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10 myths about girls’ empowerment and mobile learning

Posted in development, education, girls, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mobile, mobile and technology, mwomen, mywd, technology, wait... what?, tagged , , , , , , on March 11, 2015| 3 Comments »

Cameroon - realizing phone takes videoI had the chance to share some thoughts at UNESCO’s recent Mobile Learning Week. My presentation explored some myths about girls empowerment and mobile learning and offered suggestions of things to think about when designing and implementing programs. Ideas for the presentation were drawn from research and practitioner experiences (mine and those of others that I’ve talked with and worked with over the past few years). Here’s what I talked about below. Since realities are subjective and complex, and contexts differ immensely around the world, I’m putting these out mainly as discussion starters. Some seem super obvious and some contradict each other (which may speak to the point that there is no universal truth!), so I’m curious to know what other people think…

Myth 1: Mobile as a stand-alone solution.

Reality: The mobile phone is just one part of the informational and cultural ecosystem. There is a lot of hype about mobile. I think as a sector we are mostly past the idea of mobile as a stand-alone solution, but in case not, it’s the first myth I’d challenge. There is not a lot that a mobile phone can do as a stand-alone tool to empower girls or improve their education and learning. 

Things to consider: The mobile phone is the device that is most likely to already be in the hands of your target user — but the possibilities and channels don’t start and end with mobile phones. It’s important to think of the mobile phone as just one part of a much wider informational, social, cultural and educational ecosystem and see where it might fit in to support girls’ learning. It’s likely that mobile phones will be used more outside of the classroom than in – in my experience, I’ve found that schools often don’t allow mobiles to be brought into class. So, it’s more about integrating mobiles as a tool that supports rather than as the sole channel for learning and information sharing.

Myth 2: It’s the technology that’s mobile.

Reality: In most cases, the learner is mobile, too. This is one of the exciting things about technology and learning. It’s something I heard John Traxler say a few years ago, and I thought it was really smart. John said we should really be thinking about mobile learners, not just mobile technology. Learners access and share information in all kinds of ways, at different locations, using different devices or not using devices at all.

Things to consider: Rather than starting with the mobile phone, think about design based on a clear understanding of ’digital repertoires’ – in other words, user behaviors or patterns that span places and devices based on factors like data capacity, cost, purpose. These repertoires will differ according to culture, sex, economic status, and availability of information points and sources. For example, maybe some girls use Google search to do homework at an Internet café but use their own phone or a borrowed phone for quick, short text reminders or questions to friends about schoolwork. Maybe other girls are not allowed to go to Internet cafés or they feel uncomfortable doing so, and they rely more on their mobile phone and their friends. This was the case in one community near Jakarta that I was in last month. One of the girls talked about her 15-year-old friend:

 

“She’s too shy to go to the Internet shop…. Boys are always sitting out, calling you to ask ‘where are you going?’ or whistling. She feels too embarrassed to go into the shop because everyone will look at her.”

In a consultation conducted by Plan in 2011, girls in some countries said it was too dangerous to travel to the Internet café, especially at night. When men and boys watch porn and play video games in Internet cafes, girls tend to feel quite uncomfortable. Libraries, if available, may be places where girls go to access Internet because they feel safer. Girls may face reputation risk if they go too often to the Internet café. So in this case, girls may rely on phones. In some parts of East and West Africa, however, girls with mobile phones may be accused of having ‘sugar daddies’ or selling sex for airtime or nice phones, so the phone also carries reputation risk. All of these situations impact on girls’ communication repertoires, and program designers need to take them into consideration. And perhaps most importantly, ‘girls’ are not a homogeneous group so we always need to unpack which girls, where, when, what, at what age, living where, with what kinds of social or cultural restrictions, etc.

Myth 3: Vulnerable girls don’t have access to mobiles.

Reality: Many girls with phones are more vulnerable than we think, and more girls that we consider vulnerable are accessing mobiles. This is something that Colman Chamberlain from the Girl Effect’s mobile initiative pointed out. “We often hear that the most vulnerable girls don’t have access to mobile phones,” he says, “but this depends on how we understand and define vulnerability. Many girls with phones are vulnerable, and many vulnerable girls are starting to access mobile. This means we have a real chance to reach and engage with them.”

Things to consider: Age does normally play a role in access to mobiles. Younger girls from lower income families in most countries do not have their own mobile phones. Upper class children may, however, have phones. It really varies. Recent research (unpublished) found that it was common for 14-15 yr olds in Indonesia to have their own phones. In India and Bangladesh, that age was closer to 18. Girls who were no longer in school often had a mobile — some had even dropped out to get jobs in order to purchase a mobile. Sometimes married girls’ husbands purchase them a phone, yet it may be primarily to control and monitor their whereabouts.

When designing programs, it’s really important to take the time to learn whether the girls you’d like to work with own or borrow mobile phones and whether their access is controlled by someone else or if they are free to use a mobile however they’d like. Design for different scenarios and ‘user repertoires’ based on girls’ access and use habits. Don’t make assumptions on which girls access mobiles for what and how based on perceived vulnerability, do the research and you may be surprised when you get into the weeds.

Myth 4: Cost is the biggest barrier to girls’ mobile phone access and use. 

Reality: Cost is a barrier, but perhaps not the biggest one. Clearly cost is still a big barrier for the poorest girls. But the unwillingness to invest in a girl’s access to mobile or to information and learning is linked to other aspects like a girl’s position in her family or society. Mobiles are also becoming cheaper, so the cost barrier has been reduced in some ways. Overall, compared to landlines, as Katie Ramsay at Plan Australia notes, mobile is cheaper and that opens up access to information for even the poorest families.

Research conducted this past year in India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, found that in some communities girls have much greater access than assumed, and cost was a lower barrier than originally thought. Parents and gatekeepers were actually a bigger barrier in some countries. For many of us this is a total no-brainer, but I still think it’s worth bringing up.

Things to consider: As already mentioned, the key when developing programs is to dig deep and talk with girls directly to understand and help them to overcome different barriers, whether those are personal, familiar, economic, societal or institutional.

In order to help get past these barriers, mobile-enabled programming or product/service offerings need to have real value to girls as well as their gatekeepers, so that girls’ participation in programs and use of mobiles is seen by gatekeepers as positive. This was shown clearly in a UNESCO girls’ literacy program in Pakistan, where 87% of parents changed from a negative opinion about girls using a mobile phone to a positive perspective by the end of the program, because they saw the utility of the phone for girls’ literacy.

