FrontlineSMS wins prestigious Tech Award

Yesterday the Tech Museum at Santa Clara University announced the 2009 Tech Awards Laureates. The Tech Awards is a prestigious international awards program that honours innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. FrontlineSMS / kiwanja.net was one of three Laureates honoured in the "Equality" category, and one of only fifteen in total. Established in 2001, The Tech Awards recognises Laureates in a total of five categories - environment, economic development, education, equality and health. Laureates are recognised as having developed new technological solutions or innovative ways to use existing technologies to significantly improve the lives of people around the world. The Awards are sponsored by a wide range of partners which include Nokia, Intel, Microsoft, Accenture, eBay and Google.

The fact we knew about our Award a couple of weeks ago didn't make Tuesday's announcement any less exciting. It's always a great feeling to have your efforts acknowledged, and if anything this shows, at the very least, that we're heading in the right direction. A lot of work has gone into FrontlineSMS, and this Award is very much down to the efforts of a fantastic user base of NGOs big and small, incredible donors - the MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Institute and the Hewlett Foundation - an amazing team of developers at Masabi, the inspiring work of spin-off organisations such as FrontlineSMS:Medic, the faith and belief of the many bloggers who regularly write about and promote our work,  the efforts of talented designers, and unlimited encouragement from friends and supporters in the social mobile space.

This Award is for all of you.

Thanks also to the person who nominated FrontlineSMS, whoever and wherever you are, and to the judges and organisers of the Tech Awards for putting their faith in our work.

Empowerment

I've always maintained that it's not technology that excites me, but what happens when you put technology in the hands of people. If it wasn't for the tireless work of increasing numbers of NGOs - each of whom has adapted and applied FrontlineSMS in their own unique way - we'd simply be sitting on thousands of lines of benign code.

FrontlineSMS has always been about empowerment, about lowering barriers to entry and giving people the tools they need to carry out their own social change work. This 2007 quote from the Africa Journal still spells out the ethos of FrontlineSMS better than anything:

FrontlineSMS provides the tools necessary for people to create their own projects that make a difference. It empowers innovators and organizers in the developing world to achieve their full potential through their own ingenuity

Of course, it's also helped that we've been patient - the software has been over four years in the making, and remains very much a work in progress. We know more than anyone that there's still a very long way to go. What's also key is that we've remained totally focused in an industry which innovates at such a rate it's easy to be distracted. Back in 2005 we picked a specific problem and set out determined to solve it. It's fair to say that we never quite expected things to take off as they have, and today's announcement is yet another highlight in what is becoming an incredible journey.

But the work goes on, and it's all eyes back on the next big release, due out later this month. In the ICT4D world, complacency is a killer.

Finally, it goes without saying that congratulations also go out to the other fourteen Laureates. I'm looking forward to meeting them in November, and seeing what we can all learn from each others work. It promises to be an inspiring week.  o/

SMS registration for Maker Faire Africa

Attendees of next month's Maker Faire Africa will be able to register their attendance by text message, thanks to a clever hack by  Henry Barnor and Henry Addo, two Ghanaian developers. In the true spirit of Maker Faire, the two Henry's have built the system using a phone with a Zain SIM card connected to a laptop running FrontlineSMS. When the software receives an SMS it sends the data via HTTP to a python web application running on Google’s App Engine infrastructure, where it's processed and a registration code sent out to the originating handset. It's another great use of the software and kudos goes out to the guys behind it. You can read their full post here.

Maker Faire Africa (MFA), a celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and invention, will take place between August 14th and 16th at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Ghana's capital, Accra. Wish I could be there.  :(

Mapping medicine availability via SMS

Medicine stock-outs are a potentially lethal problem in a number of African countries, yet governments insist they don't occur. What could be more powerful than a map which contradicts this claim? Last week activists in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia started surveying clinics in their respective countries, checking stock levels of essential medicines, including:

• First-line anti-malarials
• Zinc 20mg tablet
• Penicilin
• First-line ARVs
• Metronidazole 200mg tablet
• Ciproflaxicin
• Amoxicillin suspension
• Ceftriaxone
• Cotrimoxazole suspension
• ORS - Diarrhea

Each of these are seen as essential in varying degrees to fighting disease and illness, and are widely used when available.

