Is the mobile phone mightier than the gun in London?

Davey Winder
Thursday, 03 July 2008 05:38

Your IT - Mobility

Over the next two days the 2gether08 Festival is being held in London to bring together 300 innovators looking to use digital technology to make a real social difference. Innovators such as the students of South Thames College and its LIFEWISE project which sees London teenagers using mobile phones to tackle gun crime in the capital.

Sponsored by Channel 4 TV, 2gether08 will see an eclectic mix of technologists, policy makers, TV producers, software and games developers, politicians, bloggers and social entrepreneurs all of whom believe that creative use of emerging digital technologies can generate solutions to society’s most pressing problems. It will also include a bunch of local kids with free mobile phones.

LIFEWISE is an ambitious project involving more than 200 young people from some of the toughest parts of the London borough of Wandsworth. One of the first projects to be funded by the Mobile Learning Network (MoLeNET) it uses hand held technology to ensure collaborative working amongst the teenagers who are spread across six secondary schools as well as the South Thames College.

MoLeNET is the UK’s, and quite probably the world’s, largest and most diverse implementation of mobile learning concepts. The Learning and Skills Council, together with consortia led by Further Education colleges, are together investing well over UKP £7 million (AUD $14 million) in MoLeNET.

When it comes to the LIFEWISE students, they have each been given free state-of-the-art Vodafone v1615 mobile phone handsets, including unlimited mobile data access and safe search capabilities, to enable them work together on finding solutions to the increasing problem of violent crime amongst London teenagers.

What does the Mayor of London, Barmy Boris Johnson have to say about all this? Read on to find out...

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