It’s important to do work on educating and changing behaviors of parents. Katie Ramsay also notes that in places where men own the tech, there is a huge opportunity for targeting them to gain their support for girls’ education. So it’s worth re-thinking the role of mobiles in girl-focused programs, especially where girls’ access to mobile is low or controlled. The best use of mobiles for learning may not be ‘delivering content’ to girls via a mobile device. Instead it might be using mobile and other media to target gatekeepers to change their behavior and beliefs around girls’ education and girls’ empowerment.

Myth 5: Girls share their phones.

Reality: Phone sharing brings with it a challenging social power dynamic. Many people in ‘the West’ hold the romantic notion that people in ‘developing countries’ like to share everything and live communally. Now, I’m not saying that girls are not generous, but when it comes to girls and phones, we have not really seen a great desire to share.

In some of the unpublished research conducted in Asia (and previously referenced in this post), girls without phones said that they do borrow phones, often from family members or friends, but they don’t necessarily like doing so. They said that borrowing here and there just isn’t enough to do anything substantial on a phone. Girls described girls who do not have mobile phones as sad and unpopular. They drew girls with phones as happy, popular, and successful. Some girls also described girls with phones as stuck up and selfish and said that girls who have phones don’t share them with girls that don’t have phones.

 

“A girl with a phone would look down on me, and show off what her phone does. She would let me hold it, but only because she would like to take it back from me again.” —Girl, 18, Dhaka

I was at a school in Cameroon last year, when a big fight broke out because one girl had taken another girl’s phone and thrown it in the toilet. The professor said that fighting over mobile phones was common among students. Phones had been prohibited at school in part to reduce conflicts, and sometimes students ratted each other out for having phones at school. This is not specifically a “mobile phone” problem, it’s a wealth or class or equity issue, but it manifests itself with phones because they are an asset that defines haves and have-nots. 

Things to consider: Don’t assume it’s easy for girls to borrow phones. If you find that many of your targeted users for a mobile-enabled initiative are borrowers, then it’s important to design short, to-the-point options for them, because they may have only a few minutes at a time with a mobile. Girls may not share their phones unless there is some kind of incentive for doing so. If you are designing for borrowers, think about rapid communication in bursts, and don’t communicate about anything that would put a girl at social or reputation risk if the person she borrows the phone from should see it.

Myth 6: All girls (& all youth) are tech savvy.

Reality: Many girls are indeed tech savvy, but some are still behind the curve. In many places, girls with phones are way more tech savvy than their parents. And most young people around the world are pretty quick to pick up on technology. But girls’ level of savvy will obviously depend on what they have access to.

Girls I talked with in the urban slums areas of Jakarta were quite tech-adept and had Internet-ready phones, but they still only used Facebook and Google. They also mixed up ‘Facebook’ and ‘Google’ with ‘The Internet’ and did not use email. They were unfamiliar with the concept of an “app”. Girls knew how to search for jobs online (via Google), but they said they had trouble understanding how to fill out online forms to apply for those jobs. So regardless of a girl’s level of tech savvy, in this case, she was still missing certain skills and relevant online content that would have helped her get to the next level of job-seeking.

Things to consider: It’s really important to do your research to understand what technologies and platforms girls are familiar with and be sure to plan for how to engage girls with those that they are unfamiliar with. Basic literacy might also still be a huge issue among adolescent girls in some places.

Basically, the message here again is to avoid making assumptions, to do your research, and to remember that girls are not a homogeneous group. Market research techniques can be helpful to really start understanding nuances regarding which girls do what, where and how on a mobile device.

Myth 7: Girls don’t have time to use mobile phones.

Reality: You might be surprised by which girls find time to spend on a mobile phone. This again really depends on which girls, and where! Girls find the time to use mobile, even if it’s not at the always on-line levels that we find in places like the US and Europe, notes Colman from Girl Effect. Spending time in the communities you’re working with can allow you to find times that girls have free and uncontrolled access. Jessica Heinzelman from DAI told us that in one project she was working on, they had assumed that girls in more traditional communities and rural geographies would have less access to mobiles. In reality, it was common for girls to be sent on errands with mobiles to places where there was connectivity to contact relatives on behalf of the family, leaving the girls with at least some alone time with the mobile.

Schoolgirls in the slum area of Jakarta that I worked in earlier this year said they checked their Facebook every day. Out of school urban girls checked at least a few times per week, and rural out of school girls also usually managed to borrow a phone to check Facebook quickly now and then.

Things to consider: I’m beating the drum again here about the importance of on-the-ground research and user testing to find out what is happening in a particular context. Alexandra Tyers from GSMA points out that user testing is really a critical piece of any girls and mobile learning effort, and that it can actually be done for a reasonable price. She notes that in her case, “Bangladesh user testing cost $5,000 USD for fifty tests in five different locations around the country. And yet the return on investment by making those necessary changes is likely to be large because making sure the product is right will ensure easy adoption and maximum uptake.”

Myth 8: Mobile phones can’t address girls’ real needs.

Reality: Mobile phones can help address girls’ real needs, but probably not as stand-alone devices, and maybe not as ‘content delivery’ channels. There is a lot of hype around mobile learning and mEducation, and as some presenters talked about at Mobile Learning Week, there is little evidence to help us know how to integrate mobiles in ways that could scale (where appropriate) and offer real results. I sometimes think this is because we are expecting mobile and ICTs in general to do more than they feasibly can.

Depending on the context and situation, where I have seen the greatest opportunity for mobiles is:

  • enabling girls to connect with peers and information
  • allowing girls more opportunities for voicing their opinions
  • linking girls to online support and services
  • linking girls with offline support and services.
  • helping organizations to track and monitor their programs (and hopefully then do a better job of adapting them to girls’ real needs).

Things to consider: It’s really important to think through what the best role for mobile is (if any role at all). Here is where you can (and should) be super creative. You may not get the biggest impact by involving girls as the end user. Rather, the best place might be aiming your mobile component at behavior change with gatekeepers. Or sending text messages that link a girl to a service or opportunity that lives offline. It might be getting feedback on the school system or using mobile to remind parents about school meetings.

Myth 9: Mobile phones are dangerous.