Armed with the data, activists report their results via structured, coded SMS - "x,y,z" - where the first number represents their country code (Kenya, Malawi, Uganda or Zambia), the second their district or city, and the third the medicine which they found to be out of stock.  These messages are received by a phone connected to a computer running FrontlineSMS, which then runs an automatic script which validates the data before it is sent over the internet to a Ushahidi-powered website.

From there the results are automatically displayed on a map, below (click to visit the live site).

As of today, there have been over 250 stock-outs of these essential medicines.

Since the data is automatically populated, the map represents an almost real-time picture of stock-outs in the four target countries. After a successful launch and a week piloting the service, the "stock-out hub number" will now be distributed to medicine users throughout each country so that anyone with a mobile phone can send in a stock-out report. Unlike reports from official, known data collectors, these messages will firstly be checked by staff at Health Action International (HAI Africa) before being posted up on the map.

The technological portion of the campaign was implemented by Michael Ballard and Claudio Midolo, both Open Society Fellows from the Department of Design + Technology at Parsons the New School for Design in New York.  Ndesanjo Macha also helped in getting FrontlineSMS up and running in Uganda and Malawi.

For further background information and up-to-date news, visit the "Stop Stock-Outs" website.

FrontlineSMS:365

As the latest iteration of FrontlineSMS celebrates its first birthday, now is as good-a-time as any to sit back with a double latte and reflect on the successes - and challenges - of the past twelve months Happy birthday to o/

Exactly one year ago today - 25th June, 2008 - saw the release of the revised version of FrontlineSMS. Originally written in 2005 over a five week summer break in Finland, the MacArthur Foundation stepped in a couple of years later to fund the development of an improved, Java-based multi-platform version following its successful deployment in the Nigerian Presidential elections, an event which turned out to be pivotal in the short history of the software.

Since then there have been numerous interim releases thanks to follow-on funding from the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Hewlett Foundation, funding which has allowed us the luxury of pushing out new and improved features to users. In three months time we'll see the release of a significant upgrade with a range of new features - including picture messaging - which promises to open up the platform yet further.

Suffice to say it’s been an exciting if hectic past twelve months. From a standing start last summer almost 2,600 NGOs have - one way or another - got to hear about the software and downloaded it. The online community is picking up steam and currently stands at just shy of 600 members. We’re about to launch another community, this time aimed at developers, although thankfully we won’t be starting from scratch on this one. Numerous programmers, projects and organisations have already begun working with the code, and others have used it to build diverse applications including human rights- and agriculture-based SMS solutions. We’re very excited where this could be headed, but hold no illusions that an active, engaged developer community is essential if FrontlineSMS is to ever become sustainable, developmentally at least.

Over the past twelve months the software has also been profiled in the international media and presented at dozens of ICT4D and non-ICT4D conferences around the world. Thanks to the efforts of the FrontlineSMS:Medic team it also made it onto the CNN and Discovery Channel websites (a selection of videos are available via the community site). Recent efforts by the University of Canberra have also attracted the attention of Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie.

In addition, volunteers have helped translate the software into over half-a-dozen languages, numerous non-profit organisations have held FrontlineSMS training sessions for their staff, and Plan International went a step further and made their own introductory videos to distribute to Plan field offices via DVD. The software has a growing following on Facebook and Twitter, and continues to get good traction in wider non-profit circles. Many people are beginning to hear about FrontlineSMS through their own networks, and that’s a simple yet significant first step for many NGOs looking to deploy SMS services in their social change work.

But the past year - and the three before that, if we’re to be honest - have presented their fair share of challenges. When FrontlineSMS was originally conceived in 2005 it was highly experimental. Every step since has presented its own mini mountain to climb.

