Cell phones can be used for more than casual conversation. For an immigrant it can be a tool to help traverse foreign land.

As World Changing notes, something simple like getting a prescription medication at a drugstore is complicated by language barriers. But instead of giving up at being unable to communicate complex needs, immigrants in Boston can use cell phones to instantly connect to translators who can help alleviate the language barrier.

Speakeasy, created by Jeremy Liu, Executive Director of the Asian Community Development Corporation and Tad Hirsch, a researcher at MIT’s Media Lab, does just that. It connects immigrants to translators that have volunteered to help in these tough situations.

By creating a simple cell phone network, the emerging service uses everyday technology to network multilingual volunteers, usually second or third generation Americans, who can answer questions, give advice, and provide language interpretation over the phone to people in their own community.

If an immigrant finds himself in an emergency situation and unable to communicate, through Speakeasy they can get instant translations using simple technology, as explained on their Web site.

A prototype of Speakeasy was developed in the fall of 2003 and was piloted with approximately 250 members of Boston’s Chinatown community in the spring of 2004. Since then a second version was launched in the summer of 2005 and by the end of this year Liu and Hirsch hope to have a fully-functioning operation after retaining the necessary amount of volunteers and a few corporate sponsors.

Speakeasy integrates Web services and VoIP technologies, and relies exclusively on open source technology, including Linux, php, mysql, and asterisk. The source code and detailed technical specifications will be posted on the site within the next year.

“Initially we created Speakeasy for the Boston Chinatown community because that is where we saw the need,” said Liu. “But another community can pick it up and alter the platform to their own specific community needs because of the open source software, and we hope they will.

We recognize that there is a fair amount of people who need to understand how the U.S. system works but cannot because of the language barriers and the U.S. bureaucratic system. Ultimately, we want these communities to be able to get the help they need in a low cost way,” said Hirsh.

Cell phones are a part of everyday American life, but in other countries the technology is used for much more. In the Philippines, dubbed the “text capital of the world,” mobile phones were used to help bring about political change. Beyond the reach of state surveillance, cell phones were used to organize citizen protests in the 2001 uprising that forced then Philippine President Joseph Estrada out of office.

The characteristics of cell phones “including their, speed, cost-effectiveness, mobility and confidentiality of text messaging and its adaptability to Filipino culture has made SMS the most popular form of private communication technology in the country,” writes David Celdran, Director of Current Affairs and Television production for the ABS CBN News Channel in the Philippines.

In America this same method isn’t needed to organize political protest. But cell phones do play an integral part in the performance art of flash mobs, where a seemingly random crowd of people congregate to do something absurd, like walk into Macy’s and all ask for the same piece of furniture.

Speakeasy received a $25,000 Community Connections Award from AT&T Wireless (now Cingular) and NPower and a $2000 IDEAS Community Building Award during MIT’s annual IDEAS Competition in 2004.

“The technology is what enables the whole thing, but this is an example of a tech deployment that is very rightly coupled with a longer term development strategy. It’s serving an immediate need – an immediate operational value – but also, we think, has significant long term strategic potential for community empowerment,” said Hirsh.

Victoria Baranetsky is a student at Columbia’s School of Journalism