infrastructure: e-things change all the time, there is always something better

• you should plan carefully so that changes don’t destroy your system, but can be absorbed

Constraints:

• There are never enough resources to design & build all possible eServices

It’s important to build the eServices which have the biggest impact on citizens and business

Partnerships between governments and private companies in developing and implementing services on a risk-and investment-sharing basis

Q & A:

Is there a legalframework for exchangig data online?

• electronic transactions act - very broad
• Computer misuse act
• In Singapore PKI is not so common
• Electronic banking has existed for years and transactions not signed with PKI

Is there competition for IDA in Singapore?

• yes, there is international competition, other companies are bidding for contracts too, but so far no success

Who selects what applications have the highest impact on citizens and businesses?

• The specific agencies decide what the governmental agenda should be
• Then they have to fight for the budget

Common components for eServices?

• Governance is primary
• Architecture is handmade into it
• Basic network, basic logging mechanism, web service gateways, portal infrastructure should be common

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Sharing on Government Transformation by NCS Pte Ltd

Topic: Effective Development – Why is there a need for Public Services Infrastructure (PSi)

Speaker: Mr. NG Beng Lim, General Manager

Company: NCS - national computer system

• providing government services

Key concerns in Singapore:

• economic growth
• education
• utilization of resources
• making society a better place
• how to use IT to promote these issues?

Areas to address:

• governance, administration
• services for citizens
• integrating IT into society
• better management of resources
• developing economy based on IT - in the long term

Every country has to have a clear masterplan what to do with IT

• But how to come from the masterplan to an implementation and successful rollout?

Transformation of IT during the 80s and 90s to today

• Nowadays the prerequisites for successful eServices rollout are ideal
• In early 2000 - government in Singapore started Public Services Infrastructure
• Interface for people to interact with the government
• open infrastructure to more providers - including the private sector

Public Services Infrastructure Components:

• Government Network
• Common Data Centre
• Application Infrastructure
• Common Desktop Services

Features:

• Single sign on
• SMS, email gateway
• personalisation
• service delivery framwork
• ePayment
• Orchestration
• multilingual

Results:

• PSi was started 10 years ago
• Today: SHINE (Service Wide Hosting Environment) by NCS
• Billing model: Subscription-based
• Evens out peak CPU utilisation
• SHINE: Hosting, services and storing on demand

NCS - in the mean time a lot of experience in eGovernment & National ICT Planning

Q & A:

Does the government have a centralised architecture?

• Yes, in Singapore the government came up with a centralized infrastructure

What about security standards?

• The IT infrastructure has to come with an own security framework already

Key objecticves in terms of consilidating the data?

• Make people use the system
• “Selling” tools to the ministries

Many agencies - one government. Government has to have the oversight, but agencies have to have the freedom to act on themselves.

Is there a trend for re-centralization?

• It’s technologically possible
• Is it possible to monitor all local spots where services are running?

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Welcome Remarks by Mr. Deepak Bhatia, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, GICT and Ms. Angela PNG, Deputy Director of International Organisation, International Enterprise Singapore

Knowledge sharing event - how Singapore became a leader in eGovernment

Singapore ranked first in eGovernment ranking in four consecutive years, global competitiveness index: 3rd

One factor for that - policy to utilize ICTs in national development

A lot of problems to overcome - e.g. technophobia

Today: ICT masterplan, holistic

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Opening Remarks by Mr. Sun Vithespongse, Southeast Asia Executive Director and Mr. Mohsen Khalil, Director, Global ICT Department (TBC)

Singapore:

• small country with no resources
• therefore it has to be developed in ICTs to become efficient

World Bank group is the biggest sponsor in eGovernment - and has experiences large successes

World Bank should keep on the work, despite the financial crisis

Development in the industry

• a lot of innovation is happening in the developing world
• south-to-north and south-to-south developments

What can ICTs be useful for?

• Powerful transformation forces turning around the way we do business

The integral structure of of governement and important private sectors and their cooperation is very important

Harnessing the power of ICTs is a government and behavioural issue - rather than a technological issue

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Sharing on Government Transformation by IDA International

Topic: Singapore’s ICT Journey - The Past 30 years and the Next 5 years.