#1 Applications development and deployment

We’ve certainly learnt a lot on the development side of things - everything from the technical, geographical and financial challenges of creating mobile tools for use in resource-constrained environments, through to ways of encouraging adoption among the hard-to-reach grassroots NGO community. Best practice - such as understanding the fundamentals of the problem at the very beginning, researching existing solutions, rapid prototyping, choosing appropriate platforms and leveraging existing structures, are among a number of important key steps we’ve learnt along the way.

#2 Dismissing myths

By far the best way to fully understand the geographical, cultural and technical challenges of building mobile tools is to go out and build tools. It’s also imperative to spend a little time with the people or organisations you’re trying to help, ideally before you start designing anything. Neither of these are easy, mind you - time and cost are two factors - but you’ll gain far greater insight than you could ever do basing your project entirely on what other people say. Misconceptions and hype can be dangerous distractions and blind alleys, particularly if you base some of the fundamentals of your project on them. Scaling, “big is beautiful”, centralised versus distributed and “collaboration at all costs” are just a few. Proceed with caution.

#3 Fragmentation

Although things are much better than they were with the 2005 release (which only supported half-a-dozen devices), today we face the challenges created by a hugely fragmented handset market which innovates and releases new models at a remarkable rate.

We could, of course, make things easy for ourselves and insist users get hold of a GSM modem, but the whole point of FrontlineSMS is to try and lower the barrier to entry, and only supporting modems (and not the devices most readily available to NGOs - mobile phones) would be entirely counter-productive. Over the coming weeks we hope to gain access to test facilities which will allow us to test the software on a wider range of more recently-released phones, but keeping up with the industry will be an ongoing challenge.

#4 Device configuration

Getting their phone connected and working remains one of the bigger challenges for end users. We've made things as easy as possible with built-in automatic detection and configuration, but this can be totally thrown by cheap or fake/imitation cables, handsets not put into the right 'mode', incorrect or corrupt software drivers, software running on the computer 'locking' the phone and not allowing FrontlineSMS access, or by the phone communicating using different 'non-standard' protocols. Again, this is a problem which won't go away, but one we're going to have to do our best with.

#5 Outreach

Finally, how do you promote a grassroots messaging tool to grassroots NGOs who by their very nature are largely 'offline'? It may have taken four years, but FrontlineSMS is today relatively well known among our target communities, and much of the adoption is driven organically, i.e. by one NGO talking about it with another. We're very happy with our 2,600 NGOs in the past year, but we should be reaching out to many more. Getting it up to nearer 5,000 over the next twelve months is the target we've set ourselves.

#6 Bandwidth

FrontlineSMS is run by the smallest of teams - one project manager and two part-time software developers. As the software begins to get serious traction in a number of target areas, we need to plan very carefully to ensure that we don't miss out on key opportunities, that we keep up with the users' needs, that we remain responsive, and that we don't become too overstretched. Some of the signs tell us that perhaps we already are.

#7 Evaluation and impact

A number of researchers and larger international NGOs are beginning to take an interest in helping us assess the impact of FrontlineSMS among the user base. There is still much we don't really know - how many downloads lead to regular use (and how many don't), what barriers stop people using it, what impact the software has on the work of the NGO, and the benefits it brings to the communities they serve. These are all critical questions.

As we enter the second year, we're just about ready to start making sense of the map and what it represents. And that means our successes, our failures, and where we go from here.

FrontlineSMS reaches out in Cambodia

Brad, Angelina team up with FrontlineSMS project in Cambodia:

UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA PRESS RELEASE

Researchers from the University of Canberra are working with the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP), an organisation founded by philanthropists Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, to trial a cost effective text-messaging system. The project with the University of New England is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research to help improve the lives of some of the poorest people in Cambodia.

The mobile phone system can be used to alert villagers about disease outbreaks, like tuberculosis and other important health and agricultural information, like pest problems in Samlaut, a remote and rural outpost in northwest Cambodia where MJP is implementing large scale integrated development interventions.

