The Role of Open Source Technologies and Mobile Applications in Rural Development

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The Role of Open Source Technologies and Mobile
Applications in Rural Development

• Oladejo Ayobami Abiodun
• (Team Leader, Nigerian Anti-Scam Network)
• www.cybercrime.org.ng www.ayooladejo.org.ng/blog
  me_at_ayooladejo.org.ng

NIGERIA ROCKS!
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Definitions! Définitions!! Definiciónes!!!

• ICT - Information and Communications Technology
  refers to the study and use of electronic
  processes for storing, exchanging and making
  information available.
• Open source describes practices in production and
  development that promote access to the end
  product's sources. Some consider it as a
  philosophy, and others consider it as a pragmatic
  methodology. The open source model can allow for
  the concurrent use of different agendas and
  approaches in production, in contrast with more
  centralized models of development such as those
  typically used in commercial software companies.
  Open source as applied to culture defines a
  culture in which fixations are made generally
  available.
• Mobile Applications refers to those services
  offered through Mobile Technologies like the GSM
  and WCDMA.
• Rural areas are sparsely settled places away
  from the influence of large cities and towns.
  People in rural areas live in villages, on farms
  and in other isolated houses, as in
  pre-industrial societies. Lifestyles in rural
  areas are different than those in urban areas,
  mainly because limited services, especially
  public services are available. Governmental
  services like law enforcement, schools, fire
  departments, and libraries may be distant,
  limited in scope, or unavailable

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What is the Fuss About ICT?

• It is a big factor when determining the
  social-economic development of a nation the
  developed countries of the world have reached
  enviable heights in the development and
  deployment of Information and Communications
  Technology solutions.
• The wealth of a country can no longer be measured
  by the abundance of its natural resources but by
  the quality of its citizenry. We can only get
  quality citizens in a nation where there is a
  free flow of communication, where access to
  information is very seamless.
• As expected, a good level of development is
  noticed in the societies that have positively
  harnessed the potentials of ICT for development
  this confirms that socio-economic powers as well
  as ICT walk together.
• ICT is a veritable tool for bridging the digital
  gap. ICT is so universal in nature and practice,
  Cisco routers in the USA are the same in Togo,
  and Linux OS in the UK is not different from the
  one in Nigeria. Introducing ICT properly to the
  rural areas will ensure a very fast convergence
  process in development.

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The Link

• For Rural Societies in Nigeria to produce quality
  citizens and rise to the challenges of the 21st
  Century, an holistic approach to ICT with a view
  for development must be taken.
• ICT remains the best tool for an easy convergence
  between the urban centers and the rural areas.
• Deploying the needed technologies is a very
  tasking and costly venture.
• Cost of Hardware, Software and qualified
  professionals could be daunting and unrealistic.
• Proprietary software from known vendors are based
  on closed source and are hard to modify to suit
  peculiar needs for specific targeted groups.
• The kind of money that will be used to deploy
  software solutions for rural areas cannot be
  raised due to the poverty level of inhabitants.
• It all kind of looks gloom for rural areas ?

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..Here Comes the Solution.

• OPEN SOURCE!

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Why Open Source!

• It is Free!
• From the name, it is really open and programmers
  can read, redistribute, and modify the source
  code for a piece of software, the software
  evolves. People improve it, people adapt it,
  people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed
  that, if one is used to the slow pace of
  conventional software development, seems
  astonishing
• Covers a wide array of solutions. There are many
  open source operating systems and applications
  and most of them have proven to be better than
  proprietary software packages.
• They are readily accessible and distribution is
  very easy as there are no restrictions in
  spreading the love!
• Deployment of open source technologies is done
  with philanthropy in consideration.
• They are developed without tying them to specific
  hardware platforms like the proprietary
  platforms i.e. they are platform dependent.

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Open Source Technologies

• Linux A technology that revolutionized the
  computing industry. OS are very costly and very
  closed until Linux came. Based on the Unix OS,
  Linux has may flavors including RedHat, Mandriva,
  Susse, e.tc
• MySQL An answer to databases like MS SQL,
  Oracle and DB2. This powerful database system is
  free and can accomplish feats comparable to its
  costly bothers. MySQL Database Server MySQL is
  the world's most popular open source database.
  Over five million installations use MySQL to
  power high-volume Web sites and other critical
  systems business including industry-leaders like
  The Associated Press, Google, NASA, Sabre
  Holdings and Suzuki.
• Apache Coined from an Indian tribes name,
  Apache is the Number One HTTP Server On The
  Internet The Apache HTTP Server Project is an
  effort to develop and maintain an open-source
  HTTP server for modern operating systems
  including UNIX and Windows NT. The goal of this
  project is to provide a secure, efficient and
  extensible server that provides HTTP services in
  sync with the current HTTP standards.
• PHP Hypertext Preprocessor - PHP is a widely-used
  general-purpose scripting language that is
  especially suited for Web development and can be
  embedded into HTML. We use PHP as our CGI
  language to develop powerful back-end
  technologies.

