I am a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India, though I'm currently based in South Africa.
Contact me at jdonner at microsoft dot com.
I maintain an occasional blog at my personal website, www.jonathandonner.com and post to Twitter as @jcdonner
I'm a social scientist, with a background in Communication Research and Economic Development.
Previously, I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Center for Global Health and Economic Development (CGHED), at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. I have also been a consultant with Monitor Company in Cambridge, MA, and with its spin-off, The OTF Group, where I worked on economic competitiveness projects in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. I have a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research
Projects
The Information Environment of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs)
Mobile-Phone Enabled Banking and Payments
Everyday mobile use in the developing world
2013
Jonathan Donner and Marion Walton, Your phone has internet - why are you at a library PC? Re-imagining public access for the mobile internet era, in Proc. Interact 2013, Springer, 2013
2012
Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, Jonathan Donner, and Edward Cutrell, How Bad is Good Enough? Exploring Mobile Video Quality Trade-offs for Bandwidth-Constrained Consumers, in Proc NordiCHI 2012, ACM, 15 October 2012
Marion Walton and Jonathan Donner, Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for teenagers in Cape Town, University of Cape Town, October 2012
Marshini Chetty, Richard Banks, A.J. Bernheim Brush, Jonathan Donner, and Rebecca Grinter, "You're Capped!" Understanding the Effects of Bandwidth Caps on Broadband Use in the Home, in CHI 2012, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 2012
Preeti Mudliar, Jonathan Donner, and William Thies, Emergent Practices Around CGNet Swara, A Voice Forum for Citizen Journalism in Rural India, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ACM, March 2012
Jonathan Donner and Patricia Mechael, mHealth in Practice: Mobile technology for health promotion in the developing world, Bloomsbury Academic, 2012
2011
Jonathan Donner, Shikoh Gitau, and Gary Marsden, Exploring mobile-only internet use: results of a training study in urban South Africa, in International Journal of Communication, vol. 5, pp. 574–597, 11 April 2011
Marion Walton and Jonathan Donner, Read-Write-Erase: Mobile-mediated publics in South Africa’s 2009 elections, in Mobile Communication: Dimensions of Social Policy, pp. 117-132, Transaction Publishers, 4 April 2011
Marshini Chetty, Richard Banks, AJ Brush, Jonathan Donner, and Rebecca E. Grinter, While the Meter is Running: Computing in a Capped World, in Interactions Volume 18, Issue 2, vol. 18, ACM, 1 March 2011
2010
Jonathan Donner, Framing M4D: The Utility of Continuity and the Dual Heritage of “Mobiles and Development”, in The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, vol. 44, no. 3, December 2010
Kevin Donovan and Jonathan Donner, A note on the availability (and importance) of pre-paid mobile data in Africa, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Mobile Communication Technology for Development, Karlstad University Studies, November 2010
Jonathan Donner and Marcela X Escobari, A review of evidence on mobile use by micro and small enterprises in developing countries, in Journal of International Development, vol. 22, no. 5, John Wiley & Sons, 30 June 2010
Shikoh Gitau, Gary Marsden, and Jonathan Donner, After access – Challenges facing mobile-only internet users in the developing world, in Proceedings of the 28th international conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI 2010), Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 16 April 2010
2009
Jonathan Donner, Mobile-based livelihood services in Africa: pilots and early deployments, pp. 37-58, 30 December 2009
Jonathan Donner and Kentaro Toyama, Persistent themes in ICT4D Research: priorities for inter-methodological exchange, 21 June 2009
Jonathan Donner and Shikoh Gitau, New paths: exploring mobile-centric internet use in South Africa, in Presented at the Pre-Conference on Mobile Communication at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, 21 May 2009
Rich Ling and Jonathan Donner, Mobile Communication, Polity, May 2009
Jonathan Donner and Marcela Escobari, A review of the research on mobile use by micro and small enterprises (MSEs), in Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, IEEE, April 2009
Molly Steenson and Jonathan Donner, Beyond the personal and private: Modes of mobile phone sharing in urban India, in The Reconstruction of Space and Time: Mobile Communication Practices, vol. 1, pp. 231-250, Transaction Publishers, 2009
Jonathan Donner, Blurring livelihoods and lives: The social uses of mobile phones and socioeconomic development, in Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91-101, MIT Press, 2009
Jonathan Donner, Mobile media on low-cost handsets: The resiliency of text messaging among small enterprises in India (and beyond) , in Mobile technologies: from telecommunications to media , pp. 93-104, Routledge, 2009
2008
Jonathan Donner, Katrin Verclas, and Kentaro Toyama, Reflections on MobileActive08 and the M4D Landscape, in Proceedings of the First International Conference on M4D, December 2008
Jonathan Donner, Rikin Gandhi, Paul Javid, Indrani Medhi, Aishwarya Ratan, Kentaro Toyama, and Rajesh Veeraraghavan, Stages of design in technology for global development, in Computer, pp. 31-41, June 2008
Jonathan Donner and Camilo Tellez, Mobile banking and economic development: Linking adoption, impact, and use, in Asian Journal of Communication, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 318-332, 2008
Jonathan Donner, Shrinking fourth world? Mobiles, development, and inclusion, in Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, pp. 29-42, MIT Press, 2008
Jonathan Donner, Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature, in The Information Society, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 140-159, 2008
Jonathan Donner, Nimmi Rangaswamy, Molly Wright Steenson, and Carolyn Wei, “Express yourself” and “Stay together”: The middle-class Indian family, in Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, pp. 325-338, MIT Press, 2008
2007
Jonathan Donner, M-Banking, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, September 2007
Jonathan Donner, The Rules of Beeping: Exchanging Messages Via Intentional “Missed Calls” on Mobile Phones, in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1, 2007
Jonathan Donner, Customer acquisition among small and informal businesses in urban India: Comparing face to face, interpersonal, and mediated channels, in The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, vol. 32, pp. 1-16, 2007
2006
Jonathan Donner, The social and economic implications of mobile telephony in Rwanda: An ownership/access typology, in Knowledge, Technology, and Policy, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 17-28, Springer-Verlag, June 2006
Jonathan Donner, The use of mobile phones by microentrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda: Changes to social and business networks, in Information Technologies and International Development, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 3-19, MIT Press, 2006
2005
Jonathan Donner, The mobile behaviors of Kigali’s microentrepreneurs: whom they call - and why, in A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication, Passagen Verlag, Vienna, 2005
2004
Jonathan Donner, Microentrepreneurs and mobiles: an exploration of the uses of mobile phones by small business owners in Rwanda, in Information Technologies and International Development, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-22, MIT Press, 2004
2001
Jonathan Donner, Using Q sorts in participatory processes: An introduction to the methodology, pp. 22-49, 2001