Speaker: Mr. YEONG Wee Tan, Deputy Director

ICT sector in Singapore

• 40 bn US$
• 140 000 IT professionals

Six national ICT plans

• Computerisation
• Communication
• Connectivity
• Convergence
• Connectedness
• Creation

It’s necessary to start a dialog on learned lessons - between Singapore and the other nations

A lot of working with foreign agencies

IDA International - Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

• partnering with other governments, sharing lessons of Singapore and advising them
• not a vendor
• living their lessons
• helping to integrate ICTs

Sharing lessons on different levels

• Infrastructure
• Human capacity - The countries need to have sustainable human capital to carry on with their policies
• Industry and Government
• Governance - which legal framework is necessary
• Outcomes - What are the aims?

Within 15 minutes you can register a Singaporian company around the world

GrBiz - Government to Business open platform

We want to get people used to make everything “e”

• There are 200 government services available on a handheld in Singapore
• Also as a tourist you get all these services available
• A lot of learning devices for schools - “Future schools in Singapore” - to be on the forefront of development
• Also health care projects

Government must evolve to be an open ecosystem

Together with agencies like the World Bank we can teach also other countries how to integrate ICTs in their services and transform their operations

eTransformation can create a better world through ICT

Q & A:

Question about public trust - everything is digital now, do people trust in the system?

• Everybody has one number - took quite a while to harmonize that
• In the beginning of the journey there were problems, but in the mean time people have accepted it
• There is a lot of public consultation

Infrastructure is important but education too - how to talk to ministries trying to prioritize?

Cross agency information sharing?

• There always political trouble  - but the important point is communicate, communicate, communicate the overall goal to everbody
• It’s important to bring the stakeholders together and convince them

What motivates Singapore for international coperation? Typical cooperation between the agency and another country?

• One strategic plan in the Singapore ICT plan is internationalization
• It’s also an export industry, not everything for free - but not a typical consultor, we are there to help people get on the IT journey
• It’s important for us to give back to the world
• We act like a trusted adviser to the government

Do you have an administrative reform plans for the country and how is it linked to the ICT plan?

• Definitely, everything is balanced between administrative reforms, governments processes, … to have everybody on the same page, it’s still ongoing

Comments:

It’s very encouraging to see this international exchange, Singapore is currently working on a P2P portal for government transformation

Sometimes you need to break established ways of work and act outside the framework

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Sharing on Government Transformation by novaCITYNETS Pte Ltd

Topic: e-Transformation to a First World City

Speaker: Ms. Joyce WONG, EVP

Singapore in the 1960 had big problems - a developing country

• GDP per capita: 427$

Several measures to overcome the situation

• Public housing
• Attracting foreign investment - to create jobs

Making Singapore a good place for investment

• Infrastructure improvement - water, electricity, roads, …
• Well thought our master plan
• Constant reform
• Concept plan = blueprint
• Master plan = vision
• Construction = concrete measures
• Twenty years plan

A lot of construction activities

Many issues faced when dealing with construction permits from different agencies

Introduction of COREnet

• streamline and reengineer the processes in the construction industry
• e-submission system launched in 2001
• business re-engineering, project design, training, industry promotion, …
• Interface for businesses to interact with the government
• Variety of agencies are hidden behind the online portal - single point of access
• big success story, companies make use of it, big increase in efficiency

In 2009

• 16 participating agencies
• 700 application forms (2001) to 231
• 30% improvement in turnaround time

Information on eTransformation in Sri Lanka

• All building blocks for a strong eGovernment solution were not in place - when NCS came to rescue
• Trying to replicate the experience of Singapore - but adapt it to the situation in Sri Lanka

This Wednesday, 30 September, another workshop by the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group is taking place. It deals with “The Singapore Experience” - a case study how Singapore successfully transformed itself into a booming metropolis with the help of ICT.

The workshop will take place in Washington again, but also be broadcasted over the web.

What: The Singapore Experience: Ingredients for Successful Nationwide eTransformation

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 30 September, 13:00 GMT

ICT4D.at will of course cover the event on Twitter - hashtag #sing09 - and here on the blog.

From the eDevelopment Thematic Group “The Singapore Experience” page:

Countries are being transformed by Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) daily. Singapore, for one, has made important advances in the area of global competitiveness by positioning ICT at the core of national innovation and development strategies. In collaboration with the World Bank’s Global ICT Department and WB Executive Director Office for Southeast Asia, International Enterprise (IE) Singapore would like to cordially invite you to the first Singapore ICT Day@ World Bank featuring Global Dialogue Workshop with country clients participation titled “The Singapore Experience – Ingredients for Successful Nation-wide eTransformation”.

