Mobile Significantly Advancing Economic and Development Goals in Tanzania

A report authored by GSMA Intelligence, the research arm of UK-based GSMA, says "Tanzania is undergoing a digital transformation, reflected by the growing number of people connected to communications and internet services. This is having a profound impact on the country's social, cultural and economic frameworks, through enhanced access to key services and improved productivity and efficiency across economic sectors."

Digital Transformation in Tanzania optimistically notes: "The mobile industry is contributing significantly to the realization of Tanzania's development goals through various activities and initiatives by mobile operators and other ecosystem players. This report highlights four important contributions the mobile industry is making to the development goals":

• Access to key services – Mobile operators provide affordable access to life-enhancing services for people in underserved communities. Inclusive and innovative business models have emerged from the convergence of various mobile services, particularly connectivity, mobile financial services, digital identity, and M2M and IoT.
• Productivity and efficiency – Mobile is driving productivity and efficiency gains in businesses and public institutions, especially in the agricultural sector where the technology is helping to address the knowledge and information gap for farmers and enabling efficient interactions and transactions between key players in the value chain.
• Contribution to economic growth and social development – In 2016 the total value added generated by the mobile operators alone (taking into account direct, indirect and productivity effects) was around $2.5 billion, equivalent to 5.2% of GDP. The mobile industry also employs more than 1.5 million people directly and indirectly, equivalent to 2.6% of the population.
• Good governance – Mobile is a key channel for Tanzania's e-government strategy, with public institutions now using mobile money, SMS and USSD platforms to deliver services, collect payments and engage with the general public.

On the topic of mobile money, "Tanzania is one of the most advanced mobile money markets in Sub-Saharan Africa," the report explains. The service has helped to:

• Reduce transaction costs and improve safety for individuals and businesses;
• Enhance the efficiency of the economy by reducing the need for users to travel long distances to bank branches to make transactions in person; and
• Create employment and additional income for tens of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) acting as mobile money agents.

Lastly, the report presents the following conclusion:

Government leadership is a critical factor in establishing a conducive environment and developing the momentum for greater stakeholder collaboration. In addition to implementing key policy enablers to support the growth of the mobile industry, the government and its agencies need to become more involved in charting a holistic plan to leverage mobile technology to realize the development goals, and engage relevant stakeholders in every step of this process. Mobile operators and other key stakeholders in the digital ecosystem all have roles to play.

Mobile operators should find ways to develop economically viable rollout models to expand network coverage; use cost-optimizing technologies and geo-analysis to optimize deployment; leverage APIs, hackathons, own app stores and partners to develop language-specific, relevant content; and embrace interoperability of platforms, such as mobile money and IoT, to drive scale and sustainability. For their part, donors, development partners, private sector players and civil society organisations need to work with policymakers to develop and implement regulatory best practices and partner with governments to improve ICT infrastructure in public institutions.

Are there lessons learned from Tanzania's mobile sector that can be replicated in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa?

Aaron Rose is a board member, corporate advisor, and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of Solutions for a Sustainable World.

Hack Housing: Empowering Smarter Decisions

I attended "Hack Housing: Empowering Smarter Decisions" from February 6-8, 2015 at Zillow's corporate headquarters in Seattle, Wash. Co-sponsored by the Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington with participation from the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the focus of the hackathon was to develop products and create solutions to aid home buyers and renters with particular needs. Specifically, teams were asked to develop creative solutions that will make it easier for first-time homebuyers, low-income renters and senior citizens to find a home that meets their needs.

Deep housing data is more accessible than ever thanks to companies like Zillow and federal open data efforts. This wealth of information, however, remains fragmented across a number of dense .gov websites and can be confusing even for the experts. Hackathon participants had access to newly released government data sets on topics like federal housing programs, apartment buildings with accessory dwelling units and transit information. In addition, Zillow made available its data on home values and rents.

GeekWire published an article about the hackathon, which over 200 individuals attended grouped into 30 teams, explaining that "ideas ranged from a social network that helps people find accommodating roommates, to software that calculates the return on investment for landlords interested in offering space to low-income renters, to a tool that lets senior citizens filter available housing based on specific accessibility requirements like ramped entryways, wide doorways, or supportive bars in the bathroom, for example."

Aaron Rose, Bernard Chester,

Mengqian Liu, Jiaming Liu, and

Eric Kang attend "Hack Housing:

Empowering Smarter Decisions" on

Feb. 6-8, 2015 in Seattle, Wash.

Over the course of the weekend, I collaborated with a group of talented individuals in creating an app that provided a list of housing options available based on specific search criteria such as purchase price, geographic location, and local services available (i.e., schools, health clinics, public transportation, etc.). While I am proud of the app our team developed, our app was not picked for one of the three top places by a panel of judges that included Zillow Chief Technology Officer David Beitel, UW Computer Science & Engineering professor Ed Lazowska, and the City of Seattle's Deputy Mayor of External Affairs, Hyeok Kim.

The $10,000 first-place prize was awarded to SmartMove, an app developed by Tim Lebell, Jake Grajewski, and David Puerto that determines the best place to live based on proximity to a person's most-visited locations, like a workplace, the grocery store, and other places critical to their daily lives.

The second place prize of $5,000 went to a team who created "Push to Rent," which, as explained in the GeekWire article, lets users upload rental application information once and easily use the data again for future listings. For those that may not have a smartphone or Internet access, the app has a text message feature that gives people a way to apply via text messaging."