Reality: Many girls and women say a mobile helps them feel safer, more independent, and more successful. The 2011 Cherie Blair/GSMA study on women and mobiles noted that 93% of women said a mobile made them feel safer and 84% felt more independent. Tech can also offer a certain level of anonymity for girls that can be beneficial in some cases. “Tech is good for girls because they can be anonymous. If you go to the bank, everyone can see you’re a girl. But if you start a business online, they don’t know that you’re a girl, so you don’t have to deal with the stereotypes,” according to Tuulia Virha, formerly of Plan Finland. Parents may also see mobiles as a tool to help them keep their children safe.

Things to consider: Mobiles can help with an increased sense of security, safety and autonomy, depending on context and situation. However, and this is what I’ll say next, mobiles also bring risk with them, and most girls we talked to for our research were aware of obvious risks – meeting strangers, exposure to pornography, pedophiles and trafficking – but not so aware of other risks like privacy. They were also not very aware of how to reduce their risk levels. So in order to really reap the safety and empowerment rewards that mobiles can bring, initiatives need to find ways to improve girls’ digital literacy and digital safety. Data security is another issue, and organizations should develop responsible data policies so that they are not contributing to putting girls at risk.

And that brings us to the other side of the coin – the myth that mobiles make girls safer.

Myth 10: Mobiles make girls safer.

Reality: Mobiles can put girls at risk. That sense of being safer with a mobile in hand can be a false one, as I noted above. Dirk Slater, from Tactical Technology Collective noted, “A big issue of working with adolescent girls is their lack of awareness of how the information they share can be stored and used. It’s important to educate girls. Look at how much information you find out about a person through social media, and what does that mean about how much information someone else can find about them.”

Things to consider: Institutions should aim to mitigate risks and help to improve girls’ digital security and safety.

Girls face safety risks on mobile at a number of levels, including:

  • Content
  • Contact
  • Data privacy and security
  • Legal and political risk (in some places they may face backlash simply for seeking out an education)
  • Financial risk (spam, hacking, spending money they don’t have on airtime)
  • Reputation risk (if they participate on social networks or speak out)

It’s also key for organizations working with girls and mobile to develop ethical policies and procedures to mitigate risks at various levels.

And that’s that for the top 10 myths! Curious to know what you think about those, and if there are other myths you find in your work with girls, mobile and learning….

 

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Youth financial inclusion via mobiles: long on enthusiasm, short on examples?

Posted in development, disruption, economic empowerment, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, innovation, m4D, mobile, mywd, technology salon, TSNYC, youth, tagged , , , , , , on April 1, 2014| 3 Comments »

We looked at the role of mobiles in youth financial inclusion at our March 11th Technology Salon in New York City. Tim Nourse, Making Cents; Peter Goldstein, Intermedia; and Jamie Zimmerman, Bankable Frontier Associates; joined as lead discussants.

Though mobile financial services are seen by many as inevitable, some Salon participants felt that, like in so many other ‘mobiles for xxxx’ areas, we were long on enthusiasm and short on evidence and successful examples. Are we just too early in the game, as with so much of ICT4D? Emerging research on youth demand for mobile financial services may help answer some of those questions, but many other questions remain.

What do we mean by youth financial inclusion?

The Salon started with a quick overview of the terms “financial inclusion” and ‘youth.’ One lead discussant emphasized that the idea of ‘youth’ is context specific. According to the UN, “youth” are people between 15 and 24 years old, though in many countries this can extend to age 30 or 35. Segmentation within this wide age range is important when designing programs because of varying needs, demands, and concerns within age subsets. Using a gender lens is also critical, because young women and young men have different needs, concerns, barriers, interests and experiences. Cultural norms about girls’ and young women’s access to and use of assets and resources, financial services, and mobiles also come into play and need to be well-understood. When discussing youth financial inclusion, it’s useful to talk about the age ranges of 15-17 and 18-24, because in most countries 18 is the legal age at which youth can enter into a formal financial system, sign contracts, and purchase a SIM card in their own name. Program design, challenges faced, and workable business models may look quite different for these two age groups.

The term ‘youth financial services’ includes a full range of services (credit, savings, insurance, money transfer and payments) that help youth build assets. In other words, financial services go far beyond mobile money transfers. Most youth in developing nations are engaged in some kind of livelihood or education, and access to financial services can help them achieve goals in both arenas. It is important to reach youth with financial education when they are adolescents, as they are more inclined to form good habits if they are engaged early on. Availability of services at specific transition points in youth’s lifecycles when they are making serious decisions is another key to establishing good long-term financial habits. It can be difficult, however, to convince banking institutions to develop a menu of financial services for youth because few successful business models exist for youth-focused financial products and services. Savings, account balances and demand for credit tend to be lower among youth, so serving the youth market profitably can be difficult. Strategic rationales and successful business cases around expanded access to youth financial services are needed.

Emerging guidelines for good practice in design and implementation of youth-inclusive financial services being developed by Making Cents include:

  • Involve youth in market research and product development
  • Develop products and services that represent the diversity of youth
  • Ensure youth have safe and supportive spaces
  • Provide or link youth with complementary non-financial services
  • Focus on core competencies and collaborate with youth organizations to ensure holistic programs
  • Involve communities to reinforce and enhance the effectiveness of programming
  • Establish a strategic rational and ensure institutional readiness for serving youth

Mobiles and youth financial inclusion

Many have high hopes around the role of mobile phones in enhancing and expanding youth financial services. Mobiles may allow financial institutions to lower costs for financial products and thus enable new and profitable business models. In addition to providing direct services, mobiles might be able to improve the reach and impact of financial education aimed at youth, and encourage particular behaviors and habit formation. For example, SMS reminders are being used to ‘nudge’ youth towards particular actions related to savings and smarter purchases.

A report called “Beyond the Buzz” however, highlight some of the major challenges when it comes to the role of mobile and financial inclusion for the under 18 population. As explained by one lead discussant (also one of the report’s authors), most youth surveyed in Sub Saharan Africa believed mobile money would be far more important for financial inclusion in the future than SMS. Non-profit organization practitioners and financial institutions surveyed for the report expressed strong belief in the potential of mobile money and other mobile services for broadening youth financial inclusion.

Enthusiasm is quite high, though there has been little success thus far, and the evidence on the ground is not very encouraging. Even though most people surveyed felt that mobile money was the future and would change everything, mobiles are actually being used far more commonly for financial education (SMS and nudges) than for providing youth access to financial services.

So what are the obstacles?

