The Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit was launched in India last week, encouraging the adoption of the mobile internet, to ensure that people have the critical skills they need to become part of the digital era. It also serves to support our members to reach their audiences and provide relevant and useful training for internet services.
The MISTT is the culmination of a multi-stakeholder approach to a digital skills toolkit for organisations and partners to use in their endeavours to support citizens becoming digitally literate.
Following the launch, as lead of the MISTT programme, I was in India to engage with our key partners, and other digital skills stakeholders, in order to seek their feedback and learn more of their own initiatives in this space. We also explored how the GSMA should seek to develop the MISTT in order to maintain its relevance and usefulness to those organisations striving towards a more digitally connected world. The MISTT, as a modular, living toolkit will be improved and adapted over the course of its lifetime to reflect the changeable circumstances of those it serves.
The week began positively, with the Indian Express capturing national interest in the MISTT by publishing an article explaining the reasoning behind our launch: ‘Mobile internet awareness and digital skills are intrinsically linked’.
Indeed, the potential impact in India of the MISTT, and other curricula like it, was underscored by Sharad Mehrotra, CEO of Telenor India, and one of our key partners, who stated, “There’s going to be a paradigm shift. With the Digital India initiative, with the Smart Cities initiative, and with the MISTT, we are going to see a different world in the next four to five years.”
To watch Sharad’s full comments – and comments from our other partners – please click here
Here are some of the highlights from my week.
National Digital Literacy Mission meeting
Mobile internet awareness and digital skills are so profoundly important, that the Indian government have launched the National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM), as an integral part of the larger Digital India campaign, to help combat the digital skills gap in India. The NDLM is set to provide ICT training to 1 million people, in its first phase, and provide critical digital skills training to at least one person in each household by 2020.
In order to achieve this goal, there needs to be a shift in the Indian population’s understanding of, and approach to, mobile technology. If Indian citizens do not understand the fundamental benefits the mobile internet can provide, whether it be searching for jobs or health information, or just watching a music video, they will not be motivated to learn how to use it.
To this end the Connected Society Programme has opened discussions with the NDLM team to explore the potential of integrating the MISTT into the NDLM curriculum to educate people with critical digital skills, particularly focusing on mobile internet services. Watch this space to find out more.
Workshop
On Wednesday 18th May, the GSMA held the MISTT Workshop attended by Airtel, Telenor, Vodafone, BBC Media Action, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Gram Vanni, Grameen Foundation, Google and Nasscomm. Whilst discussing the strengths and weaknesses of existing digital skills training methods, two things quickly became apparent from our experts’ experiences. Firstly, it was clear that trainees responded particularly well to visual aids – an idea reflected in the visually-rich nature of the MISTT’s own Resources section. Secondly, allowing trainees the space and time to experiment with the new technology in a supportive environment was critical. We also discussed the need to make these services relevant to the trainees by providing tangible, real-life examples of how they, or their peers, have benefitted from them, whilst reinforcing value in their own lives.
The brokering of exchanges likes these fosters closer collaboration, and partnerships, between those working to eradicate the digital literacy gap. There remain 2.5bn people in emerging markets who are not connected to, or benefiting from, the mobile internet – often even if they are covered by a 3G network. Providing the unconnected with these critical skills unlocks access to a rich bank of untapped opportunity for those populations.
Whilst we don’t necessarily have all the answers immediately to hand on how to close the digital literacy gap, the bringing together of like-minded experts facilitates the conversation enormously and promotes the cross-pollination of ideas and techniques. There’s also an inherent value in learning what doesn’t work.
Filming
In addition to the film I shared above, I spent the final days of the trip in Pune, Maharashtra, to witness the MISTT being used in live training sessions. Accompanying me was a local film crew who recorded some great footage of the training and also conducted interviews with both the trainers and the trainees. This was no mean feat in 50 degree heat, and was only achieved by tremendous support from the crew, accommodating store customers and a supportive Telenor local team.
We’ll share this new film with you as soon as it’s cut.
At the end of this busy week, three important themes clearly emerged. Firstly, there is the potential to create more modules that are relevant and speak to the benefits of the mobile internet for citizens. Secondly, to ensure full digital empowerment for underserved citizens, we must form partnerships to deliver relevant training to ensure we reach scale. Thirdly, there must be clear business models for partners through the company structure to deliver digital skills training that ensures impact and value for practitioners delivering training programmes.
If you’d like to discuss the MISTT or explore partnership models, please contact [email protected], we’d love to hear what you think.
To learn more about the MISTT, please visit:
· GSMA MISTT online tool
· The Indian Express article on ‘Mobile internet awareness and digital skills are intrinsically linked’
· GSMA blog article on the MISTT
· Watch our Introduction to the MISTT video, with commentary from key partners: click here