The third place prize of $3,000 went to Team Cellophane who came up with "Zillow Wheeler," "which provides a better way for those with disabilities to search for accessible housing. Instead of one checkbox for 'accessible' that many sites feature today, the team's app would include filters for specific housing options like roll-in showers or kitchens with adequate counter heights."

Overall, the "Hack Housing: Empowering Smarter Decisions" was a great experience where I met talented people trying to create innovative solutions through mobile applications to help first-time homebuyers, low-income renters and senior citizens to locate a home that meets their particular needs.

Hackathon Where Wearables and Gaming Come Together

Photo of Alex Donn: AT&T Mobility

While writing my previous post about the 2014 AT&T Developer Summit, I located my notes from the AT&T | SIC Mobile App Hackathon - Wearables event that I attended on October 26-27, 2013 in Seattle, Wash. Focused on wearables and gaming apps, I attended this event to learn what great ideas people are generating that can help live a healthier lifestyle or overcome physical or mental ailments. Many of the apps produced complement the mHealth app that my colleagues and I are developing that provides health and wellness information to people with mobile devices in emerging economies. While Alex Donn, Developer Evangelist at AT&T Mobility, wrote a summary of the event on the AT&T Developer Blog, there are a couple of items worth mentioning in this post.

18 teams presented during the hackathon, which produced five finalists that made subsequent presentations for prizes at the Seattle Interactive Conference on October 29, 2013. While not among the top three winners, I was impressed with the SmartChair, which allows a user to monitor the time he or has is sitting and notifies the user when it is time to take a break. Too many people, myself included, spend long hours sitting at a desk for long periods of time. We get focused on completing our tasks and fail to take breaks that are good for mental and physical well being. A device like SmartChair will result in a healthier working environment, which will produce fewer health issues and a reduction of medical costs.

I also appreciated the app produced by GoalPhysics that provides "breakthrough performance through big data, not drugs." Winning third third place overall, this app collects large amounts of data from athletes wearing apparel with integrated sensors. Not only does this app provide a competitive edge for professional athletes where hundredths of a second could separate a winner from a tenth place finisher, but the recreational athlete may benefit from collecting large amounts of their performance data, in real-time, during exercise routines to learn areas of strengths and weaknesses.

A video of the presentations of the five finalists may be viewed through this link or the video embedded below (GoalPhysics is the first presenting team):



Aaron Rose is an advisor to talented entrepreneurs and co-founder of great companies. He also serves as the editor of Solutions for a Sustainable World.

2014 AT&T Developer Summit

I attended the AT&T Developer Summit from January 4-6, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nev. The three-day event consisted of a mobile app hackathon, executive panels, and speaking sessions. This was my second year attending the AT&T event, which I find valuable in meeting developers and technology entrepreneurs, as well as learning about the latest trends in mobile technology.

With cash and prizes totaling over $200,000, more than 100 teams developed an app during the hackathon. Participants at this year's hackathon were able to choose between a Wearables Track and an AT&T API Track. You can read about the winning teams at this link on the AT&T Developer Blog.

25 panels and speaking sessions were scheduled during this year's conference. I particularly found value in attending "Let’s Drop the 'Mobile' from Web Development" by Doug Sillars, Performance/Optimization Lead, Developer Advocacy at AT&T. Noting that "with a plethora of platforms and buckets of browsers (each contributing a variety of versions), displaying content uniformly can be a challenge. The growth of mobile devices has exponentially expanded the landscape (and additionally added a sundry of screen sizes). Is developing separate experiences for mobile and desktop users really the best way to reach your users?" With a greater percentage of people accessing the Internet through mobile devices, Dr. Sillars presented a question that many developers ask: Is developing separate experiences for mobile and desktop users really the best way to reach your users?

In his presentation, Dr. Sillars explained, "There is no more 'Mobile Web', it is all just 'The Web' on different screens." He noted that greater than 50 percent of Amazon.com's customers shopped via a mobile device mobile during the 2013 holiday season and in September 2013, the number mobile unique visitors equalled those accessing ESPN.com on a desktop. Furthermore, Dr. Sillars said page size and speed index are essential to keeping customers engaged with your site. An ideal website accessed through a mobile device should upload in less than three seconds.

Another presentation worth discussing in this post is "Building an Amazing Mobile Experience for Multiple Devices" by Lotus Chen, Chief Technology Officer of Taiwan based-ASUS. Noting that Android is the world's most popular mobile operating system during his presentation, Mr. Chen said mobile content developers are facing an increasing challenge of developing content with a consistent user interface (UI) design given that Android powers many different device types with different screen sizes and form factors, ranging from small-size phones, mid-size tablets, to large television sets.

With respect to supporting different screen sizes, Mr. Chen recommends optimizing the layout by providing different layout resources for different screen sizes. On larger devices, he says create compound views to take advantage of extra screen real estate, so you can display more content and ease navigation. Moreover, Android scales the drawable resources based on screen density. To ensure the app screen looks presentable, Mr. Chen suggests using different version of resources need to be available for different screen densities.

I enjoyed the experience of attending the 2014 AT&T Developer Summit where I met some interesting people developing great apps. I also learned new content development and product monetization ideas, which I will incorporate into the business strategy of ROI3, Inc. There is no question that the world is accessing the Internet via mobile devices. Company's that are able to develop content optimized for mobile devices will gain a competitive edge.

Aaron Rose serves as President and CEO of ROI3, Inc., a Seattle, Wash.-based company that empowers people in emerging economies through innovative, technology-based solutions. He is also the editor of Solutions for a Sustainable World.