The workshop will share the role of ICT in the public sector transformation agenda and Singapore’s success in eGovernment via close collaboration with the private sector. Experts from Singapore Government CIO Office and leading Singapore ICT companies, namely, IDA International, CrimsonLogic, NCS and novaCITYNETS will also share highlights about Singapore’s 30 years of eGovernment journey, iN2015 vision and key initiatives, eGovernance required to ensure successful eTransformation, and the concept of Public Services Infrastructure for effective deployment.

This Global Dialogue Workshop will provide participants with key insights on how Singapore has transformed from a tranquil port town into a First World city. These insights will include key eGovernment trends, industry drivers/restraints, as well as case studies of eGovernment implementation.

Do not miss this excellent opportunity to learn at the workshop and at the same time, interact with senior Singapore Government and industry leaders spearheading the Singapore ICT cluster at the networking luncheon.

Later in the day there will be a reception at the Singapore Embassy hosted by the Singapore Ambassador for participants of this workshop.

The oneVillageFoundation is an international foundation aiming at promoting the use of

“Information Communication Technology (ICT) to address World Urgent Issues, by providing a platform for an integrated approach to sustainable development” [from the oneVilageFoundation homepage]

It was founded in the US and currently operates also in Ghana, Nigeria and Taiwan.

Recently me and ICT4D.at fellow Worlali Senyo went to Winneba, Ghana, to meet the people behind oneVillageFoundation Ghana and to look at their projects.

Winneba is the main base of the oneVillageFoundation in Ghana, they have a building with offices and computer rooms there. Jacob Odame and Kafui Prebbie welcomed us and gave a short presentation of the projects which oneVillageFoundation is currently supporting, and the objectives of oneVillageFoundation Ghana in general.

In Winneba the foundation provides computer classes, an internet cafe, acts as local partner for appropriate technology company Inveneo and has a NComputing sample solution set up. The latter two help a lot in their efforts to give consulting for other organizations who want to introduce ICT solutions.

The computer room is built with the already mentioned NComputing device, a tiny and almost no energy consuming device which allows to split up the computing power of one PC to up to four workplaces - with monitor, mouse and keyboard each. This basically allows everyone to open up an internet cafe or easily equip a computer room with low equipment and energy costs. Due to the low power consumption it’s also possible to easily implement a backup power source as well as to minimize the cooling efforts - things which are of critical importance in a country like Ghana.

Another way the organization serves the surrounding communities is by sharing their internet conection with them. This is done with the German software Freifunk which allows to easily create large mesh networks by utilizing antennas and commonly available routers. This way only one participant of the network has to offer the conncetion to the intenet to make everybody profit. The same works in some cities in Austria with the initiative Funkfeuer.

oneVillageFoundation Ghana is also part of several international projects, such as the Wireless Africa initiative aiming at promoting Community Owned Information Networks or the EU-initiated Digital World Forum focusing on the use of ICT to leverage economic development in Africa and Latin America.

After a short walk through oneVillageFoundation’s facilities we had a discussion on how to get cheap internet to as many people as possible in Ghana - also mentioning several former UNDP efforts, the recent foundation of the Ghana Network Operators Group (ghNOG) which is a “forum for the exchange of technical information to ensure stability of the Internet Services in Ghana” and the Ghana Connect initiative.

It was inspiring to see the innovative and highly appropriate installations oneVillageFoundation implemented. Also I am curious if their solutions will spread over Ghana in the future, increasing internet access by simple means. Thumbs up for Kafui, Jacob and their co-workers who do a good job serving a lot of people.

If you want to know more about them and their projects check out the oneVillageFoundation homepage or the oneVillageFoundation blog.

Yesterday, 16 September, the workshop Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation: From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation, initiated by the eDevelopment Thematic Group (eTG) of the World Bank took place.

It was already the 7th workshop we covered on our blog, Twitter and social media since we started our partnership with eTG, and the topic was especially interesting for us - considering the unique role of mobile phones in developing countries nowadays.

The workshop was split in six parts, each having as leitmotif a certain sector where mobile services are used.

