Mobile empowerment based on mobile technologies allows the development and implementation of new business models and new business opportunities targeting micro enterprises and their customers in developing countries like South Africa.
The goal of MOSAIC 2B is to develop and test a new framework that uses cloud-based applications, innovative low-cost internet delivery mechanisms (delay tolerant networks and opportunistic communications) and affordable mobile technologies to unlock new mobile business opportunities, especially in rural villages.
The consortium of European and South African partners builds upon the use case of mobile digital cinemas to run real life experiments demonstrating and evaluating the technological and economic viability of according innovations. In essence MOSAIC 2B delivers a combination of mobile digital cinemas for edutainment (educational content and entertainment), mobile business and consumer services as well as visual analytics and interactive tools to obtain real-time knowledge of on-going processes, to support decision making, and to increase business opportunities. Ultimately the business case of South African micro entrepreneurs delivering edutainment to rural consumers serves as a showcase for broad based economic activities at the bottom of the economic pyramid in the developing world. Adapted innovative services at affordable cost offer sustainable access to new markets on a global scale to the benefit of underserviced populations, local and European service providers.
As mentioned previously, the goal of MOSAIC 2B is to develop and test a new framework that uses cloud-based applications, innovative low-cost internet delivery mechanisms (delay tolerant networks and opportunistic communications) and affordable mobile technologies to unlock new mobile business opportunities, especially in rural villages. In areas where high-speed Internet access (3G and beyond) is often costly or unavailable, MOSAIC 2B will implement a low cost content delivery infrastructure, that might be operated with the help of public transportation (community-based infrastructure), private taxis, etc. The proposed MOSAIC 2B’s framework will provide communities in rural developing regions of South Africa with
- low-cost mechanisms to deliver multimedia content to local microentrepreneurs that will deliver edutainment via mobile cinemas in rural communities.
- mechanisms to identify and protect the copyright of the multimedia content delivered. One of the solutions is to apply watermarks that include the information about the location where the visualization of the multimedia content will take place.
- mobile business services to suit the needs of micro businesses (entrepreneurs) delivering edutainment to rural communities.
- multi-cultural mobile interfaces to visualize delivered content, and to gather usage statistics. MOSAIC 2B will identify the cultural differences and specific requirements within the targeted cultures, and develop multi-cultural interfaces that reflect their habits.
- User-friendly visualization and analysis tools to integrate, correlate, fuse, analyse, process real-time data prevenient from multiple sources and data-sets, which will be crucial to micro-entrepreneurs because they will provide them with an easy understand of the business dynamics and opportunities. At present there are many analytic tools that take into account also the geo-location; however their use is very complex or they don’t provide full support to the requirements of decision makers, who are expecting to perform simulation based on visual representation of real conditions.