FrontlineSMS is shaped by our diverse user community: We want to hear from you!

By Florence Scialom, FrontlineSMS Community Support Coordinator

“Focus on the user and all else will follow,” has been one of our main mottos here at FrontlineSMS ever since the original version of our software was built in 2005. Yet it is undeniable that, as we gear up for a big year in 2012, the face of the FrontlineSMS user is more diverse than it was when we first started out. Ken Banks, the Founder of FrontlineSMS, has often said to the team here that he was excited when one person downloaded FrontlineSMS back when he first made the software available; at the end of 2011 the number of people who had downloaded FrontlineSMS passed the 20,000 mark.

As our user base continues to grow, our user-focused ethos is more important to us than ever. We strongly believe that our direction should continue to be guided by our passionate, innovative, and richly varied user community. That is why we would love to hear your views in our latest FrontlineSMS user survey. We want to hear your feedback on our user resources and our software, so that we can feed your opinions into our planning for 2012. Even if you aren’t using FrontlineSMS actively at the moment, your opinions still matter to us, and we’d love to hear any views and experiences you’d like to share about FrontlineSMS in our survey.

We have seen our software used in so many different ways – election monitoring, maternal health support, citizen engagement, education, coordination of humanitarian response, to name just a few – and in so many places – Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Cote d’Ivoire, Canada, the UK are just some of the locations we’ve documented use of FrontlineSMS in within the last year. This is both very exciting and somewhat challenging for us; we would like to ensure that FrontlineSMS software and user support continues to meet the needs of our users, whatever those users now look like. The fact that our user community is growing makes it even more important for us to hear feedback, so we can serve increasingly varied and changing user needs.

And we’d like to say thank you - fill in the survey, and you’ll be in with a chance of winning a limited-edition FrontlineSMS T-shirt. For the next four weeks we will also be choosing one lucky survey respondent each week to win an unlocked, FrontlineSMS-compatible USB GSM modem. In addition, we will choose another lucky prize winner to get a copy of the well-known book, SMS Uprising, signed by our very own Ken Banks.  (All those who have filled out the survey already will also be in with a chance of winning these prizes). So, as well as the opportunity to feed in to our 2012 strategy you could win some very exciting prizes! All this for just 5 minutes of your time - what have you got to lose?

There are many faces we see regularly in our user community. Those who are part of a small community based group, seeking to keep people informed about valuable yet hard to access information. Those who are part of a large NGO seeking coordinate communication with disparate staff, monitor the effectiveness of their work, and hear feedback from the communities they serve. Those starting a sustainable business in a developing economy, and wanting a way to keep in touch with all key stakeholders in areas where there is little or no internet access available. And even those in economically developed countries, who are working to engage vulnerable communities via the accessibility of SMS.

Do any of these descriptions sound like you? If so it would be great to hear your views and experiences with our software and resources. If you don’t feel you are represented in the above list (which is certainly not exhaustive), then we need to hear from you too! If you’re using or have thought about using FrontlineSMS then please fill out our survey and let us know who you are!

Last year’s survey results helped us to shape the major release of our software due out in 2012 – FrontlineSMS Version 2 – and it also helped us to understand that our users want to connect with each other more, and learn from each others’ use cases. Hence we worked throughout 2011 to document more use cases on our blog and have engaged members of our community to volunteer with us as FrontlineSMS Heroes, too. Recently one of our Heroes, Tom Marentette, has helped start an exciting trend of user meet-ups, certainly something we will seek to continue to build upon in 2012.

Now the team here is wondering, what will this year’s survey tell us? You can shape the answer to this question by filling out our survey, and helping us better understand the diverse face of our FrontlineSMS user community! o/

The Huffington Post: "Haiti Earthquake 2 Years Later: Rape Survivors Support Abuse Victims In Displacement Camps"

FrontlineSMS was featured in an article from The Huffington Post about sexual violence in displacement camps in Haiti, where almost half a million people are living after the 2010 eartquake.  The full article can be found here. "'Since the earthquake, Haitian women and girls in the displacement camps have faced an epidemic of rape. They have lived without adequate security, lighting, shelter or privacy,' MADRE, KOFAVIV's partner organization, said in a statement.