• Part 1 focused on an Overview of Mobile Innovations Space and Enabling Environment
• Part 2 focused on Mobile Innovations in Financial Services
• Part 3 focused on Mobile Innovations in Health
• Part 4 focused on Mobile Innovations in Education
• Part 5 focused on Mobile Applications in Agriculture and Rural Development
• Part 6 focused on Mobile Innovations in Governance

There are some photos which Oleg Petrov took during the event on the ICT4D.at Flickr account.

The speakers came from various sectors - the World Bank, private and public sector, the academia and practicioners in the field.

Many of them claimed what I also already heard in several other conferences - the technology is there, now we have to focus on applications and business models. Although several successful projects were presented, there were general complaints that often such projects don’t bypass the “pilot” stage and don’t achieve sustainability. The topic of scaling projects to reach more audience and higher impact was also mentioned several times. More evaluation on impact and sharing information on failures of projects was identified as two ways to overcome this problem. Also the concept of private-public partnerships and searching strong, committed partners for implementing mobile solutions was put forward once more.

More detailed information can be found in the blog posts linked above and on Twitter. Under the hashtag #mobile09 the lively online discussion surrounding the event can be followed - several contributors gave this event quite a drive. The comments there had a more critical viewpoint on mobile phones as the big solution for all problems.

What was interesting for me personally was that obviously there is no real large scale project out there which is profitable so far. M-Pesa is the only one which scratches the border but also has trouble creating revenue. Impressive non-profit examples where projects which used mobile phones for delivering services to the poor and as enhancements in education.

So all in all the event gave a feeling that there is potential for more to come in the mobile sector and several great examples were given - but the “killer application” is obviously still to come, or maybe there’s even no need for it, because it’s so easy to set up an own, localized application.

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation - From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Session 6: Mobile Innovations in Governance

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Introduction: Alfredo Gonzalez, WBI

Mobile technology has created at elections in various countries to raise voice and awareness

Fighting corruption is a big issue for ICTs

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Mobile Phones for Good Governance – Scaling Up Issues

Ed Campos

Philippines is the SMS capital of the world - the reason is that technology came and broke the landline monopoly and everything changed

Mobile phones give the possibility to tap the voices of people you probably wouldn’t have heard

Problem with governance is the service delivery - especially in the regions locally

• mobile telephony and ICTs can help a lot here
• example in the Philippines where mobile phones were used for ensuring transparency in the education system

Mobile technology is a mechanism to bridge the demand-supply side very fast

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Johan Hellstrom, ICT Specialist Stockholm University

East Africa as cast study

What is good governance?

• impossible to define - depends on the context
• relationships between three actors: state, market and civil society
• communication between these actors is really the key point

Why mobile phones?

• huge potentials
• penetration rates, access, reach
• easy to use, interaction
• costs, efficiency
• no other option?

M-governance?

• not mGovernment, it’s good governance with mobile technology
• interaction, reaction, action
• bottom up participation
• empowerment

East Africa: mostly pilots - many examples

• Much usage which was not planned
• Crowdsourcing

Recent example:

• big incident
• hard to get information - except on Twitter
• crowdsourcing information with the help of Ushahidi

Questions:

• why are there so many pilots and yet so few that have been scaled-up?
• why do many projects start from scratch instead of building on existing solutions?
• why are there many subscribers but yet so few users of existing applications?

Challenges:

• infrastructure
• affordability - who pays for good governance services?
• content - who is creating the content?
• surrounding supporting system
• enabling environment
• documentation - on the pilots, success, failure, more collaboration

East Africa:

• markets deregulated but operators still too powerful

Success factors for scaling:

• design phase: end-user driven, use existing patterns
• implementation phase: more research on business models, proper marketing to build a critical mass

Conslusion:

• design for scale
• don’t be afraid of failures, don’t force success - but document
• service delivery instead of projects approach
• but: scale is not success, usage is not impact

Q & A:

best practices to design for scale?

• designing by knowing that there is something beyond the pilot and what you want to achieve

governments are also afraid of the powers of new technologies

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Boris Weber, WBI

Using Frontline SMSat WBI

• east and fast to use
• great communication tool
• but relying on one network admin, maybe this can change in the future

Citizen feedback to service providers:

• Long route - involving governments representatives and a lot of bureaucracy
• Short route - citizens can give direct feedback

Why are we still doing citizen report cards same as 30 years ago?