Some of the challenges that prevent mobile financial services from taking off include:

  • Age restrictions and regulations. In most countries, a young person cannot obtain an identity card until the age of 18, meaning access to a bank account, a SIM and/or mobile money is restricted. Many young people get around this obstacle by borrowing a handset or asking a parent or guardian for support. When phones do not belong to youth, however, SMS ‘nudges’ for financial education may not reach them. In addition, the lack of a private handset may discourage youth from using mobile to manage their money due to the potential loss of privacy and control over their money. Children under the age of 18 are a protected group, and many countries have regulations around collecting information about or marketing to this population. Child protection policies and legal regulations are a positive thing, however, they can also create barriers to financial education and financial services for under 18s.
  • Lack of data. One discussant noted that age-disaggregated data from mPesa’s mobile money service would probably show that older youth (ages 18-30) are the majority of the mobile money users. The lack of data on youth, however, makes it difficult for non-profit organizations to develop targeted and demand-led financial products and services. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have data, yet their data are not easy to access. One Salon discussant told of a project where it took over two and a half years to obtain legal permission from an MNO to access youth data for an RCT on the impact of SMS on youth savings.
  • Industry barriers. Successful and sustainable business models for youth financial services are few and far between. The likelihood of low financial returns from youth make most banks uninterested in approaching the youth ‘base of the pyramid’ market. Institutions that make money from youth financial services are most likely making it from 24 and 25 year olds, not under 18s. Explaining the potential benefits of a long-term business model (that you may need to take a loss earlier on to gain from this segment later) to financial institutions is difficult. In addition, mobile operators are not fully empowered to launch mobile financial services on their own, even if they wanted to, because of government regulations (in some cases, added one Salon participant, because the banking industry actively lobbies government to avoid losing business to MNOs).

Long on enthusiasm and short on examples?

Considering all the obstacles, why are hopes so high when it comes to mobiles and youth financial inclusion? Some consider that MNOs have a fundamental advantage over banks in countries where the majority of people have access to a mobile phone yet have never used a bank or formal financial service. In many parts of the world, banking systems are unavailable and/or inefficient, and people do not trust formal systems or large bureaucracies. When it comes to mobile, however, use and availability of handsets, widespread recognition of mobile operator brands and services, and familiarity with the notion of transferring airtime mean that mobile money is a fairly easy idea for people to grasp and thus it may be easier to generate trust in mobile as a means to access financial services.

The impact of mobile money and mobiles on financial inclusion is difficult to evaluate rigorously, however, noted one Salon participant. The volume of money is very small, so we should have very low expectations in that regard. If 20% of a target population uses a financial service or product, we should be excited because we see an individual having more control over and information on their own financial transactions. This enables them to make better decisions over their finances. Mobile financial services are likely doing more good than harm, even if a large, broad-based impact study is not available. Another Salon participant pointed out, however, that market research to inform good product and service offerings is very much lacking, and a concerted effort is needed to document and research this area.

A large study is being conducted with youth ages 15-19 and 20-24 on youth demand for mobile money and financial services in several African and Asian countries as part of the Financial Inclusion Insights program, said one lead discussant, and data will be available to the public. The majority of youth surveyed for the study said that they did not use a bank because they did not have enough money to do so. In five years, according to the discussant, mobile financial products will be accessible in a wide range of countries and the number of youth using them is increasing. Research shows that urban youth tend to adopt these products more often than older people or rural populations, and there is a male-female gap, where more males are accessing and using them. In general, younger populations have been positive about mobile financial products and services.

An inevitable future?

Despite the dearth of successful business models, evidence, and large-scale sustainable examples, some Salon participants felt that we are entering a new era where financial products and services will be widely available through the mobile phone. As one person explained, it’s a question of moving with the times or becoming obsolete. In Southern African countries, she said, the move is towards rolling out products and services that provide holistic financial inclusion — credit, savings and insurance. In addition, municipal and utility bill paying is getting people accustomed to mobile financial services via MNOs. Banks who are running at a low level of innovation will lose out if they are not capable of providing these kinds of time-saving services through mobile phones.

So what should organizations be doing to prepare youth to widely access and use mobile financial services? Should financial education programs include content about mobile financial services, offerings and fees, and potential risks and benefits for youth of using them? Might mobile gaming be a way of getting around some of the barriers for under 18s, as one Salon participant suggested? In this case, children could practice important concepts around savings and loans, types of bank accounts, fee structures for banking, etc., without assuming any real risk.

Some broader questions linger around mobile financial services for youth as well: What impact does (or will) mobile financial services have on people’s lives and wellbeing? Will they impact how youth invest and manage their money? Will they improve redistribution of resources to households? Will they end up pulling a large segment of the population into unsustainable systems and backfire?  So far there’s no clear answer, but watch this space.

***

A list of resources, links, projects, organizations and research on the topic is here. Please add anything that’s missing!

Thanks to participants and lead discussants for the great discussions and to Population Council for hosting us at their offices for this Salon. Thanks also to Peter Goldstein for suggesting the topic and to Somto Fab-Ukozor for support with notes and the summary. Salons are held under Chatham House Rule, therefore no attribution has been made in this post. If you’d like to attend future Salons, sign up here!

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Surveying the landscape: mobiles and youth workforce development

Posted in development, economic empowerment, education, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mobile, mywd, wait... what?, youth workforce development, tagged , , , , , , on September 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 5.09.30 PMYouth make up 17 percent of the world’s population and 40 percent of the world’s unemployed, according to the International Labor Organization. A number of factors combine to make sustainable, decent employment an enormous challenge for youth the world over, including low levels of education and technical skills, slow job growth, lack of information about available jobs, and difficulties accessing financial capital to start small enterprises. Decent jobs are especially difficult to find for rural youth, girls and women, and youth with disabilities.

In addition to the growth in youth unemployment, access to and use of mobile technologies (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, eReaders, radio, portable media players, SD cards) among youth worldwide is also expanding. This has created excitement about the potential of mobile devices to catalyze new approaches that address some of the constraints keeping youth from finding and sustaining decent livelihoods. Documentation and evidence of impact in the broad field of mobile technology and youth workforce development (mYWD) is lacking, however, meaning that it has been difficult to identify where mobile technology and youth workforce development initiatives overlap and where mobile may have the greatest added value.