Although reports are showing that the percentage of Cambodia's population falling ill with TB declined in 2007, Stephan Bognar, Executive Director of MJP said that Cambodia had approximately 495 new cases per every 100,000. Only Zimbabwe and South Africa had higher rates. "We need, therefore, to find effective tools to quickly disseminate information to isolated and rural communities."

The University’s Dr Robert Fitzgerald says the researchers chose SMS text messaging as the information tool of choice because Cambodia has 85 per cent mobile phone coverage and texting can cost as little as 3 US cents.

The seed for the simple, but successful technology came from a project to help Cambodian farmers get better prices for their crops.

"We wanted to help farmers access the price of maize or soybeans on demand, so they were in a stronger position to negotiate the sale of their crop," Dr Fitzgerald said. "Many of these farmers have to borrow money to plant their crop, in most cases paying 4 per cent interest per month."

"Some traders and farmers knew some price information but that was not always shared, so the only way the farmer could find out about the price was to travel to town or ask nearby friends. So now farmers can text the agricultural information server and straight away find out about the prices."

The FrontlineSMS system runs on any PC, with a GSM modem and a pre-paid SIM card. The software is free and open source, and was developed by UK-based expert Ken Banks who designed the software back in 2005 specifically for Non-Government Organisations working primarily in Africa.

Dr Fitzgerald is working on a new project with his colleagues to expand the farmer SMS network to include more production and marketing information.

(Further details on the project, including future plans for expansion, are available via a guest blog post from Robert here. The official University of Canberra press release is available here)

Focus on the users, and all else will follow

If we were to have a mantra on the FrontlineSMS project, it would be this: "Focus on the users, and all else will follow". From the very beginning we've been unashamedly focused on servicing the needs of our growing NGO user base. Much of the advanced functionality you see in the software today has been requested by users over the course of the last four years, and much of the feature request list we're working through today is based on feedback received since the major MacArthur-funded re-launch last summer. Our focus on the user is beginning to pay off, with well over 500 members actively engaged online. Although we're excited with our progress, we're far from complacent and there's much more we need to, and can, do.

With growing numbers of these users actively engaging online, others have started contributing their own stories on how they're applying the software in their social change work. All that remains now is the creation of the second part of the community puzzle - this time for developers.

With invaluable support from our friends at the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Free Software Foundation, last autumn we finally solved some lengthy and complex licensing work with the FrontlineSMS code. With a number of educational establishments, NGOs and individual developers keen to begin work, we pushed the code out on SourceForge, posted a community blog entry a little later, and got on with improving functionality and providing continued frontline technical support to the NGO user base.

Although some early partners have already started working with the code, we've been holding back on an official announcement until we have everything in place - IRC, mailing lists, documentation and processes, for example - and the code is in the best possible shape for people to work with.

Earlier last month we started working with Aspiration Tech in San Francisco, who will be responsible for helping build the community. Our own developers, a number of users, and other volunteer programmers are all incredibly excited to be working with Aspiration, who are experts in the field. We'll make an announcement once we're good to go.

Although there is considerable buzz and excitement around mobile technology and source code at the moment, we've been firm believers that the users come first. Without them you have no project, no community. Only now, after increasing numbers of this first community - the users - begin to apply the software in exciting and innovative ways, is everyone ready - developers included - to tackle the second.

FrontlineSMS, media, and the Malawi elections

It doesn't quite make the headlines in the same way as elections in Nigeria, the DRC or Zimbabwe, but today the people of Malawi are awaiting the results of a general election which many are saying is too close to call. A peaceful and orderly outcome is crucial. Malawi has one of the fastest growing economies in the world (although it is starting from near-bottom, admittedly) and continued stability is vital if progress is to continue. Access to balanced and unbiased election information is often a key problem at crucial times like these. The logistical challenges of running nationwide elections is often compounded by a lack of election-specific knowledge among local media, which can often lead to misreporting, misinformation and - in worse-case scenarios - civil unrest. The availability of ICT tools for local journalists can also be problematic, compounding the problem yet further.

