MobileActive.org

We’ve written and shared much on mobile banking, including case studies on M-PESA, research on branchless banking, and issues of security in mobile banking. Success in mobile banking servicces have varied with some highly successful, and others less so. We also observed that services are highly dependent on many factors, including: reach, reliability, user retention, ease of use, approach with agents or operators, number of customers, geography, mobile infrastructure and landscape, technology used, language, cost, and regulatory issues. 

In this newest MobileActive.org case study, we hear from Bill Barhydt, CEO of m-Via, the company behind new mobile banking service Boom. Boom allows people in the U.S., Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala to create bank accounts, and send and access money via a basic mobile phone. It is targeting especially the diaspora and remittance payment from the US to other countries in the Americas. According to the World Bank a staggering $61 billion was sent from the US to Latin America in 2011 in remittances, with intra-regional remittances within Latin America growing as well. 

While Barhydt was unable to disclose numbers (of Boom users, transactions, and total amount of transactions) since the service launched in November 2011, we do learn more about how Boom works when it comes to sending and receiving remittances across the Americas.

February may be the shortest month, but there's no shortage of upcoming mobile events. Read on to find out what's happening this month in the mobile world, and please add in your own events in the comments!

• 7-9 February, BlackBerry DevCon Europe (Amsterdam, Netherlands) If you're curious about what's involved in developing for the BlackBerry market, check out the BlackBerry DevCon. The event features demonstrations, hands-on labs, and discussion panels to show attendees how to build for the BlackBerry platform.
  

• 9 February, Mobile Disconnect (Washington, D.C., USA) Mobile Disconnect examines the hype around mobile technology and its role in combatting global poverty and social issues. The panel will discuss the potential and limitations of mobile technology for social change and development.

• 10 February, mEducation Alliance Seminar (Washington, D.C., USA) USAID and the mEducation Alliance are hosting another event in their seminar series. This month's seminar features a discussion with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) on the new XO 3 tablet and learning. You can register to attend virtually by RSVPing to mobilesforeducation@gmail.com

(Editor's Notes: The following is a guest post by Keshet Bachan, a gender equality activist and manager of the Because I Am A Girl report. The article originally appeared on Linda Raftree's ICT4D blog. It is reposted here with permission.)

Can mobile ‘apps’ really prevent or discourage instances of violence against women? This question has been on my mind since a colleague shared this video from Voice of America about a mobile app called ‘Fight Back’, marketed as ‘India’s first mobile app for women’s safety’.

The video sparked an email discussion that raised some interesting questions that deserve a closer examination.

The VOA story provides a holistic view of violence against women and the developers of the mobile phone application admit that they are but one element in a broader system that needs to respond to instances of violence. They discuss the involvement of police and other duty bearers, such as municipal bodies, which need to address reports women make and do more to reduce their risks. I applaud this approach and the way in which the developers acknowledge the limitations of their application, which I find refreshing.

At the same time I feel this application distracts attention away from more prevalent (and deadly) issues. According to the World Health Organization 10-69% of women stated that they had been physically assaulted by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. The WHO also reports that 40-70% of female murder victims were killed by an intimate partner. A recent survey in the UK showed that one in three girls aged 13 – 17 reported sexual abuse from a partner and one in four had experienced some form of physical partner violence. The UK police receive a call for help regarding relationship abuse every minute.

The degree to which this mobile phone application promotes the notion of ‘stranger danger’ distracts attention from the urgent and more prevalent issue of family and intimate partner violence. Moreover, the fact that the application has a GPS tracker to trace a woman’s route home could inadvertently contribute to both increasing women’s fear of violence in public spaces as well as playing into the hands of those who seek to control women’s mobility by pleading the need to ‘protect’ them by knowing their whereabouts at all times.

In this context a colleague commented that a GPS enabled function could allow ‘even a moderately tech-savvy user to trace the woman in question’ – which could serve to increase traditional control over women who dare to step outside the confines of convention (and the home) even further.

Editor's note: This is a guest post by Sameer Pujari, Virginia Arnold, Vinayak Prasad, and Rahoul Ahuja from the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative.

The global tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. According to the World Health Organization's 2011 Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, tobacco kills more than 6 million people per year and is expected to increase to 8 million by 2030. It is one of the major risk factors for non-communicable diseases and is a global burden not only in developed countries, but also increasingly in developing countries. According to the World Economic Forum's "The Global Burden of Non-communicable Diseases."  NCDs are expected to cost the world more than $30 trillion (48% global GDP in 2010) over the next 20 years, posing a significant risk to economies worldwide.

In the last couple of years, the use of mobile phones in most countries, particularly in Asia and large parts of Africa, has seen an unprecedented increase. According to the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Measuring the Information Society Reports (2009 and 2011), mobile technology penetration has risen from 2% to 40% throughout much of Africa in the past decade. With more than 5.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions globally, the advantages of mobile health technology for public health, are promising because of its ubiquitous outreach.