• automated process could make process quicker
• improve performance
• give providers the possibility to focus on evaluation and feedback

Idea - having feedback on a public service

• various channels
• government civil society work with data

Live sample of feedback mechanism / rating via SMS

Mobile phone - ICT tool with the lowest gender gap, reaches also out to illiterates, …

• everybody can give feedback

Next step: participatory budgeting

• priority areas to spend money one
• specific projects make it too complex - but still citizens can be kept informed
• increasing number of participation

Participating citizens in the decision process has the potential to change a lot

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Katrin Verclas, Co-Founder and Editor, MobileActive.Org download presentation

mLearning is where mHealth was 3 years ago and mHealth is where mFinance was 3 years ago - so what is mGovernance?

there’s very little happening, save a few areas e.g. elections

mobile phone is the most ubiquotious compared to ant other media

• but a lot of hype is happening in this field
• danger of people being disappointed
• one has to be careful about what mobile technology can deliver and what it can not

Mobilactive.org:

• bringing people together using mobiles for social change
• repository of projects

Use of mobiles interesting in this session

• accountability & transparency
• media reporting
• organizing / advocacy

Report on mobile phones in citizen media

• citizen media bringing minor but significant changes

Elections:

• one of the few areas where ICT are largely used
• monitoring as an established procedure, mobiles as enhancing it
• example: Ghana 2008 - went very well

Key issues:

• Incredibly promising and exciting
• Commercial, competitive, very fluid field
• Privacy and security
• Fragmented platforms
• Many pilots, no scale
• Impact unclear. Much trial and error
• Focus on apps but not on an enabling environment
• Lack of open platforms and applications
• Significant capacity issues (NGOs and Gov)
• Lack of capable intermediaries
• Little knowledge of what works in what setting
• Data alone may be largely useless unless it provides the right information delivered through the right channel in the right form at the right time.

A framework

• Additive versus transformative
• Contextual and user-focused
• Sustainable (unsolved)
• Driven by demand - Build it and they will come does usually not work
• Localized but shareable
• Built on open standards?
• Built on existing knowledge

Needed:

• Targeted (and outsourced) R&D
• ICT innovation marketplaces
• Venture funds and public private partnerships
• IT, mobile, data, information visualization, etc
• User adoption studies and contextual research
• Nokia and Microsoft
• Better topographies (and case studies)

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation - From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Session 5: Mobile Applications in Agriculture and Rural Development

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Introduction: Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, WB

The dilemma bread vs. mobile phones was never a real dilemma - mobile phones help us to make better, cheaper, … bread

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Framing the Topic and Learning from Experience
Kerry McNamara, Consultant, ARD

The question is different from sector to sector

What we’re talking about are wireless - what are the opportunities for expanding wireless coverage

Impact of mobiles - letter a = access

• more people have access to a mobile signal than ever
• that’s changing our whole work

affordability, appliance - SMS as the most simple application

Changes don’t happen because of the mobile device but because of the ecosystem the device creates

Not what we can do - but what we should do

We tend to focus on the applications

• making agricultural markets more efficient
• although evidence may not be solid

We want people to have access - but we should think beyond the device & beyond the hand of the individual

The best interventions begin with a definition of the problem and clear design principles

• the problem is not the technology
• ICT is only the tool - we have to look how ICTs can help

We should talk about mobility, not about devices

• Combination of mobility, distance and time is interesting
• we shouldn’t be too fixated on platforms

How is information broadly understood? How can it be transformative?

We need to think about policies and regulations

Often in the last 10 years fascination with gadgets has cost us good development practice

What is to be replicated when trying to replicate a project? How much does the local context matter?

In the ICT4D community we tended to engineers solutions - we have to focus more on enabling the environment for innovation

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David Edelstein, Director of ICT Innovation, Grameen Foundation

Microfinance has been around 1000 years, but technology can make it a lot more efficient

Grameen foundation - how can the mobile phone be used to improve the people’s lives?

