A Picture and a Thousand Words: Visual Scaffolding for Mobile Communication in Developing Regions

Mobile communication is a key enabler for economic, social, and political change in developing regions of the world. This paper describes IBM Picture Discussions, which is a mobile social computing application framework designed to facilitate local information sharing in regions with sparse Internet connectivity, low literacy rates, and having users with little prior experience with information technology. IBM Picture Discussions runs on today's internet-enabled smartphones as well as camera phones with multimedia messaging. In this paper, the authors argue that engaging citizens in developing regions in information creation and information sharing leverages peoples' existing social networks to facilitate transmission of critical information, exchange of ideas, and distributed problem solving. All of these activities can support economic development.