KOFAVIV was founded in 2004 and set up services in 22 camps after the earthquake to respond to the rise in sexual violence. The organization provides medical, legal and psychological support services to victims [...].

Volunteers monitor the camp and have an alert hotline and FrontlineSMS system to notify authorities of abuse. Trained psychologists volunteer their time and accompany women to the doctor, ensuring they're checked within 72 hours of being raped. Lawyers also volunteer their services in navigating the process of bringing charges against an attacker."

To read the full article please visit The Huffington Post website here.

New Year - New Internship Opportunities!

As 2012 begins, are you interested in taking up an exciting opportunity to learn more about mobile technology’s role in social change and development?

If you’re a creative and enthusiastic individual, we’d like to invite you to apply for our two internship positions to join the growing FrontlineSMS team! You can help support a community of people using mobile in innovative ways or find out more about how text messaging can be used in community radio stations to give a voice to under-served communities.

FrontlineSMS is a free, open source software which is used all over the world to enable positive social change by helping people to communicate using simple text messaging. We currently have two exciting internship opportunities to work with the team at our London office. Since we are a small but fast-growing organization, FrontlineSMS interns are provided with valuable opportunities to get involved in many different areas of our work and take responsibility within key projects.

We need a Community Support Assistant to help us build, support and understand our ever-buzzing online communities and networks of users. We also need a Radio Project Assistant to support the emergence of a tailored version of our software optimised for radio stations and help us to organise a London event to mark UNESCO's World Radio Day on 13th February. If you just can’t choose between these two positions please feel free to apply for both in the same application.

This is what Lisa, one of our Community Interns said about her experiences with FrontlineSMS:

“I spent three months working with FrontlineSMS and my experience was both humbling and inspiring. I had a chance to soak in the very tangible passion and enthusiasm that the team feels for their work. I had a very real opportunity to contribute, to participate and to share in the team successes and challenges. Each team member that I worked with gave me their attention, gave me the information that I needed, and gave me the freedom to use my skills/strengths to help improve the experience of working at FrontlineSMS.”

So, if you think you’ve got what it takes please see our Jobs and Internships page for full details and job descriptions.

Supporting Education through SMS in Kyrgyzstan

IREX is an international non-profit organization working on education, independent media and civil society development. Recently, they have been using FrontlineSMS as a tool for efficient management of their Global Connections and Exchange (GCE) and Digital Youth Dialogue (DYD) programs in Kyrgyzstan. In this guest post IREX's Myahriban Karyagdyyeva and Tynchtyk Zhanadylov explain how their use of FrontlineSMS is making a difference in their work on these programs:

IREX has been implementing our Global Connections and Exchange (GCE) and Digital Youth Dialogue (DYD) programs in 22 schools and 3 librariesthroughout Kyrgyzstan. The GCE and DYD programs aim to equip students and the teachers with technology and training, in order to enhance classroom learning. In each school or library IREX has an appointed teacher who is responsible for coordination of activities between IREX and the institution. This set up requires IREX and teachers to have constant communication, in order to be able to keep up with dynamic program activities.

However, efficient communications on these programs initially proved challenging. Every day, the IREX team based in Bishkek need to send out different announcements and instructions to teachers, and at first we were doing this via email only. Yet  we soon found that teachers often aren't able to check their emails during the day, therefore relying on email to communicate was resulting in delays. Our team often had to call each teacher individually in order to ask them to check their email. This took up a significant amount of staff time, and was also an inconvenience to teachers. In addition, we also have a need to receive information from teachers every day, and so there was a clear need for a quick and interactive communications channel which could make this process more convenient all round.

The teachers and students we’re working with are attached to their cell phones, and therefore our team decided to experiment with text messaging as a method of communication. FrontlineSMS software enabled us to use mass text messaging, which streamlined our communication and allowed us to use time more efficiently. It only takes about a minute to send out text messages to all of our teachers through FrontlineSMS, whereas in the past staff were making individual calls which took a lot longer.

