December 5/6, 2006 in Bangalore, India, the World Wide Web Consortium W3C Mobile Web Initiative held the W3C Workshop on the Mobile Web in Developing Countries. The Executive Summary is now online. It brings sharp focus on the status of the awesome notion that mobile phones may soon deliver the Web to billions of people in developing countries. Well worth reading, the summary is concise, specific and realistic about blocking factors–and then it looks ahead to these opportunities:

That said, there is a general agreement that the Web is providing unique opportunities which may facilitate the bridging of the digital divide:

* a standardized platform to ease service development
* cheap service development and hosting
* large scope and wide audience
* easy reachability and “discoverability” of existing services (search engines, portals, …)