The African Elections Project (AEP) Malawi focuses on developing the capacity of the media through the use of ICTs, and mobile-enabled AEP Malawi team members are working across the country, using voice and SMS to stay in touch with a central newsroom based in Blantyre. This newsroom is equipped with a copy of FrontlineSMS, which is helping manage incoming and outgoing SMS to and from newsroom members, and helping auto-manage and disseminate news via SMS to subscribers.

FrontlineSMS is free software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with large groups of people through mobile phones.

To receive regular election updates and certified results from the Malawi Electoral Commission, log on to www.africanelections.org/malawi. Malawians can text "subscribe" to +265 884 583 980 or email their mobile number to malawi@africanelections.org.

Updates are also available on Twitter by following @malawivotes2009

The African Elections Project (AEP) Malawi is co-ordinated by the International Institute for ICT Journalism working hand in hand with key partners, with funding from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

The world according to FrontlineSMS

We're not far off a year since the launch of the revised version of FrontlineSMS, and great progress has been made on many fronts. One of the challenges we've faced is that there's no manual for what we're trying to do, so it's been something of a shot in the dark much of the time. The past, present (and no doubt future) of the software remains heavily influenced by the organic spread of the tool - NGOs finding it by "discovery" and adopting it in their own projects, for themselves, by themselves. Leaving them do a little bit of the work themselves helps create the ownership so crucial for a project to succeed, I believe.

Looking at the map of users today, we have a quite amazing spread. Along with expected hotspots in Africa and South/Central America, FrontlineSMS has been "discovered" by NGOs in as far-flung places as the Maldives, Bermuda and the Faroe Islands. How they got to hear about it I'll never know. Maybe not knowing is half the fun.

The online user community also continues to grow and remains very active, and is showing encouraging signs of become self-supporting. As of today we have 478 members and, yes, some of them do like to customise their pages! To date around 20% of NGOs who download the software end up joining the community (downloads to date comes to 2,118), which is not a bad return. We have to do a bit more work on this, I think, as we intend to in the coming months. We also need to focus more on the growing interest from the developer community, who still lack a proper, fully decorated home. Work starts on that any day now.

Of course, there is still much we don't know - how we measure the impact of FrontlineSMS, how many of the users who download the software that go on to use it with any regularity, what additional challenges there are to adoption over and above the ones we know, and so on. But we'll keep working at it. We have the funding - for now, anyway - and we have the incredible support of a growing community of NGOs, bloggers, activists, developers, academics, observers and, of course, users.

(Note: A selection of FrontlineSMS Guest Posts are available, written and submitted by users themselves).

FrontlineSMS: Now with Forms

It's been a hectic few months, but we're finally there. Today we're excited to announce the release of the new FrontlineForms, an SMS-driven data collection tool which seamlessly integrates into our existing and growing FrontlineSMS platform. Sure, data collection tools already exist, but many require mobile internet access to function, degrees in Linux to get running, or PDAs or the kinds of phones that just aren't available to the masses in most developing countries. FrontlineForms runs on most high- and low-end Java-enabled phones, can be downloaded directly onto a handset over-the-air, doesn't require internet access beyond installation, and utilises the already-proven simple user interface of FrontlineSMS. In short, FrontlineForms compliments our existing focus on empowering the social mobile long tail with an entry-level, usable data collection tool.

According to my thinking, tools for the long tail need - among other things - to run on readily available hardware wherever possible, and be simple to install and easy to use. These innocent little criteria can create huge challenges, though. Writing an application which runs on all desktops (Windows, Mac and the various flavours of Linux), that interfaces locally with the widest range of phones and modems, and connects remotely with a data collection tool which runs on as many Java-enabled handsets as possible is a huge technical challenge. Many other mobile solutions concentrate on one desktop operating system, or a small family of mobile phones (sometimes just a single phone), which is all fine if you want to concentrate on users higher up the long tail. With our focus on grassroots NGOs, we don't.

