Vodafone Betavine Social Exchange (BSX)

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http://www.betavine.net

Steve Wolak
Steve Wolak

The Betavine Social Exchange is a new project from the Betavine Team. We are working with Vodacom to create a new website that seeks to bring together problem owners with solution providers (developers) and then with Vodacom and the local bussiness community to support the deployment of the solutions.

We are running this project in an open and collaborative manner and would greatly value your input. I am Steve Wolak, Head of Betavine, and I am going to blog the project here: crowdtalk blog.

Please take a look at our website: Betavine

Track what we are doing:
twitter: betavine on twitter
facebook: betavine on facebook

Signup for the South Africa pilot here: BSX Pilot


Contents

BSX Description

Betavine Social eXchange
Using technology to facilitate social change

The Betavine Social Exchange will put the Betavine global developer community in front of local social issues in emerging markets, with the tools to co-create innovative solutions.


Betavine Social Exchange (BSX) builds on Betavine’s existing web functionality and community. As such it remains a non-commercial and open environment.

The Betavine Social Exchange will be a website that:

  • Provides mobile solutions to real social needs ready for deployment via local operators or partners
  • Engages new communities of users:
    • People working in the ‘social sector’, e.g. NGO’s, NPO’s, local government and community groups in emerging markets
    • Non-technical mobile telecoms professionals (e.g. marketers, product managers)
  • Enables participation of developers and users in the co-creation of new mobile apps & services
  • Delivers mobile solutions that are capable of being deployed by local operating companies or third parties


BSX Objectives

  1. Create a "self-service" and "community driven" website
  2. Open up the Betavine community to new groups (NGO’s, NPO’s, social entrepeneurs, non-technical, and local software developers)
  3. Provide mobile solutions to real social needs ready for deployment via local operators or partners
  4. Deliver social and sustainable applications to emerging markets - enable access to communications in emerging markets
  5. Enable time or software donation from Betavine community members to help with problem capture / needs definition, co-creation or testing of social apps


BSX Concept

The basic concept is to connect NGOs etc. who have "problems or challenges" to the mobile developer community who may be able to create "solutions".

The process is as follows:

  1. An NGO, NPO, government department discovers the existence of Betavine Social Exchange and registers with the website.
  2. The problem owner enters a problem description via a form on Betavine. The form will guide the user to enter certain information that will help to clearly describe the problem and also help to categorise it so that it can be easily discovered. The form will allow the problem description to include multi-media .e.g photos, audio, video, documents.
  3. The problem is posted on the Betavine Social Exchange and can now be easily discovered on the "discovery" page. The BSX advertises new problems via a number of media e.g. twitter, facebook groups, LinkedIn ...
  4. A developer discovers the problem and decides to create a solution. The developer goes to the problem description (challenge) page and clicks on "create solution".
  5. A "co-creation" solution space is created ready for the developer to use. The developer who creates the space is automatically the project leader and has the control over who else can join the project. The co-creation (project) space has the following features:
    1. description of the project solution
    2. notes space for the project
    3. forum for discussions
    4. links to resources inc. uploaded apps and open source code
  6. Multiple solutions can be created for one problem if required. Developers may have different approaches to solving a particular problem.
  7. Once a solution / project is marked as "complete" it appears on the discovery page under "completed solutions".
  8. The problem owner and developer (solution provider) can then consider the deployment options that are detailed on the Mobile Solution Deployment page.
  9. Once a solution is selected for deployment the commercial discussions take place off-line between the parties concerned.
  10. Once successfully deployed the status of the project can be updated.


NOTE: Developers will be encouraged to use open source licences for software but this will not be mandatory. All IP remains with the creator of the IP.

Image:BSX_Process3.PNG

BSX Users

Target Users (Actors)
Betavine Users include:

  • Existing global developers
  • New Local developers from the target emerging markets
  • Representatives from NGOs, NPOs, local community groups, local universities and schools
  • Marketing and non-technical mobile professionals
  • Vodafone staff, including existing R&D users as well as new local opco employees and partners
  • Local businesses, entraprenuers who are able to deploy the mobile solutions


In creating the Betavine Social Exchange website we are currently thinking about 3 key groups of stakeholders or "audiences" - owners, contributors and activators.

Owners

This is the group that "own" the problem or challenge that could be addressed by a mobile solution. The problem owners can come from many difference and diverse organisations e.g. NGOs, government departments, universities. The problem owners are those organisations and individuals who understand the situations on the ground and are able to describe it clearly to others.

The engagement of the problem owners with the Betavine Social Exchange is key to its success. The Betavins Social Exchange will seek to make it very easy to describe a problem in a way that is accessible to the problem owner but also helpful to the contributors and activators.

Contributors

This group are the mobile developers or other mobile enthusiasts who have the knowledge or interest in "contributing" towards mobile solutions for the defined problems. Contributions can be helpful pointers, software (open source code), time to lead a co-creation project online, user interface designs or business advice.

Contributions can come from anyone in the world ... the global mobile development community or mobile enthusiasts. The beneficiaries are the local entrepreneurs who are able to deploy a mobile solution that meets a pre-defined and real problem.

Activators

This group is made up of the local businesses or entrepreneurs in the emerging markets that are willing to step forward and "activate" a mobile solution in the local market. One key advantage for the activators is that the customer, the problem owner, has already been indentified and a mobile solution is available to review.

Local activators can pre-register their interest and engage with the co-creation phase of the project.

Funding for local entrepreneurs can come from many different sources but one possibility is to use kiva.

