Mobile My.COOP has its first client already: Nigeria!

Last week the ITC welcomed 2 delegates from Nigeria who are interested in working with the ILO to deliver up-to-date agricultural cooperative training in their country. They reported that the original MATCOM training was very popular there, but it has become very dated, and the users are looking forward to new material. Tom and I met with them to discuss the possibility of integrating mobile phones into the new My.COOP training system, and they loved the idea!

They told us that in Nigeria there is a lack of infrastructure that makes connectivity difficult. On one hand, internet connectivity is a problem, coupled with access to computers and electricity. But another issue is travelling from A to B - when there is a lack of digital connectivity then it often becomes necessary for inhabitants to make long journeys between towns and villages in order to communicate and interact. Especially in rural contexts, this means that people lose a lot of time and money, because in Nigeria villages are often spread very far apart.

However, the mobile phone is very diffused and there is great potential to create new systems around this object that deliver training directly to the users and link them up with other actors in the system, allowing them to experience the more interactive and even social elements of a F2F training experience at a distance.

My.COOP is a training project for regions all over the world, but to pilot the system it makes sense to focus in on one context and prototype how the learning experience can be adapted to the specific needs of that area. The delegates were keen to explore how the standardised My.COOP material could be related to the Nigerian context. Perhaps the mobile elements could become a tool for "customising" the standard printed material in different regions, for example through storytelling of local case studies?

As a large country Nigeria also presents its own specific technical challenges for the pilot and I think this is very healthy for the project. As one of the delegates said, "if you can make it work for Nigeria, you can make it work for any African country!"

The ITC is looking to become more mobile in every sense, however 3 specific opportunities have been idenitified for my project direction:

1// Re-design the Lifelong E-Learning course (http://lifelongelearning.itcilo.org). This is a blended course (partially taught at the ITC campus in Turin, partially taught at a distance) targeted at training professionals in developing countries, teaching them how they can integrate ICT into their practices for technology-enhanced learning. The 6th edition of the course is due to be held in June 2011.

2// Design the new MATCOM course. This is a large-scale international project currently underway, led by the ILO headquarters in Geneva. MATCOM (Material and Techniques for Cooperative Managament Training) was originally a large project undertaken by the ILO in the 1970s, with the goal of teaching farmer organisations how to set up and manage agricultural cooperatives. The project came to a close after 10 years, however in 2009 the ILO made the decision to re-launch the MATCOM proejct with new training material written to reflect a changed world context. The raw content is almost complete, which the ITC will transform into training material and deliver through new courses (blended and on the field) from late 2011 - 2012.

3// Re-design a Delnet course (www.delnetitcilo.net) These are distance learning courses offered by the department of Enterprise, Microfinance and Local Development (EMLD). At the moment the courses are run completely online, however they often focus on post-conflict recovery and development (such as a recent course in Haiti), a context highly prone to limited internet access.Therefore the mobile phone could become an essential tool in communication and disseminating knowledge in this critical context.

Now I'm gathering more info on these 3 options so that I can weigh up the pros and cons, then I'll post the final decision on here next week!

Apps4Africa is a contest launched in July 2010 to highlight the talent of local developers in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. Across the region, the number of IT graduates and tech entrepreneurs is exploding, providing new opportunities to foster social and economic growth. The challenge was to find innovative technological solutions to everyday problems, and the winners were as follows:

1st Place // iCow, a voice-based mobile application that helps farmers track the estrus stages of their cows, enabling farmers everywhere to better manage breeding periods as well as monitor cow nutrition leading up to the calving day.

2nd Place // Kleptocracy Fighters Inc. allows citizens to record and report real time information on government corruption. Reports can include: audio, video, text, and will be forwarded to legal and media partners to help publish cases of corruption.

3rd Place // Mamakiba is a patient-facing SMS savings calculator and prepayment tracking tool specifically designed to help low-income women save and prepay for their maternal health needs such as ante-natal care and clinical delivery.

Honorable Mention // Fogs Funeral Announcements, an application for generating death and funeral announcements via sms, as radio and newspaper are costly in the region. Fog will allow users to ensure this news reaches friends, family, former schoolmates and colleagues – an important Kenyan custom.

http://www.apps4africa.org/

http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/2010/10/meet-the-lady-behind-the-icow-idea/