• different domains - also cross-domain
• services that can be scaled and are sustainable

Using phones to collect information - and also disseminate information

Providing services over mobile phones

• several criteria how the foundation identifies initiatives
• specific project implementation process - rapid prototyping

Crucial for success - having the right partners with high level engagement

Service of the Grameen foundation in Uganda:

• weather services
• agriculture information
• marketplace for farmers

Live demo of the Google SMS search

Community Knowledge Worker Initiative

Conclusions:

• Understanding needs - consult the user early and often
• Be creative
• Fail fast
• Usability - trusted intermediary
• Right partners

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Aparjita Goyal, Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

Example project E-Choupal - service to cut out intermediaries and buy directly from soy farmers - as a business strategy for a private company

• Internet kiosks where the local prices are posted on a website
• Ware houses = hubs established in town - farmers going there to sell directly to the private company
• Improvement of the situation of farmers - higher average revenue for the farmers
• Farmers with good quality sell to the private company - downward pressure on the price

Findings

• increase of soy price of 2-3%
• the further away the kiosks are from the market, the lower the impact
• farmers are responding to increased price

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ICT in Agriculture Sourcebook
Kerry McNamara

Skipping this point due to lack of time - website

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Q & A

Mobility is an enabler - timeliness in agriculture; the killer apps are in this sector

Bundling information - transaction - eGovernment services can be powerful but are all served on different platforms

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation - From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Working Lunch & Session 4: Mobile Innovations in Education

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Introduction: Mike Trucano, Sr. ICT Policy Specialist

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Reaching Out to Transform Education
Mohamed Ally, Professor, Athabasca University

Some people in developing countries prefer buying a phone than buying food or clothes

Mobile learning (= education & training) has become more and more interesting for many countries

We’re moving from the e-world to the m-world

• one issue: going from electronic libraries to mobile libraries
• mobile education will help people achieve better basic education
• mobile learning as a prerequisite for the other mobile services
• need of more teacher training for mobile services

Many marginalised groups need access to education

We underestimate people from developing countries or living in remote areas in their abilities and interest in technology - e.g. Hole in the wall project by Sugata Mithra

Digital divide is something of the past

• how to provide learning materials for the people?
• without content they won’t use the device
• How to get teachers to prepare well designed mobile learning materials?

Examples of mobile learning projects

• language training
• accent reduction
• games for HIV/AIDS information
• teacher support

Mobile education has a major role to play in goal 1-8 of the Millenium Development Goals of the UN

Education should be free & is a human right - Open Access mobile learning initiatives

Mobile education to prevent intellectual starvation - can save a lot of problems the world faces now, as well

With mobile technology ‘education for all’ is in reach

Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world

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Improving Quality of Education through Innovative Use of Mobile Technology
Kate Place, Program Manager, International Youth Foundation, BridgeIT download presentation

BridgeIT

• access to digital video content ‘on demand’
• teacher training & support
• learner centered

Projects in the Philippines and Tanzania

Objective:

increase educational quality & student achievement in primary schools in math, science, English and life skills through the innovative use of cellular & digital technology

Improving learning outcomes with the provided material - integrate BridgeIT in the education systems, improve teachers performance & learning gains

Technology:

• 1st system: SMS ordering and satellite download
• 2nd system: mobile only with 2.5 / 3G network - eliminating a lot of middle steps

Enhancing existing education with integrated ‘on demand’ videos

• Only few training needed for the teachers

Impact:

• better learning results
• more participation
• higher motivation
• increased attendance

Challenges:

• complexity of startup operations
• cost of initial investment - equipment, teacher training, developing videos, …
• technology constantly evolving
• project management
• transition of ownership

Opportunities

• other uses for classrooms - community education, …
• prices decrease - possible scaling
• dissemination of new content

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Commentary: MobileActive.org representative

Mobile education and mobile learning is about where eHealth was about 5 years ago

Transition from E to M - there are huge numbers of rural communities getting mobiles who had no possibility to access the internet before - big shift

Wonderful pilotes going on but interesting point

• how have mobiles been used as a basic platform for literacy
• a lot more happening in the informal than in the formal sector

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Q & A

BridgeIT: works only on Nokia? can videos be shared between teachers? can teachers upload own content?

Benefits include ensuring teachers present more of std. curriculum. So, main effect of intervention not tech?

Often local governments cannot increase the budget of education, what to do there if you want to introduce mLearning?

• Rethinking the model of education - keeping the cost down by enabling the student to learn from everywhere
• The mobile phone is never going to replace the classroom

Who is paying for the content provider? How is the business model?

