Crowdsourcing is the outsourcing of a job or task to a large group of individuals. Crowdsourcing has emerged from the concepts of Outsourcing, Open Source Software (OSS) Collaboration, Open Innovation, and User Innovation. While Crowdsourcing has provided an innovative way in which work can be outsourced to a large group of people, the advent of Mobile Telephony in Africa has provided a whole new dimension. This is the merging of the concepts of Crowdsourcing and Mobile Telephony, to form Mobile Crowdsourcing. Mobile Crowdsourcing has the potential to contribute significantly to the use of Information Technology (IT) in developing countries by providing a platform that would enable people such as those in peri-urban Kenyan communities, to utilise their mobile handsets to perform a set of mobile-based tasks. Payment for these tasks is made possible through mobile money platforms such as “M-Pesa”. Such innovation could provide a means for social empowerment for many of these unemployed technology users. This study sets forth to examine a set of factors that are likely to predict the “participation intention” of peri-urban Kenyan youths in Mobile Crowdsourcing. Motivational Theory, and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) form the core of the theoretical framework used for this study. The McKnight Model is used as a supporting theory, to examine “trusting beliefs”. In addition, the constructs “perceived credibility”, “social influence” and “community identification” are derived from prior studies that use Socio Cognitive Theory and an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). These also play a supporting role. Using a survey instrument, data was collected from peri-urban youths in four peri-urban communities, and 279 usable responses were obtained for this study. Findings show that “self-development”, “integrity”, and “reputation” are the most significant predictors of “participation intention”. These three variables account for 17% of the variance in “participation intention”. Contrary to suggestions made in prior literature on Crowdsourcing, “monetary compensation” was not found to be a key motivator. This finding will no doubt spark future debate as to the role money plays in Crowdsourcing, especially in Africa. Additional findings show that “attitude” was found to be a strong mediator of the relationship between “technology anxiety” and “participation intention”. Moreover, “community identification” was found to be a full moderator of the relationship between “social influence” and “participation intention”. Findings made uncovered new insights about the perceptions and attitudes of mobile phone users in developing countries. Contributions made to theory and practice are also discussed.

Mobile crowdsourcing solves complex problems by utilizing the untapped power of a crowd, connected through the fantastic mobile devices we use in our daily life. These gadgets are equipped with a versatile set of sensor that could be used for gathering data about a specific location in combination with questions to the human carrier. Common problems in crowdsourcing systems is how to ensure that the contributed data from the crowd is of a high quality and how to do task allocation fairly. A large population of users is often needed to ensure a high quality of data and coverage, every participant is important and the system have to do be designed with the population in mind.In this thesis we discuss the responsibilities of the server in a crowdsourcing system and presents a system model which tries to tackle the problems of quality and fairness. A prototype of the system model was developed (CrowdS) to determine its potential, for both Android and iOS devices.A long running test was performed to evaluate the performance of CrowdS with the main focus on determine how well the system performed in terms of coverage of the search area and fairness of earnings and prices. The test was executed on both platforms for a couple of weeks. The vast majority of all completed tasks were finished within 10 minutes of being created, with a median time of 3 minutes and 32 seconds seconds. Jain’s fairness index measured an overall high fairness for both the price of tasks at 0.944 and the earnings made by participants at 0.941. The radius of the search area had to be extended to maximum of 800 meters for roughly on third of the tasks to find the required number of participants. / Mobil crowdsourcing löser komplexa problem genom att utnyttja kapaciteten av en grupp, sammankopplad med de mobila enheter vi använder dagligen. Dessa maskiner är utrustade med en mångsidig uppsättning av sensorer som kan användas för att samla in data om en specifik plats i kombination med frågor till den mänskliga bäraren. Vanliga problem med gruppbaserad problemlösning är hur man försäkrar att den insamlade informationen är av en hög kvalite´ och hur man utför uppdragsallokering rättvist. En stor användargrupp behövs för att uppnå en hög kvalite´ av data och täckning, varenda deltagare är viktig och systemet måste utformas med denna användargrupp i åtanke.I denna avhandling diskuterar vi ansvaret som en server har i mobil gruppbaserad problemlösning och presenterar en systemmodel som försöker hantera problemen med kvalite´ och rättvisa. För att utvärdera systemmodellen utvecklades en prototyp (CrowdS), för både Android och iOS-enheter.Ett långvarande test utfördes för att utvärdera Crowds prestanda med huvudfokus på att bestämmahur bra systemet presterade inom täckning för sökområdet och rättvishet för vinster och priser. Testet utfördes på båda plattformarna under ett par veckor. Den stora majoriteten av alla utdelade uppgifter var avklarade inom 10 minuter efter att de hade skapas, med en median tid på 3 minuter och 32 sekunder. Jain’s rättvise index användes för att få en uppfattning om hur rättvist vinster och priser var för uppgifter, det räknades till 0,944 respektive 0,941. Radien för sökområdet behövde utsträckas till dess maximum av 800 meter för cirka en tredjedel av uppgifterna för att hitta det tillräckligt många deltagare.

M. Tech. (Department of Information and Communication Technology, Faculty of Applied and Computer Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / In most African countries, agriculture remains a key factor in economic development with over half the population living in rural areas and directly or indirectly deriving their livelihoods from agriculture. Agriculture still faces several challenges that prevent it from being able to make its maximum contribution to economic expansion, despite it being the backbone for economic growth. As a major cause for change in all spheres of human lives, information and communications technology (ICT) has played a positive role in different segments of society, such as agriculture, education and community development. However, it could play a greater role in agriculture by assisting farmers who face challenges on a daily basis. Farmers may lack an operative way to gather farm produce data, to obtain information from other interested parties (e.g. agriculture advisers) and to record farm input expenses and expenditure on farm chemicals. These and other challenges experienced by farmers may be solved by gaining ICT access through using available technologies. Farmers need to benefit from earlier unexploited opportunities regarding the provision of cost-effective communication and learn about advanced practices previously unknown to them. In this research study, the researcher studied factors that influence farmers in the adoption of a mobile crowdsourcing portal for agriculture purposes. A model was used to measure the perception of farmers about the technology after having used it for a season. The model consisted of the following variables: quality factors; perceived ease of use; experience; perceived usefulness; attitude toward using; and behavioural intention to use. A test for reliability and validity proved that the model was acceptable. The results of the data analysis indicated that there was a strong relationship between the multiple independent factors and the dependent variable in the model. The researcher concluded that mobile crowdsourcing applications are perceived as enhancing agricultural development in remote areas with regard to data accessibility, the development of crop production, support in the decision-making process and their importance in sustaining agricultural activities.