After a year of hard work, last week we launched the mEducation Alliance’s Mobiles for Youth Workforce Development (mYWD) Landscape Review, an effort of the mEducation Alliance, The MasterCard Foundation, and USAID. The review maps out who is doing what and where, and to the extent possible, discusses evidence of what is working. The body of the report answers questions such as:

  • What organizations and programs are using mobiles to help overcome the barriers to employment for youth?
  • What type of programming has been implemented and how?
  • Where do prime opportunities exist for integrating mobile devices into youth workforce development programs?
  • What are relevant considerations related to gender and disability in mYWD programming?
  • What factors facilitate or hinder mYWD in specific contexts?
  • Are there any research findings that show the impact of mobiles on youth workforce development?

In addition, the annexes provide information on 80 initiatives and over 275 publicly available documents describing efforts that use mobile technology to support youth workforce development programming in five key areas:

  • Workforce education and training, including basic education, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), job skills training, apprenticeships, and life skills training (in and out of the classroom).
  • Employment services, including on-going job referral services that bring employers and workers together through job postings, job fairs, job shadowing, job placement, resume preparation, and coaching.
  • Entrepreneurship and enterprise development, including support programs for self-employment and business development, such as entrepreneurship training, mentoring, and financial services for loans and capital.
  • Demand-side policies and programs, including broad-based economic growth programs like national youth employment policies, value chain development, public works programs, wage subsidies, minimum wages, and tax breaks for employers (JBS International, 2013).
  • Addressing social norms, including programs that support effective participation of excluded groups, non-traditional skills training, safe training and employment spaces for excluded youth, and broader awareness campaigns.

There is an enormous amount of activity in mYWD, from small-scale, market-based start-up applications to mobile innovation hubs for youth entrepreneurs. The landscape review offers a summary of how mobile devices are used in the above five areas, draws out relevant lessons from the available literature and existing evidence base, offers advice from practitioners working in the field of mYWD, discusses the issue of scale and sustainability of mYWD programs, and offers a number of recommendations for furthering the field, including:

  • Creating a mYWD framework to aid in advancing the field
  • Further developing the evidence base for mYWD
  • Improving our understanding of what scale means
  • Focusing on gender and youth with disability
  • Improving knowledge sharing and collaboration
  • Building the mYWD evidence base through research and impact evaluation

Download the mYWD landscape review at this link!

If the topic is of interest, you can also join the mYWD working group by signing up here.

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Mobile technology and workforce development programs with girls and young women

Posted in development, education, girls, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mobile, mywd, TSNYC, wait... what?, youth workforce development, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 25, 2013| 3 Comments »

The March NYC Technology Salon offered an opportunity to discuss how mobile technology can transform workforce development and to hear how mobile is improving the reach and impact of existing initiatives working with girls and young women. Attendees also raised some of the acute, practical challenges and the deeper underlying issues that need to be overcome in order for girls and women to access and use mobile devices and to participate in workforce development programs and the labor market.

Conversation kicked off with comments from Kris Wiig (Samasource), Nancy Taggart (Education Development Center)  and Trina Das Gupta (former head of mWomen). The Salon was part of the Mobiles for Education Mobiles and Youth Workforce Development (mYWD) Working Group Learning Series, an initiative created in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation and USAID. The Salon was hosted at the offices of the Clinton Global Initiative.

The benefits of mobile vs stationary ICT for youth workforce development programs

Mobile holds a number of benefits over stationary ICT, including the feature of reaching people where they are because of the ubiquity of hand-held devices. Mobile is being used as both a primary tool in workforce development programming and as a complementary tool to enhance or reinforce content and interaction happening via other means such as web, face-to-face, and radio.

Reaching girls and women. Mobile can reach girls and young women with services and information they cannot normally get, helping them access the opportunities, skills, and information they need to better position them for work. Mobile job matching allows girls and young women to seek jobs without leaving the home. Micro-tasking (breaking up jobs into tiny tasks that can be done by a number of individuals, eg.,  via a mobile phone) offers a way for girls and young women from slum areas, those not able to work outside of the home, and those pulled out of difficult situations like sexual exploitation; to access entry-level work and gain experience that can help them quickly move to better jobs. Some 75% of women doing microtasking with Samasource move on to better jobs within 6 months, for example.

Getting geographically relevant information out to youth. Mobile can help spread information about opportunities to formerly unreached locations. In many places, jobs and scholarships exist, but they are promoted in places where youth do not see them. Mobile social networks can reach youth and connect them, based on their profiles and skill sets, to opportunities in their own geographical area, helping change the idea that youth have to move to the city in order to find work.

Strengthening soft and hard skills. Using mobile applications, gaming and quizzes, youth can work through career pathfinders in a fun way, find out what they like and what they are good at, and begin learning how to plan a career and what types of courses or preparation they need to achieve goals. They can also learn about savings and create savings plans for items they want to purchase, meanwhile making commitments to give up habits like smoking in order to put their limited resources towards other goals. Applications that reinforce basic literacy and numeracy, such as EDC’s Stepping Stone, help girls and young women strengthen the skills they need to move to a higher level of training or to access additional mobile-based information or engage in communications that help improve their livelihoods.

Lowering barriers to entry. Mobile offers a lower barrier to entry than more traditional ICTs. Mobile web has made it easier for many people to get online, especially in rural areas where people often have to be transported to centralized places in order to access desktop computers and broadband. Mobiles also require less electricity than desktop computers, a big plus in rural areas. One participant noted that an iPad costs only $400 vs a desktop that costs much more and requires more expertise and resources to set up and maintain. Tools available today make it easier for non-experts to create mobile applications. The challenge is getting over inertia and allowing kids to play and experiment.

Designing mobile workforce development programs with and for girls and young women

Even with all these benefits, however, mobile may not always be the best tool because access to information and content delivery does not resolve deeper gender-related issues. Salon attendees offered some insights on ways to make mYWD programs more inclusive of and adapted to the needs of girls and women.

Addressing underlying gender issues. Girls and young women may find a scholarship or a job via mobile but for various reasons, such as controlled mobility or cultural or resource restrictions, they may not be able to take advantage of it. When working with girls and women, underlying issues are central, for example, past trauma, self-esteem, self-doubt and the question “will I ever be good enough.” Organizations can talk this through with girls and women via a mobile phone or online chat, but in truth it’s a much a deeper issue than a cellphone can solve. Corollary and holistic programs are needed to respond to these broader issues in order to have real, in-depth and lasting impact.

