Anticipation filled the air in Room11 on Friday 15th January at 2.15 pm as students anxiously trickled into the room. Two significant events were about to take place: the release of a Nokia research application and the first SUITSA (Strathmore University IT Students Association) meeting in 2010.
Then the eagerly awaited guests who were to make the release made their way into the room. The Nokia Application release event, organized by Jessica Colaco (Patron of the SUITSA Club) and a Research Leader at the Strathmore Research and Consultancy Centre (SRCC) in conjunction with the club was a great success.
All the participants received a Nokia XpressMusic 5130 Series handset, each having a ‘Nokia Watch and Learn’ module in the Applications menu. Nokia representatives Pauline and Billy took turns to illustrate to the eager students how the application works. The students are part of a focus research group on the use of the application. The Nokia representatives were in the University since last week, taking some students through orientation as a prerequisite to some research projects. Key among the projects are the Nokia Tangaza and Mosoko initiatives. They will work hand in hand with two student groups and the non-student community, which are:
Focus Group consisting of 15 students, who are expected to:
- Be key informants and participate in the weekly reviews
- Be social and capable of perceiving human social behavior
- Keep a journal and answer the question(s) involved.
Test users consisting of 45 students, who are expected to:
- Be socially active and can be brand ambassadors for the application.
- Attend the initial and final meetings of the research applications, in which they will be administered with questionnaires on the whole project.
General Public, who are:
- The rest of the potential target users.
- The recipients of the application through invitations from the Focus Group and Test Users.
The application, which is scheduled to run for about four weeks involves downloading of videos from fellow phone users. For each video a 5130 phone bearer down loads from another phone bearer, the former earns Kshs20. The project seeks to establish how sharing videos on mobile phones can be used to sensitize the society on relevant social issues.
By Atlanta Munyite