BSX Requirements (version 2, 20/04/09)

BSX will extend the scope of Betavine functionality for developing and testing new mobile apps.
Core new domains are:

  1. Problem Capture / Needs Definition
  2. Co-Creation space & tools
  3. Discovery mechanisms e.g. search, categorisation (social investment domain, country…)
  4. Information to guide the deployment of the mobile solutions


1. Problem Capture / Needs Definition

Description
Problem capture enables BSX Users to define the social issue or community problem they are trying to address. They also identify the target End-Users and define their needs.

Actors: BSX Users, Betavine users

Requirements

  1. A community challenge is split into 2 activities
    1. Problem Capture (BSX Users Only)
    2. Needs Definition
  2. Include video, voice or text as evidence within the definition
  3. Problem capture includes categorization of problem, to enable sorting and clustering
  4. It is possible for a number of people to contribute to Problem Capture or Needs Definition
  5. Each problem has an individual ‘owner’ who controls access to problem definition (individual who “creates” the challenge owns it)


Use Cases

  1. Create new Challenge
  2. Edit Challenge
    • Update a challenge with additional information. E.g. video, voice or text
  3. Close Challenge
    • Stop a challenge from having new solutions
  4. Merge Challenges
  5. Create End-User Persona
    • A profile of the individual or organisation which will benefit from the solution


Status: New Ideas (Draft)

2. Co-creation Space & Tools

Description
Co-Creation is the space where users work together to create a testable product or prototype, through iterations of requirements definition and solution suggestion. The primary function is therefore around collaboration tools supporting iterations of the product development cycle (define, design, develop, test).

Actors: BSX Users, Betavine Users

Requirements

  1. Co-Creation Spaces (projects) have 3 main activities:
    1. Record solution development process e.g. Req. Definition, User Experience Design
    2. Discussion forum on solution, all Betavine members can comment
    3. Upload or point to solution (e.g. Prototype, App, .mobi site)
  2. 1 Challenge Definition can be connected to many –Co-Creation Spaces
  3. A co-creation Space has one Owner who creates the Space and can close it.
  4. A Co-Creation Space be a) open b) closed. Where closed, Space Owner determines access and participation in the Space
  5. It is possible to connect forums and messaging boards to Spaces
  6. It is possible to view results of testing for Solutions developed within the Co-Creation Space.
  7. The owner or "project leader" is able to select the licence for the solution. A pre-defined list of open source licences will be provided plus the ability to enter a URL to any licence of the owner choice. Anyone joining the project will implicitly be agreeing to the licence terms selected.
  8. The owner is able to upload documents and software to the space
  9. The owner is able to write notes which may include:
    • Challenge Statements
    • End-User Descriptions and Needs Definitions
    • User Experience Design
    • Requirements Definition
    • Solution Suggestions (apps, .mobi sites, media)
  10. It is possible to post a message to co-creation Space from a mobile ‘phone.
  11. It is possible to add information to a Space about mobile solution deployment.


Use Cases

  1. Create Co-Creation Space
  2. Join Co-Creation Space
  3. Close a Co-Creation Space
  4. Add solution development notes
    • Define End-User Persona
    • Edit End-User Persona
    • Archive End-User Persona
    • Define User Experience
    • Edit User Experience
    • Define Requirements
    • Edit Requirements
  5. Comment on Solution


Status: New Idea (Draft)

3. Discovery Mechanisms

Description
With these functions, Users can Categorize Challenges, Spaces, Personal Profiles, Forums or Solutions according to their social application. Users can also Search BSX for Challenges, Forums, Solutions, Spaces or People.

Participation functions are already part of Betavine, to complement Discovery functions, these must be extended to support activities in the Social Exchange.

Actors: BSX Users, Betavine Users

Requirements

  1. Solutions, Challenges, Personal Profiles, Spaces, Forums, Resources, and Tools on Betavine are ‘Entities’.
  2. Entities my be listed and categorized
  3. Entities may be searched using key-words related to type of users, or type social investment domain, or environment (e.g. market)
  4. It is possible for Users to add areas of interest or expertise to their personal betavine profile.
  5. It is possible to select ‘automatic categories’ which means the User does not need to define the categories, these will be automatically generated by Betavine (e.g. tags)
  6. It is possible for users to define new categories or sub-categories. ( EG “Health, Infectious disease, HIV”, or “Southern Africa, Namibia, Rural”)
  7. It is possible for Entities to Users to create a web feed or a feed to their mobile ‘phone which includes activity in Entities within a specific category or according to a set of search criteria

Use Cases

  1. Categorise Entity
  2. Search BSX
  3. Create Category
  4. Edit Category
  5. Create Feed


Status: New Idea (Draft)

4. Information on Mobile Solution Deployment

Description
Information on Mobile Solution Deployment(MSD) enables Betavine Users to find information on solution deployment in general and also for specific markets. MSD will be designed to encouarge Solutions developed in BSX and tested on Betavine to become live, sustainable commercial products.

Actors: Deployment Team, BSX Users, Betavine Users

Requirements

  1. It is possible for Solutions (co-creation spaces) to link to a MSD information.
  2. It is possible for Deployment Teams to set the criteria which must be met by Solutions before they can be considered for deployment.
  3. It is possible for Deployment Teams to request reports from BSX which list Solutions or Challenges that meet a specific criteria.
  4. A Solution may be marked as in the "deployment phase".
  5. Once a Solution has been marked as "deployment phase", this is indicated as part of the Entity’s categorisation.
  6. If a Solution has been marked as "deployment phase", it may continue to exist on Betavine.


Use Cases

  1. Add information on deployment options
  2. Edit information on deployment options


Status: New Idea (Draft)

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