Initial Position
If public transport in a metropolitan area is insufficient and residents cannot easily travel long distances, a city with a single centre represents a problematic situation. Nairobi and especially its semi-urban areas are centralised. It is questionable whether decentralisation can only be considered when planning an area. Is it also possible to intervene by digital media?
Companies already provide services that help to shorten the physical distance: services that support people in sharing information and that make travelling unnecessary. By researching these services we intend to specify to which extent information technology âshortensâ the physical distance, whether digital decentralisation supports mobility and whether it can compensate for urban centralisation.
Mobile Leverage: ⺠Itâs the Futureââ¹
Mobile telephones are the most widespread information and communication technology medium in Kenya. The availability of handsets and the spread of network providers as well as the resulting growth of the market have been profitable and successful both on a macroeconomic and an individual level. The increasing network density has attracted the interest of global mobile communications firms and of local service providers. Mobile telephones are thus becoming increasingly more interesting as a platform for innovative services, which are offered to end users independently of their actual location. During our investigations the focus was placed on the various services on offer, rather than the hardware needed to run them. The comparatively affordable infrastructure, and the concomitant hope of being able to make the leap from an industrial to an information society, make the study of this field in Kenya a fascinating subject.
How will this existing infrastructure be used? What unforeseen systems and social as well as professional contacts are hiding just behind the screens and keypads? Which services will become digitally decentralised?
Digital Decentralisation: âºdigital transformation of local services â¹
Through the digital transformation of services the material infrastructure is mirrored by affordable virtual formats. Information technology has not only repositioned the access to usually locally anchored services, but has also made virtual services available independent of time or location. It makes no difference if we are talking about circles of friends, meeting places, the movement of money or local and international business relations. Therefore, our starting premise is the following: if the virtual analogue of a locally anchored service offers the same qualities in terms of range, functionality, availability and affordability it must, as a consequence, influence the mobility of the users in such a way that physical pathways can be transformed into virtual ones so that the user profits from a digital decentralisation.
Approach (Observations of the Job Market)
The question then arises which services have already been transformed into their virtual analogues? Which usage situations and requirements form the basis of these services, and what services do the providers offer in response? The goal is, on the one hand, the verification of our hypothesis and, on the other, the identification of design drivers that can be considered in the future translation of physical into virtual services.
As a starting point for our research, we chose two differing scenarios, both of which touch on the introduction of an innovative virtual offering. The first deals with a virtual access point to the jobs market, the second with a service that permits money transfer via mobile telephones. What interested us here was the comparison between analogue and virtual services, and whether the one offered any mobility advantages over the other. How would established communications technology systems be affected? Can they be unconditionally translated into the virtual realm? What additional aspects influence mobility and communication? How do users make best use of their sudden accessibility? How can both groups and individuals profit from this?