Currently FrontlineSMS is used in many different ways to help us administer daily tasks in our programs. This includes sending reminders to check emails or prepare for upcoming deadlines, as well as interaction between our team and teachers on any urgent questions. Using FrontlineSMS helps to improve the speed of communication, which in turn ensures that program deadlines are met and results in less time being needed for coordination of activities in different regions.

We have found that there are many other advantages to using FrontlineSMS, too. Internet speed is low outside of in Kyrgyzstan’s urban centers and connection problems are a constant challenge. Few people have internet in their homes, yet everyone has mobile phones and so using SMS makes regular communication accessible to more of those we work with. When we ask teachers how they like working with SMS, they say that they find it very convenient, useful and flexible. It helps them to implement tasks faster, and helps them stay always informed in areas which are offline. When working with different communities who don’t have regular access to internet or email, SMS is clearly a useful solution for ensuring fast two-way communication.

Moving forward we plan to continue using FrontlineSMS for communication with teachers, and we will also be using FrontlineSMS in new ways too. We plan to collect SMS feedback reports from our program participants on how often they attend IREX trainings and where trainings are being held. We will then map these reports using online mapping tool Ushahidi, and this will allow us to visualize our impact. In addition, the GCE program is also planning to use FrontlineSMS to conduct polling and short surveys among students and teachers, which will help us to further understand the value of our program and the needs that program participants have. We’re really excited about all we have planned, and will continue to build up the use of FrontlineSMS in our work.

To find out more about IREX visit http://www.irex.org

DevEx: "Three trends to watch in international development for 2012"

FrontlineSMS was featured in an article from DevEx this week, as part of a piece on the trends to watch in international development for 2012. You can find an extract of the article below, and the full piece can be found here. "As the world adjusts to seven billion people, and begins its creep toward eight billion, doing more with less will become increasingly important. Continuing economic stagnation and budgetary concerns in OECD countries will also put stress on existing commitments of foreign assistance and hamper new initiatives. Greater efficiency and effectiveness in development is paramount. Below are three trends to watch in the coming year that can help improve development outcomes.

1) mHealth and mGovernance

Applying mobile phone technology to global health challenges has huge potential to improve health outcomes. In previous blogs I’ve given a few examples of how mHealth is making a difference: in remote areas of Afghanistan, health workers are getting training through SMS; in South Africa, Project Masiluleke sends text messages with important information about HIV; in South Asia pregnant women are receiving important maternal health information also via text messages. Here are few more instances: FrontlineSMS, a free online text messaging system that sends texts between groups of people and online mapping systems like Google Earth, allows health workers in Cambodia to report cases of malaria in real time. This has permitted the government to track outbreaks and allocate resources more effectively. Previously, it took up to a month for cases to be registered."

To read the full article please visit the DevEx website here.

Communication for social change: How to turn a stone into a sponge (it’s not magic, it’s design!)

Earlier this year we heard from Equal Access about their radio project in Chad and Niger. Dr. Karen Greiner conducted 3 months of field research over a two-year period as an external evaluator of the radio programs, producing an evaluation report as a result. Drawing on this work in the below post, Dr. Greiner shares her reflections on projects which invite interaction and promote dialogue. In the world of communication for social change, design matters. The strengths and limitations of communication program design, and

of the chosen medium or form of communication, can affect the reception and use of content. For example, let’s say that a communication intervention is designed to disseminate information to community members about the importance of hand washing to avoid illness, and the medium used to convey this information is a written billboard message next to a crowded marketplace. The location might be well chosen but the form limits reception to those who can read, understand the chosen language, and happen to see that particular billboard. There is also no way to engage in dialogue with a billboard; a billboard, by design, is to be passively consumed.

What if we had chosen, instead, the medium of radio? With radio we can reach even those who cannot read, and we can also reach those who live beyond the marketplace, provided they own or have access to a radio. We still have to carefully consider language. For example, if we want to reach the urban teens in Dakar one would have to consider whether content be in French, Wolof, or both (budget permitting). And one might also translate content into additional languages for regional broadcasts. Whichever decision is made on choice of language, radio can clearly improve access and reach. The medium of radio, however, does not necessarily engage listeners in dialogue - radio is still often used for the disseminating messages.