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Open Source Technologies..Ctd.

• Mambo- Mambo is one of the most powerful Open
  Source Content Management Systems on the planet.
  It is used all over the world for everything from
  simple websites to complex corporate
  applications. Mambo is easy to install and simple
  to manage.
• PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is a highly scalable, SQL
  compliant, open source object-relational database
  management system. With more than 15 years of
  development history, it is quickly becoming the
  de facto database for enterprise level open
  source solutions.
• Zope - Zope is an open source application server
  for building content management systems,
  intranets, portals, and custom applications. The
  Zope community consists of hundreds of companies
  and thousands of developers all over the world,
  working on building the platform and Zope
  applications. Zope is written in Python, a
  highly-productive, object-oriented scripting
  language.
• BIND - BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is an
  implementation of the Domain Name System (DNS)
  protocols and provides an openly redistributable
  reference implementation of the major components
  of the Domain Name System. The BIND DNS Server is
  used on the vast majority of name serving
  machines on the Internet, providing a robust and
  stable architecture on top of which an
  organization's naming architecture can be built.

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We Have Used Open Source For -

• Open source government primarily refers to use
  of open source software and technologies in
  traditional government organizations and
  government operations such as voting.
• Open source politics is a term used to describe
  a political process that uses Internet
  technologies such as blogs and email to provide
  for a rapid feedback mechanism between political
  organizations and their supporters.
• Open source journalism referred to the standard
  journalistic techniques of news gathering and
  fact checking, and reflected a similar term that
  was in use from 1992 in military intelligence
  circles, open source intelligence. It is now
  commonly used to describe forms of innovative
  publishing of online journalism, rather than the
  sourcing of news stories by a professional
  journalist.
• OpenDocument An open document file format for
  saving and exchanging editable office documents
  such as text documents (including memos, reports,
  and books), spreadsheets, charts, and
  presentations.
• Ecommerce Taking the market place to the Cyber
  world to guarantee access to the outside world.

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Mobile Technologies

• More rural communities are getting access to
  mobile technologies
• GSM is really spreading in Nigeria.
• There is an urgent need to apply the advantages
  offered by mobile technologies in bridging
  digital divides.
• Use of GSM value added services products like
  GPRS, CSD and WAP can solve a little bit of
  Internet access problems in rural areas.
• SMS is a very good tool to solve major
  communication problems in rural areas.
• SMS can be innovatively used to help rural
  farmers in getting information like weather
  forecast, price forecast, agricultural extension
  services, e.t.c.
• The opportunities are unending!

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A Peep Into the Advantages of FOSS and Mobile
Applications.

• Access to relevant and authentic information.
• Use of tools like GIS in helping local farmers.
• Provision of job opportunities for local youths
  who would have gotten training on the usage of
  Open source technologies.
• Easier set-up of Digital Villages in rural areas.
  
• Easier connection to the global community.
• Integration of local products into cyber space
  through ecommerce.
• Access to quality materials online for better
  education.

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Best Practices Examples

• The Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE)
  wireless project"... provides crop growers with
  up-to-date commodity information - farmers can
  access daily fruit and vegetable prices from a
  dozen markets through a text message, or
  SMS...The aim is to empower farmers by giving
  them information that will enable them to
  negotiate decent prices with traders, or head to
  markets safe in the knowledge of what to expect
  for their produce...The KACE initiative gets more
  than 2,000 SMS hits a month, is an example of
  people making the most of the technology they can
  afford...ICT is seen by many as having the
  potential to help the world's poorer countries
  develop and diversify their economies a force to
  allow developing nations to participate in global
  markets and modernise traditional industries..."

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Best Practices Examples

• San Diego de Los Altos is a small rural town in
  central Venezuela. Because the town is very
  small, the central government does not allocate
  enough funds to support their economy and
  education. For this reason, the community is
  starting a series of initiatives to cope with
  their difficult situation. Among the initiatives,
  we have that the public Library has computers
  with Linux on them. In fact, you can see Jr. High
  and High School students using them as something
  natural. Another initiative, of the community, is
  the realization of Linux Installation festivals,
  one of such festivals was organized, last March,
  with the help of the Free Software Community in
  Venezuela. More than 50 persons attended (a high
  number considering that it is a rural community)
  between artists, farmers, and students.

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Conclusion

• "Information technology is not an end in itself,"
  "It's a means to improve health care, improve the
  environment, strengthen democracy, and reduce
  poverty.
• Open communication and the exchange of
  informationwhether its through a mobile phone,
  a single shared Internet terminal in a village,
  or an inexpensive handheld information appliance
  linked to a wireless networkis one way to begin
  bridging the gap between rich and poor.
• It will take us to harness the powers of these
  technologies to improve our rural areas.
• We will Succeed!
• Nigeria Rocks!