Making mYWD programs accessible to girls and young women. Workforce development programs need to be designed in ways that fit the lives of the girls and women they aim to support. For example,  training needs to happen at a time when women are more able to participate, such as after breakfast and before lunch when the children are at school and the husband is not back yet. Child care may need to be provided. It’s also critical to understand the dynamics of husbands and mothers-in-law who often want to know what young women are doing at all times. Some women may be happy to conceal the fact that they are participating in training, but programs should help women and girls gauge their potential risks. Another strategy is working with husbands and men to generate buy-in so that girls and women can participate in different labor market-related activities. In some cases negative reactions from fathers and husbands deter girls and women from participating or cause them to drop out. Eg.: “I make more money and my husband takes it and he drinks more, and then he beats me more.” The many precise cultural and social issues around gender and mobile require more research. Talking with girls and young women about these barriers and ensuring programs take them into account is an important part of the design process.

Remembering that women and girls are often the last to own phones. GSMA research found that there is indeed a mobile gender gap. Though there may be a high level of mobile penetration at the household level, often it’s the husband, then the first-born son who get a phone, and only afterward that perhaps a daughter or a wife get one — and this scenario is in wealthier households where there are multiple devices. For most families in emerging economies, there is only one or possibly two phones per household, and women and girls only have access to the phone when the man of the house gives it to them. This does vary from country to country, but overall, women are less active and with less access to mobile devices. This is a critical gap if organizations wish to involve girls and young women in mobile-based programs. Knowing the audience, population and context and designing information and communication strategies and workforce development programs that use a variety of channels (traditional and new media as well as face-to-face) to reach girls and women can help avoid marginalizing or not reaching those without mobile access.

Finding the incentive base for men. In many emerging markets, work needs to be done to discover what might incentivize men to allow girls and women to access mobile phones and/or to participate in workforce development activities. Sometimes it is money, but not always. Men may not want women and daughters working or earning money. In Afghanistan, for example, the CEO of the mobile network operator would sit with the men in the households and discuss the idea of women and girls having mobile phones. As part of one program that trained women for work, transportation services were set up just for women. It is important to meet people where they are in terms of cultural barriers and not try to shift things too quickly or all at once or there can be serious backlash.

Encouraging girls and young women to enter high growth sectors. Age-old gender frameworks are still at play and many girls and young women are not interested in entering certain high growth sectors, such as technology. This is a worldwide hurdle in terms of positioning girls and young women for the new jobs being created in these sectors, not just something that happens in ‘developing’ countries. Some programs are reaching out specifically to girls and young women to teach them to code and to break down the idea that only boys and men are smart enough to do it. Encouraging girls and women to see the world by accessing Internet via the mobile web and connecting with other girls and women this way can also be hugely transformative. Communication and marketing can play a role in helping girls and women see the world as it could be, if there were gender parity, and planting a seed that helps girls and young women see the possibilities of their own impact in the world. Enabling girls and young women to create, not just consume content, can change the status quo.

Mobile as a complementary tool, not a replacement.  Mobile can resolve some information and communication aspects, however, in the case of girls and young women, resource-intensive services are often the most needed and the most important, and these cannot always be done via a device. Mentoring and networking, for example, have shown to be highly valued by girls and women. These need to be more than a quick check-in however; they should be strong, active and consistent relationships of support. Some organizations are doing interesting work with mentoring but even with the added benefits of mobile technology, efficient and cost-effective ways to support quality mentoring at scale have not been fully worked out yet.

Data and research

There is a dearth of data around how girls and women use mobiles. Research has been done in some contexts with women at the base of the pyramid, but in many cases it’s difficult to apply conclusions across contexts. Evidence on what works, what is sustainable, and what can effectively scale is missing.

Understanding the meaning of mobile for girls and women. There is a need for more research on women’s ownership and use of devices, and a better understanding of what these devices mean to girls and women in their daily lives, in their family dynamics and with regard to their purchasing habits. In one country, 40% of women interviewed said they didn’t like text messaging, but this may not carry over to other countries or to girls and younger women. Women in one survey in Uganda said they didn’t like borrowing a phone because it meant they would owe a favor to the woman they borrowed it from — this breaks with assumptions that mobiles are freely shared in communities and everyone can access them. In Papua New Guinea, women surveyed in a micro-tasking project said that what they most liked about having mobile access was not the work opportunity, it was being able to call and arrange dinner time with their husband so they would not be beaten if he came home early and it was not ready.

Gaps in gender and age disaggregated data. The huge gap in gender and age disaggregated data on mobile ownership and use is a huge impediment in terms of going to scale. Donor organizations and governments often ask, “Where is the data that shows me this works?” Using mobile for different programs is a big shift for most countries and organizations. It requires behavior change and large investments, and so decision-makers logically want to know if it works. Some organizations avoid working with government as it can slow down processes. Others argue that government buy-in and support are vital to achieving scale and sustainability and that government plays an important role in reducing tariffs and establishing regulations that favor mobile for development initiatives.

One discussant recommended: “Do your baseline. Track your data. Share your data. Share your failures. Collect gender and age disaggregated data.” Large research firms are starting to set up these data but they are for the most part proprietary and are not available to those working in development. Organizations like CGI could use their influence to encourage firms and companies to share some parts of their data. Going beyond micro-level pairing of people with jobs to the use of mobile data at scale to look at development trends could be hugely beneficial.

In summary, more needs to be done to better understand the intersecting areas of gender, mobile technology, and youth workforce development programming. Further reading and resources compiled to complement the Salon are available here.

The Technology Salon methodology was used for the session, including Chatham House Rule, therefore no attribution has been made in this summary post. Sign up here to receive notifications about upcoming Salons in New York, Nairobi, San Francisco, London and Washington, DC. 

Visit the Mobiles and Youth Workforce Development Working Group page and sign up to receive information on mYWD Learning Series Events and the upcoming mYWD Landscape Review, due out in July 2013.

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Exclusion, innovation, mobile tech and youth workforce development

Posted in development, education, m4D, mywd, youth, youth workforce development, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

As part of the work I’m doing with the mEducation Alliance around mobile technologies and youth workforce development (mYWD), we’re putting together an event focused on innovation in the mYWD space on October 15  from 9-12.30 EDT.

Some of the topics we’ll be looking at include:

  • How do workforce development programs address different forms of exclusion? And how do different forms of exclusion affect approaches to youth and workforce development programming?
  • What do innovation and ‘disruption’ mean in the context of mobile technologies and youth workforce development?  What are some different frameworks for thinking about innovation?
  • What role might mobile technologies play in increasing access to information and work/entrepreneurial opportunities for young people?
  • Where are there opportunities for innovation with mobile technologies in YWD? What are some examples? What are some precautions?
  • What can mYWD learn from other areas/sectors? What can be adapted and built upon?

