The academic program within the Next Billion Network encompasses the following six activities:
1.- The NextLab Series, a year-long sequence of project-based coursework
NextLab is a hands-on design course in which students research, develop and deploy mobile technologies for the next billion mobile users in developing countries. Guided by real-world needs as observed by local partners, students work in multidisciplinary teams on term-long projects, closely collaborating with NGOs and communities at the local level, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields.
Students are expected to leverage technical ingenuity in both mobile and internet technologies together with social insight in order to address social challenges in areas such as health, microfinance, entrepreneurship, education, and civic activism. Students with technically and socially viable prototypes may obtain funding for travel to their target communities, in order to obtain the first-hand feedback necessary to prepare their technologies for full fledged deployment into the real world.
Visit NextLab course website
2.- The design of the Next Billion Challenge, a global award for innovation in transactional mobile technologies
Based on an original idea of the Next Billion Network, we working closely with the X-prize foundation to flesh out the details, guidelines, and metrics to create the world’s first global award focused on mobiles technologies for social entrepreneurship in developing countries. Our plan is to collaborate with the X-prize foundation to fund and launch this concept within the academic year of 2009-10.
Link to the original idea submitted to Google’s 10^100 competition for funding
3.- Development of the NextLab toolkit of localized mobile applications
We are designing a mobile technologies storage and retrieval platform that will capitalize our experience developing and deploying applications in the developing world. All the code developed by our student teams every semester being stored and organized in a way that enables its future use as open source. We are finding common components in all this code that become primary candidates for multiple reuse in different applications with different objectives. Our aim is to grow this effort into a universally accessible source of mobile application code for applications in the developing world.
4.- Deployment and testing of on-the-ground projects with local partners
All our student projects stem out of real-world needs as detected by a host of local partners in developing countries, such as non-government organizations, commercial companies of public entities. Once student projects mature, they are taken on by these local organizations for addressing their stated needs. In this vein, the large majority of our projects become real, on-the-ground deployments in low-income communities within one or more developing countries. Through specially designated fellowships and grants, our students play a major role not only in the design but in the implementation and deployment of their technologies locally in developing countries.
Example 1: InnovGreen - Video
Example 2: IRD Pakistan - News - Video
Example 3: Fighting Farmers - Video
5.- Technical collaborations with players in the mobile industry
Some of our student projects stem out of the real needs of commercial companies with an interest in corporate social responsibility. We work closely with these companies to design and deploy mobile technologies that enable them to strengthen their offering to the specific social concern they are addressing.
Example 1: Nokia and Mosoko
Example 2: Telmex and the Fellows Network
Example 3: United Villages - Video
6.- Incubation of opportunities for high tech entrepreneurship in developing countries
The resources and expertise of the Next Billion Network, together with the MIT entrepreneurial infrastructure enable turning promising mobile applications into viable ventures. We help committed entrepreneurs turn their prototypes into working technologies and their working technologies into fundable companies.
Example 1: Assured Labor - Assured Labor Website
Example 2: Moca - Moca Website
Example 3: Dinube - Dinube Website
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