Microsoft Mobile Challenge for Development
Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Mobile Challenge for Development. It is great that this has been linked in with the Netsquared conference in May.
“The Microsoft Mobile Challenge for Development encourages you to help contribute to one of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals by creating a mobile solution designed to meet the needs of people in developing communities and help solve some of the toughest problems facing our world today.”
Although I believe there are major benefits around the use of free software and particularly open source software in development, commercial companies also have a role to play. Microsoft have supported a number of initiatives and this Challenge is very welcome.
The Millenium Goals were/are a major milestone in development - A set of most realistical goals that everyone can work towards. There has been varying degrees of success and it is likely that many of the goals will not be met, however most of the indicators have shown positive improvement over the past few years.
The UN millenium goals main site is at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ (statistics at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/stats.shtml) and the 2008 report is at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2008highlevel/pdf/newsroom/mdg%20reports/MDG_Report_2008_ENGLISH.pdf - The UNDP has a monitoring site at http://www.mdgmonitor.org/browse_goal.cfm which gives a good breakdown of the goals and the latest news related to them.
The links below are all useful documents with respect to mobile and the millennium development goals
Mobile technologies and the Millenium Development Goals - www.w3.org/2008/02/MS4D_WS/Presentation/undp.ppt
Open Source mHealth Applications and the Millenium Development Goals - www.hst.aau.dk/~ska/MIE2008/Panels/MIE2008_UID445_BID292.pdf
Ericsson Corporate Responsibility - http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corporate_responsibility/communication/millenium_development_goals.shtml
RCOM Ties up with ZMQ To Develop Mobile Games - http://www.medianewsline.com/news/138/ARTICLE/3479/2008-11-19.html
World Bank Developer Network API (version 2 was release on 8th April 2009) - http://developer.worldbank.org/
Most of the goals need to be based around coordinated grassroots efforts. However, I believe that the information, news and data on the development goals should be made available over the Mobile Internet together with the ways that people can ‘Take Action’ aligned with the goals.
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