Ana Brandusescu, Renée E. Sieber and Sylvie Jochems

1

The Challenges of Integrating

Texting and Mapping for

Community Development in Canada

Community development: a process where community

members collaborate by means of an organized

intervention with the goal of empowering them vis-à-

vis circumstances that affect their lives (Lyndon 2011)

Mobile phones are already in communities

Case studies in developing world: mobile banking,

epidemiology, fishing & agriculture industries (e Silva et al.

2011; Tortora & Rheault 2011; Aker & Mbiti 2010; Bailard 2009; Molony 2009; Patnaik et al. 2008; Wong 2008;

Abraham 2007)

Few North American case studies; even fewer that are

youth-based (Rice et al. 2008; Walsh et al. 2998; Campbell 2006; Ito 2005)

Texting with online & mobile mapping combination

Challenges: building and maintaining an ICT for

community development

Community development &

mobile phones

Literature review

Sieber, Elwood,

Ghose, Goodchild

Foth, Albert, Flournoy,

Lebrasseur, Loos,

Mante-Meijer, Haddon,

Marshall, Taylor, Yu

McKnight, Kretzmann,

Block, Lyndon,

Goodchild Katz, Donner, Proulx

Yzer & Southwell,

Hardey, Horst &

Miller, Aker & Mbiti,

e Silva (A.S), Sutko,

Salis, e Silva (C.S)

Lyndon, Burns,

Williams,

Windenbank,

Jones & Silva,

Shragge & Toye

Blackburn-Cabrera,

Kayne, Clement,

Gurstein, Longford,

Moll, Shade, Gov’t

of Canada

Zook, Graham, Shelton,

Gorman, Chiao, Roche,

Propeck-Zimmermann,

Mericskay, Forrest

Rice, Lee, Taitt,

Boone, Campbell,

Walsh, White,

Young, Ito

Community Development

Community Mapping

Participatory GIS

Community Informatics

Telecom

Youth & ICTs Crisis

mapping

ICTs (mobile tech)

Methodology

Context: Lachine, Montreal Why is it generalizable?

Inner-city neighbourhood of Montreal; 7,340 low-

income residents (18 % of Lachine pop.) (Statistics Canada 2007)

Table de Concertation Jeunesse de Lachine

Technology project for youth

152

3

Developing the mapping portion of

the application

Ushahidi: Technical expertise;

coding knowledge

Web server-based

Crowdmap: Less technical version

of Ushahidi (no coding

knowledge required)

Cloud-based

For less-technical

experts

Friendly user interface

4

Acquiring the hardware

SIM card from mobile provider with GSM network

Hardware must be compatible with software:

FrontlineSMS

CDMA network vs. GSM network

GSM modem

‘Unlocking’ modem procedure

5

6

Developing the texting portion of

the application

FrontlineSMS

Crowdmap Addon/Plugin

3 ways to enable SMSs on Crowdmap

5,6

SIM & GSM modem

Enabling messages sent to

Espaces Lachine

1. SMS

2. Smartphone app

3. Email

4. Twitter

5. Direct post on website

4

7

Diffusing the application

1. Storyboards (EN/FR)

2. SMS examples on poster

3. Manuals

8,9

102

Collecting geolocated texts

Send emails

Hand out flyers

Create posters

Preliminary data

4

Findings

Becoming a system administrator

Web 2.0 deployments: Ushahidi and Crowdmap

Mashable tools for crises, with little time to develop

and deploy the system

Ushahidi Setup vs. All the Other Stuff

“Verification, documentation,

integration with other

systems, SMS debugging,

& taxonomy development”

9

Contending with resource

availability

1. Restrictions and lack of availability exist in telecom

hardware used to receive SMSs on Crowdmap

2. Cloud-based SMS gateway Clickatell offers no phone

numbers with area codes in Canada

3. Rogers mobile provider has a “Rogers One Number”

SMS gateway but does not provide integration APIs

4. FrontlineSMS is solely GSM network-based, limiting

interoperability with hardware from other telecom

networks (e.g., CDMA)

Obtaining a geolocation from an

SMS

1. Parsing of geolocations in the SMSs:

– Texting-mapping platform does not automatically geolocateSMSs

– E.g., Chez Brandusescu

– 160 character SMS limit

2. Inferring location demands human intervention

– Description of place

– E.g., Weather, sculpture in (unnamed) park

3. Certain methods of sending messages were more effective than others

– participants had to manually enter the URL to see their messages: https://espaceslachine.crowdmap.com

– SMS > smartphone app

Confronting the nature of Canadian

mobile network providers

Telecom environment in Canada

Finding the right provider; GSM vs. CDMA

Interoperability with FrontlineSMS

Library of Congress, ‘unlocking’ of mobile phones

illegal in US (January 26, 2013)

Restrictive attitude affects interoperability

Keeping pace with change

Table struggled to keep pace with changes during

application development

Application development and deployment will likely

exceed the time needed to acquire the actual texts;

Crowdmap platform was less generalizable than

expected

From Classic Crowdmap to New Crowdmap (public

beta): ‘Map Anything’

Upward compatibility is not assured

Conclusion

Mobile phones for CD: Big data, texting-only, handset

access, sociological studies of phone use (e.g., e Silva et al. 2011)

Small data focus & in-house texting application

Promises of Web 2.0 and mobile technologies

Should we even try?

Mobile phones: Connection to physical community when

time limits the physical connection

Value to be an early technological adapter

Early adoption involves risk

Thank You!

Email: ana.brandusescu@mail.mcgill.ca

Twitter: @anab

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[1] http://www.conferencecenterblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/social_media_clutter1.jpg

[2] www.openstreetmap.org

[3] http://goo.gl/maps/0uW5D

[4] espaceslachine.crowdmap.com

[5] http://www.fido.ca/web/page/portal/Fido/SmartCard&lang=en

[6] http://windywindycitytech.wordpress.com/category/modem/

[7] www.ushahidi.com

[8] http://www.frontlinesms.com/ for FrontlineSMS symbol (\o/)

[9] http://www.ushahidi.com/ for Ushahidi symbol (globe))

[10] http://blog.ushahidi.com/2010/05/19/allocation-of-time-deploying-ushahidi/