***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Mobenzi is a software service that empowers people to earn money by completing simple tasks on their mobile phones. The Concept Mobenzi is a software service that empowers people to be rewarded for completing simple tasks on their mobile phones. These tasks involve certain types of problems that are difficult for a computer to solve without assistance from a real person – even someone without expert knowledge of the problem. We are seeking to uncover new applications for these ‘human intelligence tasks’ and build the systems to process them, so that we can create novel technology solutions and help thousands of poor people earn additional income. History Clyral is a software development company based just outside of Durban in South Africa. In 2006 we created Mobile Researcher to allow organisations to capture data in remote locations using standard mobile phones. We designed the software as a platform because we had many other application ideas that involved the completion of mobile forms. Pilot Project In 2009 we partnered with the Business Trust, through their Shared Growth Challenge Fund to extend the Mobile Researcher platform to cater for the completion of human intelligence tasks and to pilot the service with low income people in South Africa’s urban poverty nodes. Links To Source / How Mobenzi Works / News Coverage / Etc. Available At [ http://tinyurl.com/yeogj25 ] And/Or [ http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2010/01/mobenzi-mobile-phone-based-empowerment.html] /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 Follow Me On Twitter > http://twitter.com/GMcKBlogs >>> "The Future Is Mobile" >>> _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.