• so far BridgeIT is quite expensive but we are working on decreasing the cost of the package - projectors instead of TVs, solar power, …
• there is already a phone out there which has an integrated projector - this will bring down the cost

Donors keep financing content - what is your advice not to use donors money recreating content?

• Changing the attitude of teachers - who say they only use their own material, motivating them to share their content

What are lessons learned on using mLearning for literacy?

How are experiences on issues of scaling up?

mLearning is a great way of complementing education - education is not about only access, traditional approaches should not be be substituted

• the role of the teacher will change - he will not disappear but become a facilitator, social software makes a difference, in social networks pupils form groups and interact; schools are nothing traditional, hundreds of years learning was a 1 to 1 tutoring, with mLearning we’re going back to that
• it depends on which level you’re looking at - at primary and secondary level teachers are still very important; in higher education, distance education is definitely possible

What about staff / on the job training?

• World Bank wants to look at that - actual practices

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation - From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Session 3: Mobile Innovations in Health

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Chair Introduction: Arleen Seed, Senior eGovernment Specialist

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Mobile Communications for Health
Brendan Smith, Senior Consultant, Vital Wave Consulting

focusing on technology in emerging markets

past years - sharp rise in in interest for eHealth solution & explosion in mobile phone usage

mHealth (n) – the delivery of health care services via mobile communication devices

• e.g. digital patient data - mHealth may provide the lat mile access for that

mobile phones reach further into developing countries than any other technology

there’s a broad array of mHealth solutions

• education & awareness
• epidemy tracking
• emergency
• data collection
• remote monitoring
• diagnostic & treatment support

mHealth is implemented in developing countries around the world

different target groups

a lot of projects focus more on health system outcomes than health outcomes

there is a huge need for research on outcomes of mHealth projects

• to establish a proof of concept
• beyond the pilot state

most projects use data collection technology, not so much SMS or voice technology (only 5%)

• voice calls are expensive in most developing countries

more sophisticated applications also cost more and require higher capacities

case study:

• text to change in Uganda
• 15000 mobile phone subscribers
• 40% more people tested for HIV

Conclusion - advice for strong and sustainable mHealth projects:

• Forge strong partnerships
• Be accessible
• Design with the end user in mind and maintain a focus on usability
• Build a long-term funding plan
• Set measurable goals
• Collaborate with other mHealth organizations

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Rwanda Case Study
Pamela Johnson , Co-Founder and Chief Health Officer, Voxiva
Ruton Hinda, TRACplus
Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Voxiva SARL.

Founding Voxiva: Connecting the internet and the mobile phone can make a difference

IT has transformed financial services in a substantial way - there is a similar possibility in health which has just begun

TRACnet platform:

• builds on existing telecom infrastructure
• collecting real time information from the field via mobile phone, …
• communicate
• analyzes data and visualizes it
• get feedback in real time
• identifying shortage of medicine
• Strong partnerships are vital

Access and use

• widespread access- 1000 user at 219 facilities throughout Rwanda
• multi-channel access using a national toll free phone number, web, a PC client, a mobile phone client
• 90% facilities reporting by IVR

Data

• more than 95% routine reporting

Technology

• 99% uptime
• secure, access controlled, redundant datacenter infrastructure hosted in Rwanda managed 24/7
• TRACnet leverages a standard based infrastructure evolving into open standards from scale and interoperability

Challenges & opportunities:

• in the last 10 years all the health centers have gotten mobile phone coverage, in the next decade they all will have high bandwidth connectivity, health centers and schools get more and more connected,  many more changes with unforeseen consequences
• Sustainability of large scale systems: very different as in private sector
• Complex architecture also creates more problems - passwords, interoperability, …

e-SOKO: mobile based agriculture information system in Rwanda

• based on TRACnet approach
• improving efficiency very much

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Commentary by Andi Dervishi, Global Practice Lead, Investments in Payments, IFC

Parallels to the mBanking session & challenges for investors

• it’s a big big market as everybody on earth is a potential consumer of these services
• there has to exist a core electronic backbone - but does not exist yet in the health sector
• general regulation around healthcare is obsolete, there has to be more freedom for companies to operate more freely
• bottleneck - the business will only move with the pace of the government

data problem in eHealth system, it’s more complex and bigger

• also limited to information services only as doctors and nurses are still in charge, they only have to be informed

Challenges:

• Establishing the core electronic backbone
• Integration of core health system with big players in place

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Q & A

Challenges and successes in cooperating with the ministry of Health?

