Eric Brewer is Professor of Computer Science at the University of California Berkeley where he leads the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) research group.

Eric spoke about the role for technology in effective development strategies at the base of the pyramid.

The history of development to date has been characterized by large agencies funding big projects with strings attached, usually in the form of debt or demands for political allegiance. These kinds of projects are hampered by their scale and the requirement to work with corrupt governments. They typically include little role for new technology as projects move slowly and lack the expertise to facilitate this.

Outside the sphere of traditional development, technology is having a major impact on economic prosperity. The mobile phone revolution, driven by bottom up demand, provides enormous advantages to any worker operating in a large radius. A taxi driver given a mobile phone, for example, will increase his revenue by 60% on average. Other bottom-up businesses have seen major success. The Village Phone scheme, which runs as a franchise model with capital coming from microfinance, now covers the majority of Bangladeshi villages. A village phone lady will make on average two times the income she would have done from farming.

However, the mobile phone remains a largely urban phenomenon since cellular networks require a certain density of users before they can economically justify the installation of a base station. The availability of an internet connection is crucial for the viability of businesses and services in rural areas.  WiFi-based Long Distance networks (WiLDNet) are emerging as a potential low-cost alternative to traditional connectivity solutions for rural regions. Unlike mesh networks, which use omni-directional antennas to cater to short ranges, WiLD networks are comprised of point-to-point wireless links that use directional antennas with line of sight over long distances.

Eric's Berkeley research team has partnered with Aravind Eye Hospital in Theni in the southern India state of Tamil Nadu to use this technology to address the problem of blindness in the region, 70% of which is treatable. The long-distance wireless network they have installed is allowing eye specialists to interview and examine patients in five remote clinics via high-quality video conferencing. 25,000 patients have recovered sight using this system and it is set to expand to 50 centers covering 2.5 million people.

Eric's team has also worked on software that addresses local educational needs in developing regions. In poorly resourced schools, students will often be sharing a mouse and computer screen with a group of others. Metamouse gives each student their own mouse to use; when answering questions all users must agree on a location before progressing. This encourages collaboration between students and has had impressive results in boys in particular, with a 50% improvement in scoring compared to each user having their own PC.

Jenny Aker an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, provided an overview of the welfare impacts of mobile technologies and how current research is testing our assumptions about the benefits of mobile phones for individuals in developing countries.

Mobile phones are used by some of the poorest people in the world; even at the country ranked 160 in the UN's Human Development Index, levels of adoption of mobile phones are at 50%. There are few systematic studies looking at why people adopt mobile technology, but those that exist suggest there are correlations with higher income levels, trading professions and an urban location. Mobile phone coverage across Africa is now extensive. Research shows that roll out by mobile phone companies is determined by factors including the size of population, the costs associated with terrain, quality of road access and the operating environment (whether there exists a competitive liberalized market).

Identifying the positive impact of mobiles can be difficult because they have so many uses, making assessment of costs and benefits problematic. Mobiles are also only pseudo private goods since they are often shared and benefits extend beyond the owner.  Despite these difficulties, a number of researchers have demonstrated the impact of mobile phones in the developing world. Robert Jensen's paper found that the introduction of mobiles into the fishing industry in Kerala, India resulted in reduced price discrepancies and significant welfare benefits in the form of increased profits for fishermen and reduced waste. Similarly, Jenny's own study of grain markets in Niger found that the use of mobile phones reduced price discrepancy and enhanced welfare through increased trader profits and reduced average consumer prices.

As well as these externalities from the IT sector, we are also seeing deliberate attempts to harness the potential of mobile phones, from private sector services (e.g. the provision of mobile money transfers such as M-Pesa) to non-profit development projects using mobiles in diverse contexts including health, governance and market information. Jenny is currently working on a project that will examine how mobiles can improve literacy in Niger. A pilot of Project ABC over the next three years will assess how access to mobile phones can complement traditional literacy lessons by giving people the chance to practice their literacy skills via SMS. Early results suggest significantly higher performance in literacy testing by groups using mobile phones.

If mobiles have genuine welfare impacts then ensuring access becomes a key policy concern. Jenny highlighted the importance of continuing liberalization of telecoms markets in Africa, maintaining fair and transparent legislation and reconsidering ICT taxes (in some countries mobiles are taxed as a luxury good). But while mobiles can enhance the delivery of and access to resources and information, we should be wary of viewing them as a development panacea since they cannot replace basic infrastructure investments such as power and roads.

Ken Banks, the founder of kiwanja.net, spoke about the importance of technology solutions that meet the needs of those working in the developing world and his own work in this area through FrontlineSMS.

While current excitement in the technology world may be focused on increasing centralization through cloud computing, this means little to people working in the developing world where internet connectivity is unavailable or unreliable.  Too little investment is going into building tools that will genuinely assist the work many non-profits are doing now.

Ken developed FrontlineSMS to tap into the potential of mobile phones, which are now widely available and used in the developing world. This is a two way communication system that can be used anywhere where there is a mobile phone signal.  FrontlineSMS is available as a free download and Ken's approach has been not to dictate implementation but rather to allow people to use this very general tool in whatever ways meet their particular needs. This has resulted in diverse applications, for example:

• Monitoring election practices in Nigeria in 2007
• Sending security alerts to humanitarian workers in conflict areas of Afghanistan
• Encouraging young people to take part in elections in Azerbaijan
• Updating local people on the location of speeches during President Obama's visit to Ghana

There is also great potential to combine FrontlineSMS with traditional media, such as radio, that is already widespread throughout Africa, to make this much more interactive.

Ken offered a number of points of guidance for those thinking about designing technology with social applications:

• Work with the equipment that people already have at their disposal
• Make equipment easy to assemble and intuitive
• Price it at a level people can afford
• Think about how use can be replicated - how will other NGOs find out about it?
• Assume a situation of no internet connectivity
• Where possible, give users an ability to connect with others - for example through a forum (this has been particularly successful at FrontlineSMS, with a third of those who download the software joining the online community)
• Don't let a social science approach dominate - it is much better to think in a multi-disciplinary way
• Use technology that is appropriate to the context - don't bring in tools that require knowledge and equipment not already held in the community
• Collaborate, don't compete. Sometimes NGOs can rush to do the same things; examples of genuine cooperation are hard to find

Looking ahead, Ken will be developing functionality for FrontlineSMS that makes use of internet connectivity where this is available. He is also working on finding additional funding to help organizations pay for text messages.