Over the past 15 years, mobile phone usage in the developed world has rocketed to the point of almost complete saturation, but now developing countries are leading the world in terms of market growth, with many boasting a rate of penetration almost double the global average.

In Africa, that growth is being matched by the uptake of innovative new technology, some of which is being pioneered by experts from Sheffield Hallam University.

The absence of wired infrastructure, particularly telecoms, has resulted in explosive growth in the subscriptions to mobile phone services in many African regions, leading to innovative uses of mobile technologies.

Despite the rapid increase, there is still a desperate shortage of people with the IT skills to meet the demand for new services, but with funding from the British Council's Education Partnerships in Africa, Dr Andy Dearden from the Communication and Computing Research Centre is leading a project which proposes to address the shortage across the continent, particularly by supporting the teaching of IT innovation skills in Uganda. Working in partnership with Makerere University, Kampala, Dr Dearden is also helping to develop a partnership model for universities and industry.

The work in Uganda will build on the experience Dr Dearden and his team already have on the use of mobile technologies to benefit developing regions. An innovative project in India, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), used specially designed software to help farmers get expert advice on crop problems by sending pictures and record audio commentary of the issues they were experiencing. A regional expert with knowledge of the area and farmers themselves would then respond with guidance on dealing with the issue.

'These farmers were incredibly marginalised - typically earning less than two dollars a day - but the potential for using multimedia technology to help them boost their crop yield is enormous. The knowledge is already present in the district and they aren't contacting an anonymous expert from a far-away agricultural research centre. Typically it's more about the strengthening of the connections between people and institutions already on the ground,' commented Dr Dearden.

'The reaction from farmers was great and the service proved to be a real benefit to them. Now we need to test it on a larger scale and build a business model for it to be rolled out to more users.'

The eighteen month project in Uganda has just begun with a team of colleagues from Makerere University due to visit Sheffield Hallam in November, then a return visit from Sheffield to Uganda later in the year.

'We're going to be working closely together across the two universities to develop a plan to bring significant benefits to remote communities through the use of the latest mobile technologies. There are already a range of exciting uses underway, such as mobile banking and outsourcing translation - where mobile phone users can earn call-time by translating messages from English to a local language - but we're confident there is much more that could be done.

'There's no doubt that mobile technologies have already revolutionised the way we all communicate, but their role in remote communities has the potential to be truly transformational in terms of supporting enterprise and innovation to help develop economic and social progress.'

For further information, contact visit www.shu.ac.uk/c3ri