The billboard and the traditional radio broadcast are one-way forms of communication – they are to be received and not responded to. I call one-way forms of communication “stones.” Stones are closed, impenetrable and finalized; we cannot “talk back” to stones. A stone can be converted into a “sponge,” however, when the form of communication is designed to invite response – to invite dialogue. A sponge is porous; it has holes - entry points - that allow liquid (or in this case audience members) to enter and exit. In this instance, the analogy of communication intervention-as-sponge is provided as the open alternative to the closed-form stone.

A radio broadcast converts from stone to sponge when it invites interaction; and one way to do this is to offer interaction through SMS. When an SMS number is embedded in the radio broadcast, along with an invitation to listeners to respond to the broadcast, audience members are given the opportunity to react and to share their opinions and ideas. Sponge designs invite dialogue.

An example of this type of engagement is provided by radio shows in Chad and Niger. From 2008 onwards, the San Francisco-based non-profit organization, Equal Access has been running several radio shows designed to promote democracy and encourage civic participation in community life as part of the Peace through Development project (PDEV). They recruited a talented team of local journalists and media professionals to produce and broadcast radio programs on topics ranging from civic engagement to community health and sanitation.

The design of the radio programs is very innovative, and very porous. Each radio program had several “sponge”-like features. Early designs of the program included an embedded text message number so that listeners could respond to radio content using their cell phones. PDEV staff-members used FrontlineSMS software and systems to track and organize audience member messages. In some cases the content of text messages inspired program producers as they wrote new scripts. In other cases the message senders were called and asked if they would be interested in forming a local listening club. Towards the end of the project, program producers began including the content of audience member text messages in new broadcasts. So, for example, messages received in response to broadcast #37 were included in broadcast #40.

This inclusion of audience-produced content is the difference between two-way dialogue and one-way monologue. Designs that invite audience input still face limitations of cost, literacy, language and access to technology. Some of these limitations can be addressed. For example, to offset the cost of sending messages, PDEV project staff was eventually able to obtain a toll-free phone number for the SMS in Niger. Mindful that literacy can be a barrier to text messaging, project staff – the last time I visited the project – were experimenting with an open source, interactive voice response (IVR) telephone software called FreedomFone. The combination of FrontlineSMS with FreedomFone enables more radio listeners to enter the dialogue – or enter the “sponge.” In this sense we can see that the design of our invitations for input to listeners also has implications for inclusion; the more we can reduce cost, language, literacy and technology barriers the more likely we are to hear from a wide and diverse range of listeners.

The design our communication interventions reveals our worldview: do we see a world populated by passive, ill-informed “targets”? Or a world made up of active, thoughtful community members with ideas and opinions worth reading and hearing? In short, should we be “monologic,” by continuing to disseminate and broadcast messages, or might we aspire to be “dialogic,” by trusting in the capacity of community members, engaging with them and inviting them to consider our ideas and then also share their own?

The good news is that it’s possible to convert an inventory full of one-way stones into two-way sponges. Add a phone number to your billboard. Use FrontlineSMS software not just to send messages but to receive them as well. Add an email address, phone number or office address to your brochure and invite community members to get in touch and, even better, to suggest improvements to what you have created. It’s not impossible – and never too late - to turn a stone into a sponge. A new design, based on faith in the agency and creativity of community members, is all it takes.

Of course, all analogies have limitations. The “sponge” analogy does not quite capture the dynamic potential unleashed by porous designs. The creative contributions of listeners may need a different organic analogy, and I would be grateful for suggestions. Thus to practice what I am preaching with this blog-post, I invite you to help me convert monologue to dialogue by responding and adding to what I have offered here. What do YOU think? Can you help me improve the line of thinking I have just put forward? Or contribute a more “dynamic” analogy to supplement the “stone” and the “sponge”? Let us declare blog post officially porous. Even critics are invited! So, if you would like to comment on (or improve!) this post, you are invited to do so below.