Philip Auerswald (The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs are Transforming the Global Economy and the Innovations: Technology, Globalization, Governance Journal), Nick Martin (Tech Change), John Zoltner (FHI360), and a host of development and technology practitioners working in mobiles and youth workforce development (mYWD) and related fields will be joining.

From the event preparation research and the discussions, we’ll assemble a short publication to share, and (if all goes well!) we’ll do some short videos exploring what innovation means to different people working in this space.

If you’d like to join the meeting, RSVP now by emailing Matthew French at MFrench [at] jbsinternational [dot] com. In person space is limited, so hurry! The event will take place at FHI 360 Conference Center, 1825 Connecticut Avenue NW 8th Floor, Washington, DC 20009 (Map)

If you are not able to participate in person, contact Matthew by October 11 for details on joining the session online.

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Summary: Mobiles for Youth Workforce Development sessions at the mEducation Alliance Symposium

Posted in development, education, m4D, mywd, wait... what?, youth, youth workforce development, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

September’s mEducation Alliance Symposium included a special track around mobile technologies for youth workforce development (mYWD) as well as a session to discuss a new mYWD Working Group,  which is now up and running online. (Join by first registering at the mEducation Alliance website, then clicking here to join the mYWD Working Group.)

If the topic of mobile technologies and youth workforce development is of interest, don’t miss the October 15th event Innovations in Mobiles for Youth Workforce Development.  Among others, we’ll have the brilliant Phil Auerswald (@auerswald) helping us frame what we mean by ‘innovation’ in the mYWD space. RSVP info here.

In the meantime, here are some highlights from the mYWD sessions at Symposium:

Session 1: Mobiles for Youth Workforce Development (mYWD): Taking Stock of mYWD started with a presentation on the GSMA’s ‘Shaping the Future report by Lauren Dawes.  Then we heard from Theo Van Rensburg Lindzter (M-UBUNTU) and Thabang Mogale (Millenials as Mobile Educators).

  • The GSMA report found that education was a key priority in the lives of the young people surveyed, preceded only by family and health. Respondents also prioritized a good career and noted that they need to improve their skills to find better work. Only 25% of the young people surveyed listed the classroom as their primary source of education. Word of mouth was their main source of information on employment. The single largest barrier to educational information noted was lack of funds; meaning services need to be affordable if aiming to reach the majority of young people. Mobiles are an important asset for young people, ranking above clothing and shoes. Voice is a favored service among youth; most do not use their mobiles to access data. Key recommendations for mLearning and informal education include that youth are enthusiastic about the possibility and potential of learning and improving their chances of finding meaningful work via their mobiles. Linking mLearning to existing activities and behaviors will bring better results. Targeting the whole family is important as youth may not always be owners of mobiles, and parental gate-keepers may not see value in a handset. The youth surveyed expressed willingness to receive advertising in return for access to content and services.
  • The Millennials as Mobile Education Providers project takes place in South Africa. The pilot project grew out of a partnership between Durban University of Technology (S Africa), the M-Ubuntu Project (Sweden, S Africa, US), Sprint Re:Cycle (US), and six rural and township schools in S Africa. A key part of the program is working to shift attitudes from “youth as a problem” to “youth as untapped resources who can engage, lead and contribute to training initiatives.” The project includes subsidized internships for unemployed or out of school youth that tie vocational skills training to related community service; service learning as a credit-bearing component of university degree programs; in school service learning opportunities for secondary school students; service that meets an identified community need and upfront training accompanied by ongoing support and mentorship. The program utilizes recycled devices as platforms for curriculum-aligned educational content. University students serve as literacy/numeracy coaches for students in under-performing rural and township high schools, especially students who are preparing for graduation exams, and where there is typically a very low rate of passing. Young people like Thabang serve as mobile tech apprentices at schools, handing device charging, repair and content transfer for teachers. Thabang has found incredible personal success through the program, finding a useful skill. He emphasized the numerous global connections made through the program which have motivated him to keep working and striving to be his best.

Session 2 was Connections and Content for Out of School Youth, facilitated by Kimberley Kerr from the MasterCard Foundation. It featured Scott Isbrandt from Education Development Center talking about PAJE-Nieta and the Stepping Stone mobile content authoring platform (video) and Jonathan McKay from Praekelt Foundation talking about: the Ummeli job portal.

  • PAJE-Nieta is aimed at increasing literacy and entrepreneurship skills among 14-25 year olds in small rural villages with few services. The hope is that by increasing those skills, the youth can access market information systems which can then lead to enhanced livelihoods. Scott noted that local youth may produce, but they run into difficulties when it comes to knowing where to sell. There is a database of information available, but it is not accessible unless a person is literate. The challenge is taking the wealth of what has been done with ICTs to places with no electricity and no connectivity, and making it affordable and accessible. EDC determined which handsets were widely available, cheapest, run on Java, could run simple multimedia,had a speaker, and were within the purchasing power range of youth. Then they built Stepping Stone for this model so that teachers could create and push out local content. Stepping Stone includes digital text books, learning assessments, direct feedback capability and an interactive audio that is pre-loaded onto phones. A concern is what happens when the grant is over, so EDC is looking at ways to work with kiosks, pre-loading content on micro SD cards, and thinking about membership fees as something that would enable people to continue to load additional content. Stepping Stone will be released as an open source platform so that others can use it.
  • Ummeli is a mobile platform created because youth who participate in Praekelt’s Young Africa Live initiative expressed that finding meaningful work was a higher priority even than HIV prevention.  Praekelt worked with Vodacom to ensure that there would be no cost, because youth, in marginalized and/or rural communities normally cannot cover data charges. Ummeli has a CV builder that youth can fill out and fax to a potential employer for free. They can also fill out surveys that gain them points that they can use to cover the cost of faxes. Ummeli was designed specifically for mobile and as a community rather than as an individual tool. It is the first purely mobile job platform in South Africa. Rather than only listing job opportunities, Ummeli enables users to create their own opportunities and has extensive supplemental support such as career advice, life skills and peer networking. Youth can geocode or do other small microtasks to earn points that they can use in the Ummeli system. Rather than only looking at ‘finding employment’, Ummeli is set up to help youth find ‘meaningful work.’ This can be in their communities, volunteering or interning, all of which give youth experience, help them make contacts, and help them build their resumes. Ummeli hopes to turn depression into action by positioning youth’s free time as an asset that can be used for positive things like helping their communities. Ummeli is looking at taking existing course work and enhancing it for low-end handsets; they are looking at how to get around the verification and accreditation issue so that these opportunities will be seen as credible. Ummeli currently has 87,000 unique users.

