Mobile Technology Can Aid Spread of Healthcare Info and Education, Panelist Says

Mobile phone technology can help developing communities improve access to healthcare information and improve education, said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations during a Time magazine event Wednesday. There’s “enormous” potential for mobile to improve and increase global health, she said.

"People don’t know what are just some very basic best health practices,” Coleman said. “There’s an access point when women are having a baby, they can get information then. But then they may not see any type of community health professional until the next baby is delivered. I think in between you can use mobile technology through texting and very simple mobile technology to provide information to mothers and fathers, to community leaders, as a way of providing health information they need.” It can also be used to combat misinformation or stereotypes about health issues, Coleman said. There are rumors in some countries that the polio vaccine can make women sterile or that the West is using polio vaccination as a way to reduce the birth rates in Muslim-majority nations, she said. “Being able to combat that propaganda … mobile is a platform to do that."

Mobile can also be used to help educate the “poorest of the poor” around the world -- those off the grid, Coleman said. While people in developing nations often have access to cellphones, these are often the most basic models, not the smartphones common in the U.S., she said. Even those phones can be an incredible tool for education using text messaging, Coleman said.

"There’s a lot of experimentation going on how to use that to bring learning,” Coleman said of text messages. “We're not talking about a whole course for kids -- it’s not the equivalent of second grade. But some of them are picking up basic literacy from texting. Where you really see the impact is with teachers. … So now there are a number of initiatives that are trying to use mobile technology to improve teacher training and to update lesson plans for teachers. It doesn’t replace the teacher of course … that is still too cumbersome and unwieldy with these not-smartphones that they're using. But yes, through texting and through some of the mobile applications, they're getting lessons plans done on a national basis … and you are seeing gains there."

Mobile technology also has the power to change how entire industries operate, said CEO Travis Kalanick of Uber. As the taxi-hailing app has launched in the 17 cities where it now operates, it has sometimes encountered resistance from the local taxi industry and government regulators, he said. Regulators can be especially problematic where they have developed a tendency to protect the companies they are tasked with regulating, Kalanick said. In Washington, D.C., for instance, Uber encountered trouble when the D.C. Council attempted to restrict the company from operating by amending the city’s taxi regulations. Uber and its customers took action, tweeting and e-mailing members of the council so numerously that the council decided to withdraw the “Uber Amendment,” Kalanick said.

CEA President Gary Shapiro had praised the council’s decision to rescind the “Uber Amendment” over the summer. “The life or death of an exciting new transportation alternative that offers choice to Washington-area residents and visitors should not be legislated by the City Council,” he said in a July letter to council. “Uber is an innovative and successful technology company, and, like many, Uber’s business model disrupts the status quo.”