By Karen Greiner, Ph.D. Post Doctoral Scholar, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Email: kgreiner [at] gmail [dot] com.

Visit the Equal Access website here to read more about Dr. Karen Greiner's evaluation and access her full report on 'Applying Local Solutions to Local Problems'.

To learn more about our work combining our FrontlineSMS software with radio, visit the FrontlineSMS:Radio website: http://radio.frontlinesms.com/

A personal message from FrontlineSMS Founder, Ken Banks

As we approach the end of 2011, there is opportunity for us to reflect on a successful year at FrontlineSMS, reveal some news and reach out to you - our users - to share your thoughts through our survey so that we can carry on innovating. Recently we sent out a personal message from FrontlineSMS Founder, Ken Banks, via our e-newsletter list and we wanted to share it again here with readers of our blog:

Hello,

It's been a while since I was last in touch, and much has been happening in the world of FrontlineSMS. As we approach the end of another year I thought now might be a good time to reach out, share some exciting news, and ask you one small favour.

Exciting news!

Organisationally, the past twelve months have seen considerable growth. We now employ a dozen staff across three continents - Africa, Europe and North America - and the number of software downloads has exceeded the 20,000 mark, powering non-profit projects in twenty sectors in over 70 countries around the world. We've also had a successful year redesigning the platform (further news on that in the new year) and have also been working on versions of FrontlineSMS tailor-made for our :Radio and :Credit projects and their users. As the year closes out we've also managed to secure new funding to allow us to continue to develop the platform, and to continue to support you - our users - in the work that you do.

Share your views on FrontlineSMS

That leads me onto my request for a small favour. It would be great if you could share your views and experiences with FrontlineSMS in our 2011 user survey. Our online survey is crucial in helping us understand how FrontlineSMS is being used, problems you may have had, things you like, areas we can improve, and the impact the platform is having on you and your work. We've managed to continue to provide FrontlineSMS (and full technical support) free to everyone because we have been able to share this information with donors and supporters, helping them to be better informed about the positive impact their software is having.

In today's mobile world it's crucial that we understand our impact, and that we're able to communicate that to the people who support us. This is how we're able to support you. To give you an idea of how useful it is for us to know about your experiences, check out the results from the survey we ran earlier this year. This information has been crucial in helping us secure funding to continue operating into 2012, so thank you to everyone who contributed.

It would be great if you could take a few minutes of your time to fill out our 2011 user survey which will help us continue our work, which in turn helps you continue yours.

Win a FrontlineSMS T-shirt and feature in our National Geographic blog series!

As a show of appreciation, if you complete the survey you'll be in with a chance of winning a limited edition FrontlineSMS T-shirt! There may also be the opportunity to have your project featured on our National Geographic Mobile Message blog series, giving you the chance to share your work with a global audience of millions.

So please take a moment to fill out our user survey today!

Thanks so much for your time, and for the work that you do for millions of people in need around the world. We're excited and honoured to be working with you, and look forward to continuing our partnership into the new year.

Wishing you all the very best,

Ken Banks, FrontlineSMS Founder

Empowering communities through Technology: Map Kibera visit FrontlineSMS office

Post by Kike Oyenuga, FrontlineSMS Community Intern

“Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, was a blank spot on the map until November 2009, when young Kiberans created the first free and open digital map of their own community. Map Kibera has now grown into a complete interactive community information project.”

Jamie Lundine, Executive Director of Map Kibera, stopped by the FrontlineSMS office in London to meet with our London team whilst she was visiting the UK. We had a great conversation with Jamie about the way different types of technology can be used to help empower vulnerable communities. She discussed the role Map Kibera plays in community building in Kibera, one of the largest informal communities in the world located on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. She also shared her experience of providing training to youth groups in Kibera, on different types of participatory tech tools including FrontlineSMS.

