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Motivation In developing countries missing

network coverage and low bandwidth

pose serious barriers to data-heavy

Internet services, especially outside of

urban areas.

Many people have adopted mobile

phones for daily tasks, which range

from basic communication with

relatives to small family business

support, either for communicating with

customers or receiving service requests.

Though prices for mobile phones, even

smartphones, are rapidly falling and

sales are rapidly rising, shared phone

usage in developing countries is very

common.

Solution PostboxWeb is a framework that

enables offline-capable mobile

applications for occasionally connected

Android smartphones.

It also allows a secure sharing of smart-

phones through personal, password-

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protected and encrypted data storage

for each user of the phone.

As a proof-of-concept a video mail

application for illiterate or semi-illiterate

users was developed. The GUI and UX

design follow design recommendations

for the intended user group – persons

living in rural areas in developing

countries having no regular interaction

with ICT.

Business Case PostboxWeb could be operated by an

“Email-Postman” in remote areas with

no network coverage. The Postman lets

users record video mails while offline.

At regular intervals the Postman travels

to areas with connectivity, where

outgoing messages are sent to their

The PostboxWeb logo.

Fig1.

POSTBOXWEB

A FRAMEWORK FOR

OCCASIONALLY

CONNECTED AND SHARED

ANDROID SMARTPHONES

Contact

Rua Alfredo Allen, 455

4200-135 Porto, Portugal

+351 220 430 300

info@fraunhofer.pt

www.fraunhofer.pt

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destination and incoming are

downloaded into each user`s personal

data space.

The Postman could charge for his

services e.g. based on the amount of

data being transferred.

Future Work The PostboxWeb framework is being

developed under the ICT4D Competence

Center scope as a transversal tool

targeting the specificity of Sub-Saharan

countries requirements with respect to

network coverage.

The expected result is to leverage the

work performed from the proof-of-

concept phase into the framework

solution and the introduction of this

framework in every application that will

be developed for the African markets.

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Conclusion The PostboxWeb opens up possibilities

for a whole variety of new applications,

e.g. medical staff might collect and

update electronic health records offline

and synchronize them with a hospital

when online.

The developed work demonstrates that

the implementation of the designed

solution for the proposed problem is

feasible with the chosen technology.

The tests performed with the solution

show that an implementation of the

project is viable in a real case scenario

and will not introduce significant

overhead in the applications using it.

Specifications

n Framework for Android smartphones

n Utilizes Bluetooth and optionally Near Field Communication (NFC)

n Retrieves geolocation

data

n Supports REST services

n Multi-user environment

n Offline-capable API

n Information security

n Simple to use

n Low execution

overhead

Recognition

PostboxWeb was

awarded an honorable

mention at the Vodafone

Mobile Data Challenge

2012 in Portugal.

User interface layout.

Fig2.