'Explosive' is the only way to describe mobile phone growth. Over half of the world's 6.5 billion people now use a mobile and over 60 percent of mobile phone users live in developing countries. Mobile-based innovations are quickly emerging as the new frontier in transforming government, health, banking, education and many other sectors due to fast growing penetration of mobile phones even in the poorest and remotest areas of the globe. Many services can be now made available on a 24x7x365 basis at any place in the world covered by mobile networks, which today means almost everywhere. Through mobiles, for the first time ever, many public and private services have now reached poor households and communities. The demand for mobile applications is fast picking up developing countries. The multitude of highly innovative applications have been developed for mobile banking and payments, phone based information services for farmers and fishermen, locations based medical services and monitoring and data collection in the health sector,  to name a few. However, the enormous potential of mobile devices for transforming delivery of public and financial services is still largely untapped.

This workshop aims to raise awareness of World Bank Group staff of the transformational role mobile technologies can play in improving service delivery, efficiency and transparency by show-casing mobile-enabled innovations in a number of sectors and identifying emerging lessons learned and ways to scale up for achieving operational efficiencies and development impact.

The unique workshop features six sessions including 5 thematic sessions targeted to sector staff and over 20 distinguished experts on mobile innovations, including:

• Mohamed Ally, Director of Center for Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada
• David Edelstein, Director of ICT Innovation, Grameen Foundation
• Pamela Johnson, Co-Founder and Chief Health Officer, Voxiva
• Brooke Partridge, Founder & CEO, Vital Wave Consulting
• Miyanda Mulambo, General Manager, Celpay
• Katrin Verclas, Co-founder and Editor, MobileActive.org
• Johan Hellstrom, Stockholm University
• Kate Place, Program Manager, International Youth Foundation (IYF)
• Sarah Rotman, Associate Microfinance Anyalyst, CGAP

AGENDA

9:00 -10:15 am    Session 1: Overview of Mobile Innovations Space and Enabling Environment

• Chair Introduction:  Deepak Bhatia, Lead e-Government Specialist, GICT 
• Opening Remarks:  Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager, GICT 
• The Opportunity for Mobile Services in Developing World  - Brooke Partridge, CEO, Vital Wave Consulting 
• Commentary:  Rajendra Singh, Sr. Regulatory Specialist, GICT and Yong, Huyn Kwon, Sr. Information Officer, GICT 
• Q&A

10:15 -10:30 am   Coffee Break

10:30 -11:45 am   Session 2: Mobile Innovations in Financial Services 

• Chair Introduction:  Arata Onoguchi, Operations Officer 
• DRC ex-Combatant Allowance Payment Project -  Roisin De Burca, Senior Social Development Specialist, WB 
  Miyanda Mulambo, Managing Director, Celpay Zambia Ltd.
• Banking the Poor via G2P Payments  - Sarah Rotman, Associate Microfinance Analyst, CGAP 
• Key Areas of Mobile Payments / Pre-paid Value Card Solutions  - Harish Natarajan, Payment Systems Specialist, WB
• Commentary:  Andi Dervishi, Global Practice Lead, Investments in Payments, IFC 
• Q&A
    
  11:45 - 1:00 pm    Session 3:  Mobile Innovations in Health
• Chair Introduction:  Arleen Seed, Senior eGovernment Specialist 
• Mobile Communications for Health - Brendan Smith, Senior Consultant, Vital Wave Consulting 
• Rwanda Case Study - Pamela Johnson, Co-Founder and Chief Health Officer, Voxiva; Ruton Hinda, TRACplus and Jean 
• Philbert Nsengimana, Voxiva SARL.       
• Commentary by Andi Dervishi, Global Practice Lead, Investments in Payments, IFC 
• Q&A

        
1:00 - 2:30 pm     Working Lunch & Session 4:  Mobile Innovations in Education

• Introduction:  Mike Trucano, Sr. ICT Policy Specialist 
• Reaching Out to Transform Education -  Mohamed Ally, Professor, Athabasca University
  Q & A – 1 (10 min.)
• Improving Quality of Education through Innovative Use of Mobile Technology - Kate Place, Program
  Manager, International Youth Foundation, BridgeIT       
• Commentary: MobileActive.org representative
• Q & A - 2 
                  

2:30 -3:45 pm       Session 5: Mobile Applications in Agriculture and Rural Development

• Introduction:  Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, WB 
• Framing the Topic and Learning from Experience  - Kerry McNamara, Consultant, ARD
• David Edelstein, Director of ICT Innovation, Grameen Foundation
• Aparjita Goyal, Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank
• ICT in Agriculture Sourcebook - Kerry McNamara 
• Q & A

3:45 - 4:00 pm      Coffee Break

4:00-- 5:15 pm      Session 6:  Mobile Innovations in Governance

• Introduction:  Alfredo Gonzalez, WBI
• Mobile Phones for Good Governance – Scaling Up Issues - Johan Hellstrom, ICT Specialist Stockholm University
• Katrin Verclas, Co-Founder and Editor, MobileActive.Org
• Boris Weber, WBI
• Q & A 

JOIN WEBCAST

Webcast will be available at: www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live