• critical mass of human capacity to work with private sector - finding out the needs of the beneficiaries, quite much work
• understanding of all pieces for health solution work, understanding of technology, opening up the minds of certain people

Rwanda has an eHealth strategy - does Ghana have one too?

Is there a focus on women?

• Often women are the primary decision makers on health care; study in rural Uganda: women valued their mobile phones very highly

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation - From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Session 2: Mobile Innovations in Financial Services

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Chair Introduction: Arata Onoguchi

How can the payment industry support the World Bank with projects and vice-versa

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DRC ex-Combatant Allowance Payment Project
Roisin De Burca, Senior Social Development Specialist, WB

Miyanda Mulambo, Managing Director, Celpay Zambia Ltd.

Project in DRC - transition between military and civil life

• Payments for ex combatants via mobile and available cash in the country - Celplay http://zm.celpay.com
• Problem: question of supply and demand
• the project is working now

Celpay:

• Celpay operating in Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, … - actually a mobile payment company
• Operating since 2002
• Business model - not a bank but a technology company
• partner with banks that hold the money, agents and mobile operators
• services e.g. corporate payment solutions
• providing services which make cash transactions obligatory

Project - how did it work?

• paying out 25$ to ex-combatants
• facilitated with an application developed by Celpay
• registration of area of living at a central point, getting an ID card and a PIN
• possibility to collect the payment at the living area with the ID and PIN at a Celpay agent
• good for people without mobile phones and bank accounts
• one of the biggest challenges: one of the first programs like that all around the world, we were learning as we went by
• hard to find agents as there were few people starting businesses right after the war
• a lot of resistance from certain parts of the government - corruption tends to be a big problem and certain people didn’t like transparent solutions

There are various ways to apply this application

Q & A:

was there a standardization for the cell phones?

• works on pretty much every mobile phone

entry of mobile network operators in the mobile payment space a problem for independent payment providers?

• will indeed be a problem, but operators often have the primary goal to keep their providers
• there will always be a need for innovative solutions

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Banking the Poor via G2P Payments
Sarah Rotman, Associate Microfinance Analyst, CGAP

A lot of people get money from their governments

• not on an account which allows them to save
• they have no possibility to save money or spend only half

The officials who are dealing with them are not really caring about this financial inclusion of the poor

Financial inclusion is desirable for the state as well

• mobile payments
• credit/debit card payments

Electronic or mobile payment is even significantly cheaper and may reduce corruption

Small savings accounts are expensive for basic banking, they need either large number of recipients, large sums or frequent long term schedule of payments

Case studies of Brazil, South Africa

There are certain conditions that need to be enabling & interesting to try out

• the nature of the flows
• regulatory openness of agents
• a government body must stand behind it and promote it
• donors can help design experiments - measurement of usage of financial services, impact on welfare, and understanding business case for providers

Interesting to watch the coming years

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Commentary: Andi Dervishi, Global Practice Lead, Investments in Payments, IFC

The mobile part is already there - we are delivering to an old need but we are revisiting the topic of electronic payment, mobile is only the channel

in eCommerce a lot of players have come up in the last years

in the industry the process of handling electronic money is in place now

government has to think about regulations enabling the industry to create innovative solutions for this old problem

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Key Areas of Mobile Payments / Pre-paid Value Card Solutions
Harish Natarajan, Payment Systems Specialist, WB

prepaid card

• no banking relationship required, easy to get
• PIN code
• can be used in an offline manner

chip cards need to be distributed, issued / loaded, used for paying / withdrawing of money

mitigating fraud - e.g. getting the card for a particular usage

enhanced user experience because people don’t have to get in the queue for getting funds but use the ones already on the card

several success stories in several countries

the technology is there, the various players would be ready, big potential

Q&A

sociology of a card vs. a cell phone is very different - which technologies are better to reach the people intendeed to? does technology really make no difference?

• mobile channel is a lot channel of course, but we should be aware that the technology is already there, we have to clear our minds from the implementation channels to talk about the service again - business perspective rather than technology perspective