During Innovations in Mobile Data Collection, we talked quite a bit about delayed data processing when infrastructure (mobile or internet) is not readily available.  Nadav Aharony from MIT says:

“Non-synchronous data communications is used when an active data connection or cell phone coverage are not available. Data could opportunistically make its way from the origin to the destination via different types of electronic messengers, or ‘data mules’.

For example, you could equip a bus that has a regular daily route to a village with a wifi/GPRS-enabled device. As the bus passes by the village, the devices connects and transfer data from a clinic, for example. In engineering terms, this type of network is called a “delay tolerant network”, or DTN.

There are different projects working along these lines in countries such as India or Cambodia, and there  are different methods for implementing the “data mule” – from a bus, to a motorcycles, to an ox-cart.”

For more information, see this paper.  Nadav is working on another delay-tolerant and infrastructure-less platform: Comm.unity, on top of which similar implementations could be built.

Our most-excellent colleagues at the Social Media Exchange Beirut have set up a Netvibes aggregator for social media ad useful info for the workshop. You can find it here.

Follow along and participate - hashtag for all social media is #mobdata. See you in Amman!