Map Kibera was started in 2009 as an effort aimed at creating an open street map of the informal settlements of Kibera. This project was significant because mapping hadn’t been carried out by any official source previously. The process of mapping was completed by community volunteers and over the course of three weeks in late 2009, using hand held GPS devices and the Open Street Map open source mapping platform. The mapping itself was done by young ‘digital surveyors’, who were recruited locally and trained to report on their local area. The city mapping project has been so successful that it has since expanded to involve several other communities in Kenya, including Mathare, Mukuru and Kwale.

Map Kibera has now become a spring board for other projects too, including Voice of Kibera which is an interactive citizen reporting program started in 2010. “Voice of Kibera is operated largely by residents of Kibera, and allows community members to reports news events in the area by SMS and by travelling to the local office to make reports,” Jamie explains. This news is then posted to the map of Kibera, and made available online for others to access. The reporters at Voice of Kibera are locally-recruited youth who are trained in reporting techniques. Jamie discussed with us how “Map Kibera is a program that aims to help the Kibera youth have their voices heard.” The journalists, along with the mappers and incident reporters are all youth members of the Map Kibera Trust and are involved with directly involved in managing its programs.

The Voice of Kibera system does not use FrontlineSMS software directly, but the Map Kibera team do encourage others to use our software if it is helpful. “We encourage youth and community members to use the best ICT solution for their current needs and available resources,” Jamie explains. This means training youth on a range of solutions and allowing them to choose the most appropriate (which is sometimes no ICT at all, and rather some sort of offline communication strategy).

Map Kibera offers training on a range of open source technologies to help youth reporters. Jamie highlights that, “the training specifically targets youth because they are eager to adopt new technologies and are invested in the improvement of their community.” The technologies they train on include OpenStreetMap to map the communities, Wordpress for blogging and Ushahidi for mapping incident reports. They also train on FrontlineSMS, showing people how our software can be used to send, receive and manage mass SMS messages. The team train local youth groups, NGOs and community organizations to use FrontlineSMS in order to help other social change projects. In fact it was through Map Kibera training at Plan Kenya that the Jipange youth project in Kenya first heard about FrontlineSMS, and then began exploring ways they could use it for their work as we reported on our blog previously.

The impact of Map Kibera’s work can clearly be seen through the empowerment of youth reporters. The young men and women that are involved receive training, acquire skills and, as a result, a sense of pride and accomplishment as they learn to produce their own media work. The uses of the mobile and media platforms can be determined directly by the reporters as well. For example, one project started by the mappers documented  girl's security and they track danger zones in the community as a guide to women. This was a need defined by the needs of the community and met by the community reporters themselves using technology.

Future plans include moving Map Kibera beyond online access only, and towards using the map data in public displays to help everyone in the local community. A map of Kibera, displayed prominently, could help residents to locate and access services within it. In Kibera, businesses and public service providers are not necessarily formalized. They can move locations or shut down suddenly, it is useful to have a dynamic map that can be readily changed to reflect to most up-to-date version of Kibera.

It was exciting to meet with Jamie, and learn more about Map Kibera’s future plans. Here at FrontlineSMS we are always keen to see how technology is being used in different ways to empower communities. Thanks to Jamie for her visit, and we look forward to keeping in touch with the Map Kibera team as they progress with their work.

For more information on Map Kibera visit: http://mapkibera.org/

Our new website layout shows FrontlineSMS in action!

By Florence Scialom, FrontlineSMS Community Support Coordinator

Throughout 2011, FrontlineSMS has supported an increasingly global and active community of those using our software for social change. We also have a growing team working on improving our software, our resources and our sector-specific projects. We have therefore decided to update our website layout to more effectively represent all of this, and much more! Hopefully the website now more effectively introduces who we are and what we do, and also better represents our vibrant user community too. Below you can find a summary of the website's new layout, and a description of how to navigate the new content.

We have made these changes in preparation for a more significant website re-design due in 2012. Your views are important to this process, so it would be great if you provide us with some feedback here; share your opinion on the current changes, and let us know what you would like to see more of in the future!

Summary of current changes

About us

The About us section explains who we are and what we do as an organization. You can find new content on how FrontlineSMS was first created and the awards we have received for our work since we started out in 2005. You can also find information on our sector-specific projects, our team and opportunities to join our team, and last - but not least - our valued supporters who make all that we do possible. We hope this section provides you with a clear introduction to our work.

