Mobile Apps: Beyond song and dance

Participating in the 'mBillionth Grand Jury' held in Sri Lanka last week,
left me both humbled as well as surprised. There is altogether another world of
mobile phone applications, that many of us too worried about the corporate
business, are not even aware of. There are real and meaningful innovations
happening in the Saarc region that could transform the lives of common people.

Students and faculty members of a regional university in Bangladesh, for
instance, have worked out an SMS based college admission system, once students
have been selected after an admission test. Thousands of students and their
parents are saved from the torture of getting their children admitted to a
college, because it involved travel by trains and buses, carrying loads of
documents and money. Similarly in Pakistan, there is a mobile service which is
offered free of cost to citizens to alert them about various medical tests and
vaccinations they are due for, including vaccinations for the new born babies
and infants.

Then there is a mobile users group of dairy and poultry farmers in Sri Lanka,
who keep in touch with each other to network and be updated on new schemes,
fodder availability, FAQs, business opportunities and so on. Members of this
group, to everybody's amazement, exchange notes more than five times a day,
which is often more than you call up your home or office every day. Back home in
Andhra Pradesh, there is a scheme for 1,50,000 school students, where the class
teacher sends SMSs on every students' health data points to a central database
for building a medical record of every student, and the state health department
will take the required action on that.

However, most of these mobile applications were pretty basic and rudimentary,
perhaps not emanating from a revenue motive. In many cases, the conceptualizers
and developers of these ideas have not been able to sit down with the telecom
operators or professional companies to see how it can be developed and taken to
the masses. One reason that these application and content developers say is
that, the application companies steal their ideas if they go to them, or they
get a very raw deal if they go to the operators.

There were many such eye opening stories. Unfortunately we do not hear about
these initiatives. One reason is that for many operators these services do not
make much sense as they do not make any money. The operators are more keen on
games, songs, and movie clips, as that's where the moolah is. I, however,
believe that if these services can be packaged well, they can be a win win for
everybody-the developer, the operator as well as for the consumer. Who would not
want to pay for services that make life better. Perhaps, the government needs to
play a role here. Such mobile applications will truly empower the common people.

ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in