Session 3 was facilitated by Suzanne Philion (U.S. Dept. of State) and looked at mYWD: Mobiles for Youth Skills Development. Speakers were Michael Carrier (British Council) on “Using mobile devices to strengthen educational systems, specifically in English for Basic Education and supporting workforce readiness;” Bhanu Potta from Nokia on “Nokia Life Education services – mLearning at scale of millions;” and Shayan Mashatian from Appexiom – Petanque, with A demonstration of a mobile learning pilot and findings from its implementation.

  • The British Council’s Learn English Apps focus on applications that can help youth to learn English via mobile to increase their chances to obtain employment.  One point that Michael brought up was that people can use their short bits of downtime to learn English on their phone rather than go on a cigarette break or check their Facebook. The Council’s programs are available on different devices from iPhone, Nokia, Samsung, Ovi and the Android OS. Apps include podcasts, a soap opera, pronunciation exercises and games to improve grammar and vocabulary
  • Nokia Life provides education, youth empowerment and lifelong learning; health, agriculture and entertainment services. Nokia has developed software that makes a very cheap mobile look more like a data-enabled phone because, as Bhanu noted, all levels of consumers wish to have a data-like experience. This includes a dynamic home screen with a rotating menu for high discoverability, integration with voices services, a dynamic inbox that highlights new content, and new content channels that can be added using just SMS. Social elements available include ‘ask an expert’, share, and ‘respond to polls’. Nokia Life is currently available in India, Indonesia, China, Nigeria and some additional countries in Middle East and Africa. Nokia Life will provide curated content rather than offer access to all the information available on the Internet via Google. Nokia Browser, a cloud based service will make this information easier to access by compressing the information by 85% making it 3 times faster to download and much cheaper for people to access.
  • Appexiom-Petanque allows for educational content creation via a simple set-up where creators can drop in content, making it easy to publish. This helps overcome some of the current failures of distance learning and addresses the need to see learning differently. Rather than try to put textbooks onto a phone, Sayan commented, m-Learning needs to be re-organized, re-formatted and re-engineered for the mobile phone. It needs to focus on the user experience and provide interactive content, allowing people to choose, multi-task and integrate social media.

Session 4. The final mYWD session shared some initial findings from the mYWD Landscape Study (in process) and looked at setting the foundations of the mYWD Working Group, brainstorming some priorities and topics for the group to tackle, and discussing what makes for a successful community of practice or working group. From this session came the idea for the October 15 Learning Series event on Innovations in mYWD. If you’d like to attend, either let me know or RSVP directly to MFrench at JBSInternational dot com.

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Mobiles for youth workforce development (mYWD) track at the mEducation Symposium

Posted in development, economic empowerment, education, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mywd, youth, youth workforce development, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This week the mEducation Alliance* will host its second symposium, bringing together institutions and organizations that are interested in and/or supporting the use of mobile technologies in education.

The main theme for this year’s Symposium is partnership, and sessions fall into the following categories: public-private partnerships, mobiles for reading, mobiles for inclusive education and assistive technology, mobiles for education system strengthening, mobiles for youth workforce development, and mobiles for education in crisis and conflict settings.

One reason I’m excited about the Symposium is that I’ll be sharing preliminary findings and seeking input on some research around mobiles and youth workforce development (mYWD) that I’m working on for the mEducation Alliance. The research will culminate in a landscape review published around this time next year. The topic is timely considering the so-called ‘youth bulge’ in many countries, the huge numbers of young people (including those of all education levels) unable to find or create sustainable livelihoods, and the increasing ubiquity of mobile devices.

In general, youth workforce development programs seek to identify the skills and knowledge that specific industries need and to support youth to improve their education and develop the hard and soft skills required to work in those industries. Mobile technologies are being integrated in a number of ways in YWD; from mobile phone repair training to the use of ‘pico’ projectors for training to micro-tasking.

The mYWD landscape review will revolve around key questions such as: Which organizations are working on mYWD? How are mobile technologies currently being used in youth workforce development programming? Are there additional areas where they could be considered? What factors hinder or facilitate the use of mobile technologies in YWD programs and what are some of the challenges? Is there any evidence that mobile technology is having a positive or negative impact on youth workforce development? One important aspect of the study will be its consideration of the intersection of gender and mYWD from a few different angles, including how gender impacts access to mobile youth workforce development programs, how mobiles affect access to youth workforce development programs, and whether mYWD programs have a differential impact on young men and young women.

A working group will be formed to delve more deeply into the topic of mYWD. At the Symposium, we’ll be gathering initial input about what the working group’s priorities should be and what are the best channels and means to discuss topics and share mYWD-related learning. The working group will be open to a wide range of organizations and institutions interested in a more in-depth examination of mYWD.

In connection with the working group and the landscape review, five learning events will take place over the next several months on mYWD sub-themes. These will be documented for sharing and on-line discussion on the mEducation website. I’ll also be doing some key informant interviews and constant scanning of the literature and the field in general over the next several months. If you have something to share, please be in touch!

If you are attending the mEducation Symposium and you are interested in youth, mobile technologies, and workforce development, be sure to check out the mYWD track. (And don’t forget to RSVP for ICT4Drinks on Thursday evening!)

If you’re not attending the Symposium or are otherwise unable to attend the mYWD sessions, keep an eye out for the upcoming Learning Series events or contact Matt French (MFrench [at] jbsinternational [dot] com) or me (lindaraftree [at] gmail [dot] com) for information on the landscape review or to join the working group.

I’m still casting the net far and wide for information on mYWD, so any relevant information is most welcome!

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*The Mobiles for Education (mEducation) Alliance is an international collaborative effort between bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, foundations, private sector partners, academic researchers, and implementing organizations. Our collective agenda is to explore cutting‐edge intersections between mobile technologies, education and development, to reduce duplicative efforts, and promote collective knowledge‐sharing. The increasing ubiquity of mobile phones and coverage and the current and possible utilization of other mobile devices, including e‐Readers, tablet computers, flash memory, micro/ “pico” projectors, and audio/visual devices among other technologies, provide valuable opportunities for supporting quality education impact in developing countries.

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