Mobile services (m-services) are supporting our daily life by providing wireless access to business/commerce services, health services, government services, entertainment, and other social activities. SPACE provides extensive support for mobile services in the public as well as private sectors.

Mobile services (“mobile apps”) enable the C2B, B2B, B2E, C2G, B2G, G2G, and G2E operations between customers, business units, government agencies, and employees. For example, the following core mobile services are being used, with minor and necessary modifications, for m-business and m-government initiatives:

• Wireless messaging services

• Wireless websites and mobile portals

• Mobile e-commerce and its variants

• Mobile customer relationship management systems (M-CRM)

• Mobile supply chain management systems (M-SCM)

• Location-based services provide information based on location of the users (e.g., send information about Boston to users who happen to be in Boston)

• Specialized applications involving mobile agents and wireless sensor networks

The following table shows how these services (“apps”) support the m-business, m-government and m-life initiatives.  

Mobile Health Clinics, combined with the mobile computing technologies, have been highly effective in combating HIV and malaria, improving maternal health, and reducing infant mortality in many counties such as Peru, South Africa, Uganda, and the Philippines. In particular, location-based text messaging applications have been highly effective to attract young people to mobile clinics that provide informational, testing, and/or clinical services. Thus a mobile health clinic addresses three goals of the Millennium Development Goals (goals 4, 5 and 6).

While there are many success stories about mobile clinics, numerous failures have occurred due to logistical issues (e.g., running out of supplies in the middle of nowhere), technology issues (no wireless signal in the area), procedural problems (healthcare professionals could not get visas on time), and social issues (some parents did not like their kids to be invited to a clinic without parental consent).

A Mobile Clinic Support System is needed to address these people, process and technology issues and thus assure repeatable success of these clinics. The SPACE Planner produces detailed plan of such a support system that leverages the latest ICT developments to serve the physicians, the patients, the healthcare facilities, the suppliers of materials and the regulating authorities. Such a support system can profoundly impact the delivery of healthcare to different parts of the World and is of high value to central governments, municipalities, cities, or NGOs (non-governmental agencies) with interest in operating mobile health clinics around the globe.

A 30 minute session with the Planner produces the following reports for mobile clinic support system:

• Executive summaries and business plans

• Requirements documents

• Technical specifications and policies

• Project management and control information

• Suggested standards and best practices

• Country/ region specific information

• Service specific (healthcare versus manufacturing) information

• Situation specific (national versus international) information

• RFP/(Request for Proposal

This report, generated by the Planner,  captures the overall plan that is needed to deploy this service. This report can be used to introduce the project to the managers, the users and developers. The report contains a mixture of generic and customized information. Specifically:

• Generic information (common best practices, e.g., security) that enforces common standards and practices.

• Service specific (e.g., healthcare versus education) information to address the unique problems for the type of service.

• Situation specific (wireless versus wired, large versus small system) based on interviews.

• Country/Region specific (e.g., Belgium vs. Brazil) suggestions based on rules triggered by country/region specific factors

This computer generated document contains information that can be easily translated into a business proposal for funding and/or management approval. All computer generated information is based on a user interview and utilizes the following:

• A template for business plan

• Business and company information

• Service/specific information needed

Different business plans are generated based on the interviews. You can develop a complete business proposal in 1-2 days by using the Business Plan generated by the Planner. The following approach is suggested. The resultant Business Plan can be used to obtain external funding, internal management approval and/or establish partnerships

This document specifies the functional (e.g., activities performed and outputs produced) as well as nonfunctional (e.g., performance and security) features of the system to be developed or acquired. The requirements document is a key resource for systems development, user involvement and project management.

The requirements document is created early in the system life cycle and is subject to formal/informal reviews by the clients, systems developers, project managers and testers throughout the life cycle. It forms the basis for ongoing development and testing of the system to meet the requirements of the client. It thus supplies sufficient information to the client to establish a solid foundation for subsequent assessment and approval. It also provides the development/acquisition team with a basis for on-going management and testing.

The Requirements Document generated by the Planner is a comprehensive document that contains the following pieces of information:

1. Overview and Business Drivers

2. Background Information

3. Application Functional Requirements

4. Information Models (Use Cases, Class Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams)

5. Logical Architecture (Application Pattern)

6. Architecture and Integration Requirements (General)

7. Architecture and Integration Requirements (Specialized based on the Interview)

8. Operational Requirements (e.g., Security, Performance, Hardware and Software Requirements)

9. Vendor Support Requirements

10. SOA Considerations and Suggestions

Information and communications technologies (ICT) can significantly accelerate the advancement of MDG priority areas in poverty alleviation, health, education, gender equality, environmental sustainability, and partnerships. However, an individual involved in advancing the MDGs through ICT faces many questions: “how do I identify the needed ICT services”, “how do I develop a customized plan that is specific to my country/region”, “how do I successfully execute the developed plan”, “how do I monitor and evaluate the progress being made”, and “how do I avoid re-inventing the wheel”.

SPACE Planner fully supports the advancement of MDGs through the use of ICT and provides a “one-stop shop” that answers these questions.

A 30 minute session with the Planner produces the following reports for MDG services:

• Executive summaries and business plans

• Requirements documents

• Technical specifications and policies

• Project management and control information

• Suggested standards and best practices

• Country/ region specific information

• Service specific (healthcare versus manufacturing) information

• Situation specific (national versus international) information

• RFP (Request for Proposal)
   

An eCommunity can be an eVillage, eCity, eCountry or an eRegion. eCommunities are also known as ICT Communities, Cyber Communities, and Intelligent Communities.

To develop an eCommunity pattern, we need to modify the same Govt pattern used in Strap and just simplify it a bit if it is for a village instead of a large city or country. Here are some examples: .

Example1- eVillage: Info Poverty people use the following key sectors/services for ICT villages:

• connectivity (ICT infrastructure)
• ehealth
• egovernance (management)
• safe water and sanitation
• e-agr (food security)
• energy
• entrepreneurship (basically selling online, ecommerce)
• education

Example 2 - eHetaunda; the Nepal CCON project has the following sectors

• eGovernance
• eEducation
• eCommerce
• eHealth
• eAgriculture
• eTourism
• eTransportation

An RFP (Request for Proposals) or RFQ (Request for Quotes) is a very common process in procurement and outsourcing in the public as well as private sectors. The process commonly consists of the following steps:

• An RFP or RFQ is prepared and issued by a government or business entity that needs to offer a service to its customers.

• The RFP/RFQ specifies in detail the needed service and the process to be used in selecting the most appropriate vendors.

• The interested vendors respond to the RFP/RFQ and bid for the service.

• The bids are evaluated and the winners are selected for developing the needed services.

Preparation of a good RFP is crucial for successful implementation but requires great deal of effort. SPACE provides extensive capabilities for generating RFPs in less than an hour for a wide range of services in eGovernment and eBusiness. Specifically:

• SPACE produces the service specific content (also known as Terms of Reference -- TOR) of an RFP based on a short interview.

• You can modify the generated TOR to best fit your needs and to make a final Terms of Reference.

• Add corporation specific information to TOR for a complete RFP. We provide an “RFP Pattern” that you can use to develop corporate specific information.

• An “RFP Corner” helps you to build a highly specialized RFP for different outsourcing options (e.g., outsource everything, outsource development only, outsource project management only, etc.).

Click here to see sample reports and RFPs generated by SPACE