So, this is how it works. Using the new FrontlineSMS Forms Editor (above), users are able to create a form visually on their computer by dragging-and-dropping field types, giving them names and setting other parameters along the way. The form is then encoded and sent via SMS to any number of handsets running the FrontlineForms client, a small program which runs on a wide range of Java-enabled handsets. Once these handsets receive a new form, the Java client interprets the data, saves the form layout and displays a mobile version ready for the fieldworker to complete (see below).

The FrontlineForms client can hold many different forms at the same time, all selectable from a drop-down menu. As requirements change new forms can be built and distributed by simply texting them to the recipients handset through FrontlineSMS - they don't need to travel to the office to be added. Once out in the field the user simply inputs their data, and once complete multiple forms are combined and compressed, ready to be sent back to the FrontlineSMS hub, again as SMS. If at any time users find themselves working out of range of a mobile signal, the data is usefully held in "offline" mode until connectivity is restored.

The addition of data collection functionality to FrontlineSMS is a significant step forward for the software. From today, non-profit organisations in the developing world can experiment with anything from simple two-way group messaging campaigns to prototyping SMS-based information services, or start collecting data in the field, all through a single software application. The modular nature of FrontlineSMS means that users are able to deactivate functionality they do not need, but then easily reactivate it as they grow into SMS services. Future "modules" will include mapping functionality - powered by Ushahidi - and multimedia messaging (due later this year) allowing the transmission of pictures, audio, video and text. More specialist applications, including those being developed independently by the FrontlineSMS:Medic team, will also appear as optional modules.

According to Dr. Luis Sarmenta of the Next Billion Network and MIT Media Lab - whose students worked on pre-release versions of the tool as part of their own projects:

"Data collection from the field is one of the most common needs we see among projects in the developing world today, and enabling people to use mobile phones instead of paper would empower a lot of groups and people out there to do their work more efficiently, more effectively, and with broader reach. FrontlineForms seeks to provide this profoundly useful capability while remaining true to the goal of ease-of-use that has been the key to FrontlineSMS' success and value"

Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) were equally positive after spending several days putting the entire platform through its paces as part of a wider evaluation exercise. According to Grégory Rebattu, TSF’s Niger Representative:

"Crucially from our perspective, FrontlineSMS is extremely user-friendly, allowing partner organisations on the ground to rapidly deploy a data collection and dissemination system from scratch. This simplicity is crucial for organizations which may lack technical skills, and users can be up and running in a matter of minutes with the minimum of mouse clicks. The intuitive nature of the software also means that little technical support is required once they’re up and running"

Today's release of FrontlineForms gives many new and existing FrontlineSMS users access to entry-level data collection tools for the very first time. Those that find it valuable, and those whose data collection needs grow, can then move onto more scalable and powerful solutions such as those developed by DataDyne, an organisation we've been in contact with over the years and whose work is making a considerable impact in parts of the developing world. What FrontlineForms aims to do, over-and-above anything else, is give grassroots NGOs the opportunity to try out mobile data collection with the minimum of fuss, the minimum need for high-level technical expertise or equipment, and the minimum of funding.

These are exciting times for the FrontlineSMS community. The software has been allowed to develop organically, based very much on the needs of  users in the field, and it continues to power increasing numbers of social change projects around the world. If 2009 doesn't turn out to be the "Year of Mobile" everyone is talking about, we'll sure be doing our best to make it the "Year of the FrontlineSMS user".  o/

(Further details on today's FrontlineForms launch can be found on the official Press Release. A special thanks goes to Tess Conner for her work on media and PR, to MIT and Télécoms Sans Frontières for their feedback, to the team at Masabi for their commitment and contribution to the project, to members of the FrontlineSMS Communiity for their ideas and enthusiasm, and to members of the wider social mobile community for their continued support and encouragement. You know who you are)

Mobilising around FrontlineSMS:Medic

Today sees the launch of an exciting new initiative - FrontlineSMS:Medic - by a growing team of students mobilising around the practical application of mobile technology in global healthcare delivery. FrontlineSMS:Medic combines Josh Nesbit's pioneering work on "Mobiles in Malawi" with a mobile version of OpenMRS - an open source medical records system - and an exciting new remote diagnosis tool. In this guest blog post, Josh Nesbit and Lucky Gunasekara talk about the origins of the project, and their plans in the coming months.

