humanitarian.info

MobileActive is always a great source for news about how mobile telephony is being adopted, adapted and hacked by people around the world, across politics, development and relief work. A recent post looked at what’s happening in the latest round of the Middle East conflict, gathering together a number of different stories.

In particular they link to the site 160 characters, which has an article called Mobile Messaging Goes to War. The article sums up its position with “Mobile Telephony is a Service not a Weapon.” Many people are worried by the ‘abuse’ of mobile telephony – but mobile technology is just a tool, and talking about it in terms of use or abuse isn’t very… well, useful.

One use that isn’t mentioned is whether or how mobile technology can be used to bridget the divide between Lebanon and Israel. It’s too soon to hope for such a thing, but maybe a new initiative in the vein of Hello Peace – an sms reconciliation service or something similar? Check out the Hello Peace site – it’s a fantastic initiative.

OCHA have established a virtual Humanitarian Information Centre for Lebanon at http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/lebanon/. Given the logistical and political issues on the ground, a virtual HIC makes a lot of sense; but of course it needs people to be using it if it’s going to be useful. Sounds glib, I know, but there you go. Pass the link on to anybody you know working on Lebanon.