Last weekend three US-based members of the Ushahidi project team were able to get together for two full days of planning for the upcoming Net2 conference. (Photo proof exhibited... Erik, David and Juliana)

This month's Net2ThinkTank questions was:

How Can Nonprofits and NGOs Use Mobile Phones and SMS for Social Change?

Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net, submitted the post, Social Mobile and the Long Tail. You can listen to Ken Banks' presentation at Net Tuesday San Francisco and David Collins' interview with Ken on the NetSquared Podcast.

Sokari at Kabissa posted about Ken this month in the post, Ken Banks at the Mobile World Congress

You also might want to read the Pan African Mobile Activist Network (PAMOMNet)'s notes from The Mobile World Congress.

Katrin Verclas and Corey Ramey at MobileActive submitted a multitude of useful posts covering a range of ways nonprofits and NGOs can use mobile technology for their work:

In a November 29, 2007 article, Reuters reported,

"Worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion -- equivalent to half the global population . . ."

Some nonprofits and NGOs are using mobile phones and SMS to get the word out about their cause, but many are not, which leads to this month's Net2ThinkTank question:

How Can Nonprofits and NGOs Use Mobile Phones and SMS for Social Change?

Share your advice, case studies and ideas for how nonprofits and NGOs can better utilize mobile phones and SMS for their work, or why they shouldn't, in a blog post.

Please tag your post, "net2thinktank" and send a link to it to bbravo@techsoup.org by Wednesday, February 13th, Noon PST.

If you don't have a blog, but would like to contribute to the Net2ThinkTank, write a post here, on the Net2 Community Blog. Any registered user can post on it. Here's how.

" There are about 50 social networks, and they each have thousands of groups of individuals in these little private circles. It is not like you can send out a blast to everyone on the list and expect them to respond enthusiastically. You really have to do what Jacob Colker did, and go door-to-door--the equivalent of door-to-door online and get to know people, spend some time."

Note from NetSquared: Jennifer Sly is the Founder of YouthAssets, a Featured Project at the NetSquared Conference.

Well, I made to Johannesburg! It was a looooong flight - around 15.5 hours, not including the hour we sat on the tarmac. Has anyone travelled to Dulles lately? I forgot about the StarWars like "mobile lounges" they use to transport passengers to and from terminals, gates, and DIRECTLY TO THE PLANE. They packed everyone in it reminded me of New York subways!

i can see some signs that the twitter debate is moving beyond the cappucino-digerati and in to the world of social movements.

andy carvin's done a good post at Can Twitter Save Lives? and i've focussed more on field use in africa in Urgent Action IM Bots and Twitter for Darfur.

And i just heard today from a friend that social campaigning / subversive use of twitter was discussed over the w/end at Barcamp Bangalore

If anyone has any other ideas / examples then please leave a comment or contact me.

dan

 
I have an update from the people at Charitydrives.org to add to the post I wrote about them last month.  Now you can find places to donate stuff using Charitydrives.org from your cell phone.  According to the site, all you have to do is to enter charitydrives.org/mobile into your phone-based web browser, enter your zip code, press Find and voilá, you'll see a list of charity drives within 15 miles of your zip code.

You no longer have an excuse for having a random bag of clothes/books/CDs, in your trunk for 6 months