Josh: I should be heading off to class, right about now. I'll go, but not without telling a story, first. A convergence of ideas and people marks the launch of FrontlineSMS:Medic and the team's embarkation on a quest to do mHealth the right way.

Many of you are familiar with the role FrontlineSMS, a donated laptop, and a bag of recycled cell phones have played in connecting community health workers (CHWs) in Malawi to a rural hospital and its resources. Text messaging is now an integral component of the hospital's infrastructure. FrontlineSMS has proven intuitively easy to use with strong user buy-in. The program is horizontally scalable, and incredibly cheap to run, matched with indisputable savings in time and costs. Enter Lucky.

Lucky: I am the bewildered South Asian guy in the photo. Back in 2008, I was sitting in an office in Tokyo reading about cellphone penetration in developing countries, wondering if mobiles couldn't also be used for boosting healthcare delivery in resource poor settings. When I wasn't wearing a suit and riding to work in a packed Tokyo subway car, I was wearing a t-shirt and khakis and working in clinics in Sri Lanka - accepting an offer to attend  Stanford Med, this year. I worked out that SMS could be used in tandem with an open source electronic medical records system called OpenMRS, allowing for continuity in patient care from the community health workers to the clinic.  Meanwhile, Josh was sweating it out in Malawi, actually learning this the hard way. Just to prove that good ideas are obvious, Isaac Holeman and Daniel Bachhuber, two students at Lewis & Clark, had the same realization and began working on a project called MobilizeMRS to get this underway.

Josh: Long story short, we're all working together now. Lucky is pictured on stage with Bill Clinton, as his CGI U commitment is announced on the group's behalf.

Lucky: The commitment is, briefly:

To build on kiwanja's CGI commitment of an Ambassadors Program within FrontlineSMS, by developing a new version of FrontlineSMS - FrontlineSMS:Medic - for use in clinics in developing countries. That Medic will have end to end of continuity of electronic medical records by fusing FrontlineSMS with OpenMRS in a modular click-to-add format. I will be taking a year off from medical school (a decision infinitely popular with my folks) to work on this system and develop new partners on the ground with Josh, and do research on a new breakthrough medical diagnostic system at UCLA, that we feel will be the "Killer App" of FrontlineSMS:Medic. More on that to come. We're also going to be fully open source with wiki user manuals and off-the-shelf healthcare packages for download, so setting up a DOTS-TB program doesn't have to be any harder than buying a song on iTunes... OK, maybe a little bit harder... but not by much.

Josh: We're planning to pull this off within a year, operating in more than 25 pilot study and partner clinics by the summer of 2010. The system will be free and so will the hardware. Check http://medic.frontlinesms.com regularly to learn more and get involved.

Sitcoms+SMS: Tackling HIV/AIDS in the DRC

In this, the first of a series of guest posts on how FrontlineSMS is being used around the world, Becky McLaughlin - Marketing Director at Rien que la Vérité - talks about their current use of the platform, and the impact it has had on their work "Based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rien que la Vérité was born in 2006 when some of the finest musicians in the Congo united to produce a CD of songs speaking against the spread of HIV/AIDS. Since 2006, the Rien que la Vérité platform has produced 14 music videos, a documentary, and an all-day stadium concert. In its present incarnation, Rien que la Vérité is touching the lives of the people of the Congo through their television screens as they follow the lives of a Kinois family on a locally-produced TV drama.

