For many of the vendors, technologists and marketing guruer that converge on Barcelona each February represents Mobile World Congress (MWC) the year's biggest opportunity to showcase latest devices, ideas and services for an audience that numbers well over 50,000.
By this "must-attend annual gathering of mobile industry", you can find high mobile leaders representing thousands of companies from more than 200 countries. As you can imagine, this event has been a pretty intense experience, and I do not even try to sell something.
This year was my second Congress. My first was in 2008, when I sat on a panel – society on the move – which aims to showcase some of the non-profit use of mobile technology, give it a degree of visibility delegates. Unfortunately this was not repeated. So for someone like me who are interested in "mobiles for development", to find interesting and relevant innovation can be a little hit and Miss.
Even mention the words "non-profit" to a salesperson trying to seal that one big deal and they usually must be running 11 / 2.
But all I managed, marketed to track down a couple of interesting mobile in development-related stories during my two days.
One of the first things that struck me was how far Android platform had come. During my first Congress in 2008 was Android the new kid on the block, has recently been announced a few months earlier. This year, thought Android to be everywhere.
What makes this particularly relevant is that the most likely an Android-powered device that breaks the sub-$ 50 price tag for a true smart phone in developing countries. However, my belief is that $ 40 will represent a real game changer. In the meantime, the base class "dumb" phones – predominantly in the range of voice and SMS-based – will continue to dominate, and the debate will continue in ICT4D field to the advantages and disadvantages of each.
On the first day ran "Congress daily" an interesting article on the growth of mobile subscribers. With developing countries now account for four of every five mobile connections, is this kind of news guaranteed to turn many heads. While we see this growth as an opportunity to develop useful, relevant, socially-based services, see the commercial world a market waiting to be exploited.
And you can see why. According to the World Bank's "Wireless Intelligence" (.PDF), while new connections grew last year with a speed of around 4% in mature, developed markets grew across the developing countries on a stunning 19%. The race to get handset remaining 1.5 billion hands even to hold a will be interesting view, not least because many of the companies trying to sell to those markets are not yet fully understand people live there special cultural and geographical needs.
If one word were to sum up my findings at MWC, it would be "embed". The project's Integrated Sim propose, for example a "worldwide standard that allows remote management of the sims, effectively eliminates the need for a physical SIM card and leaving them to be integrated in many different types of entity". Embedded sims open all kinds of possibilities, although I am not sure how this will affect the growing number of multi-sim devices will pop in developing countries.
Gemalto also showed his "from the Facebook SIM card", which will allow even the most basic, entry-level phones access to a limited Facebook functionality and Twitter spoke of his desire to further integrate micro-blogging service in new units. Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg grip the chance in keynote speech again deny plans for a Facebook phone, preferred to highlight plans to integrate and embed the service more smoothly and fully in existing pieces of Kit.
A number of innovative development-focused projects were displayed Global Mobile Awards, a prestigious event held traditionally on MWC second evening. Winners included the end of the Ericsson Community power for the best use of mobile for social and economic development. Its initiative allows "subscribers to recharge their mobile phones with surplus power generated from [] base, which in turn drive network usage and revenue". Green energy is thankfully to increasing traction among operators, in particular those operating in developing countries (unfortunately, not so much where I live in the United Kingdom).
BBC World Service Trust won the best product, initiative or service for some underserved segment of BBC janala, which gives short audio lessons via mobile phones for millions of people in Bangladesh want to learn English. And Vodafone Group, Safaricom, Vodacom, Vodafone Essar Limited and Roshan Ltd all romped home in the best mobile money for the unbanked service for their ongoing work deploying M-pesa around the world.
the GSMA Development Fund the years, also a number of side events at MWC, profiling their own work on mHealth and mWomen. Two winners of their mwomen base of pyramid app challenge was announced at a special event with prizes NextDrop will in the feature-phone category Tiendatek and to smart phones.
-All it was a fascinating event. My one hope would be that in the future, a little more work going on in "Mobile for development" could be integrated into the largest conference, perhaps with a return to a session similar to run in 2008. As more and more mobile innovation makes its way back from developing countries to developed, it is at least many of these innovations deserve.
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