Since its creation in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, users of the web have
grown from one to more than 1.8 billion users (source: 
http://www.internetworldstats.com/), creating services, providing
information, connecting people, creating new jobs and entirely new
sectors of activity. However, despite this rapid and overwhelming
success, more than five billion people remain excluded, unable to
benefit from the emerging Information Society.

Yet the web, and information and communication technologies in
general, has been recognized as a powerful tool to resolve historical
gaps between developed and developing economies, by providing an
infrastructure to deploy minimal services (eg, health, education,
business and government) to rural communities and under-privileged
populations. Attempts to foster the development of those services are
often carried out under the auspices of "bridging the digital divide".
Over the past four years new opportunities have emerged thanks to the
incredible penetration of mobile telephony in the developing
world. Now, minimal infrastructures (GSM networks) and minimal
computing devices (mobile phones) are available to almost five billion
people, including the poorest. Most developing countries that missed
out on the first telephony revolution due to lack of infrastructure
and investment have embraced mobile directly. The same "leapfrogging"
from fixed access to mobile access will also likely apply to the web,
which an increasing number of users in developing countries is
experiencing for the first time on a mobile device, potentially
through very different technologies such as SMS, automatic voice
response or, on higher-end devices, mobile browsing.

But under-privileged populations will only benefit from the web if
they can find accessible and usable information. As underlined in the
W3C Mobile Web For Social Development report
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-mw4d-roadmap-20091208/), the main
issues impacting web usage usage are illiteracy and the lack of
content in local languages. It is critical to focus on addressing
those issues. Our presentation will explore the strengths, weaknesses
and standardization initiatives of each major technology available on
mobile phones (SMS, Voice and Mobile Web) in the context described
above.