Rien que la Vérité - the TV series - launched nationally on November 30th, 2008 and first implemented FrontlineSMS in the airing of its second episode on December 14th. Each episode broadcast is accompanied by short talk-show segments during which a host introduces music clips, talks to well-known musicians and actors, and interviews representatives from local NGOs and organizations whose message dovetails with a theme introduced in the show.

During the December 14th show, the audience was invited to participate by sending an SMS with the name of their favorite character. The responses were collected using FrontlineSMS. This simple first step allowed Rien que la Vérité to test the software and to begin an exploration of our audience's perceptions and preferences. As the show continues we plan to introduce more simple polls that will help tailor the show to the audience's tastes, and give viewers a sense of ownership of the program.

This, however, is the most basic use we foresee. We are now launching a drive to support fan clubs, so that people who watch the show can find each other, meet, and talk about the show and the topics it introduces - a process that will begin to normalize conversation about HIV/AIDS. We'll use FrontlineSMS to collect contact information from interested fans, then broadcast messages with times and locations for local club gatherings. We also intend to use FrontlineSMS in our research for measuring the impact the show has on our target audience. We'll send out questions via SMS to fans before and after each show, measuring any changes in attitude, knowledge, or self-reported practices due to exposure to the show's messaging.

FrontlineSMS will be a critical tool in our goal to entertain and educate. Like its television format, Rien que la Vérité's future development must remain grassroots, and FrontlineSMS is an excellent vehicle for this."

Becky McLaughlin Marketing Director Rien que la Vérité www.abcd-laverite.com

Building our Clinton Commitment

Those following kiwanja's work will remember last September's invitation to the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, where we proposed the "FrontlineSMS Ambassadors Programme" as our 2009/2010 Commitment. This Commitment was announced live on-stage during the ‘Poverty and Information’ workshop on the final day, and I also had the huge honour of meeting President Clinton in person, who presented me with our Commitment certificate.

Of course, now the work really starts. Since New York much has happened, including the receipt of a significant grant from the Hewlett Foundation. Portions of this funding will be used in the coming weeks to kick off the first phase of the Ambassadors Programme, which is part of wider efforts to promote the use of FrontlineSMS among the NGO community. This first initiative will be based around Josh Nesbit's innovative health-based efforts in Malawi, and Josh - who will be project managing the work - will provide updates nearer the time via his blog and Twitter feed.

Future initiatives will take in other key target areas where FrontlineSMS has shown its versatility. These include agriculture, education, conservation and human rights, among others. For regular updates feel free to subscribe to the blog RSS or FrontlineSMS Twitter feeds.

NEWS: Video of kiwanja's Pop!Tech 2008 presentation now available online

A video of Ken Banks' presentation at this year's Pop!Tech gathering in Camden, Maine is now available online. Ken, who was selected as a Pop!Tech 2008 Social Innovation Fellow, talks about Dr. Who, Daleks, appropriate technology, mobile phones and FrontlineSMS in a five minute talk given to 700 delegates and attendees The video is available via the kiwanja.net site (with some additional background information) or directly from the Pop!Tech site. Videos of the other Fellow's presentations are available on the Fellows page

NEWS: "Mobiles in Malawi" project featured on CNN.com

Josh Nesbit's Mobiles in Malawi project has been featured on the 'Technology' pages of the CNN.com website. Josh travelled to Namitete over the summer to install a text-based communications network using FrontlineSMS. Josh, who is about to return to Malawi, was interviewed along with kiwanja's Ken Banks for the article, which can be read here

NEWS: kiwanja.net and FrontlineSMS to feature on SHIFT Radio

The work of kiwanja.net, and specifically FrontlineSMS, will be featured on a special edition of SHIFT Radio on Friday 5th December. SHIFT Radio is an informal, lively internet radio channel hosted by Chris Melissinos. "Each week he talks about the latest in tech gadgets, interviews leaders in the video game and rich media industries and cuts up revolving guests, hosts and live callers". Ken Banks was contacted by the station after taking part in a Net Impact discussion on social mobile gaming, and the recent launch of kiwanja's Silverback gorilla game