The software

FrontlineSMS software is purposefully designed to be easy to access and set up. The software section of the website is where you can download FrontlineSMS software and get started! This section also introduces some of our software functionality, explains the phones or modems you can use to get started, how to upgrade from previous versions and also how to use our data collection tool, FrontlineForms. Watch this space for upcoming content on our new software release due in 2012.

User resources

We are currently in the process of building up a growing collection of resources to help enable people and organizations to make use of our software successfully. We have divided our resources into easily accessible sections on getting started, managing your data, and data integrity. If you are stuck, then you can visit the Help page for a summary of all free resources and support available to you. You can expect to see more of our growing selection of resources published here in 2012, too.

FrontlineSMS in action

This is a brand new section on our site, aiming to highlight the fantastic and innovative work done by FrontlineSMS users across the world. You can check out the growing collection of user guest posts and case studies, as well as see a world map of those who have downloaded and are actively using FrontlineSMS across the world. You can also find photos, video and audio from our team and our users, and you can also check out our amazing FrontlineSMS Heroes – those interns and volunteers who help support FrontlineSMS’s global presence. If you’re using FrontlineSMS for your work visit this section to find out all the ways you can get involved!

Press

Another brand new section of the site; the press section is for those interested in keeping up to date with recent FrontlineSMS news and events. You will find our press kit page, which provides an easily accessible summary of the main areas of our work. You will also find summaries of the many external publications which have featured FrontlineSMS; including academic articles, books and reports. In addition we now have an events calendar, which may be quiet at the moment due to the upcoming holiday season but in 2012 will quickly be filled with events which FrontlineSMS have organized or are speaking at. There is also an option to contact us from the press page, and this is where you will find all general contact information, too.

For Developers

FrontlineSMS is open source software, so here you will find access to our source code freely available and this can be modified to your heart's content! From this page you can also find out how to connect with our developer team.

Blog

Here you can expect the same regular and engaging posts from the FrontlineSMS team and guest posts from our buzzing user community. If you are using FrontlineSMS and would like to contribute to our blog then get in touch!

Community

Our vibrant community forum continues to grow. We now have well over 2,000 members, who engage daily on the many uses of FrontlineSMS software. A recent additional feature on the forum is a "meet-ups" group, where those interested in FrontlineSMS can suggest opportunity to get together with others in their local region who are using or planning to use our software.

What’s in store for 2012

In the near future you can expect more user resources and case studies, as well as exciting updates on the software section as we prepare for a new release in 2012. In 2012 we will be preparing for a major website re-design, and we want to hear from you on the features you would like to see. So use our feedback function here to comment on current changes and make suggestions for future too! We look forward to hearing from you!

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Huge thanks go to Lisa La Rochelle and Tim Howe for their amazing support in making these changes to our site! And thanks to all others who contributed their ideas and feedback, too. We look forward to improving our website further in 2012!

FrontlineSMS User Meet-up in Haiti: The First of Many Global Meet-Ups!

It is well known that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts,” and this was certainly shown by recent FrontlineSMS user meet-up in Haiti. The meet-up started as three people interested in learning about FrontlineSMS and grew to be a meeting of nearly 20 people, all of whom are involved in social change projects in Haiti and are either actively using or interested in using FrontlineSMS. This meet-up was organized by FrontlineSMS Hero Tom Marentette, who reports on the event below. This will hopefully be the first of many FrontlineSMS organized user meet-ups across the world. If you would like to arrange a FrontlineSMS meet-up in your local area please indicate your interest in this new Meet-Ups Group on our FrontlineSMS user forum!

By Tom Marentette, FrontlineSMS Hero o/

Recently, while working in Haiti on the Notre Dame Haiti Program, I had an opportunity to meet some amazing folks doing great things in aid and development to assist Haitian communities. This group also shared a common interest in the application of FrontlineSMS in their respective work. It's quite an interesting story on how this meeting came together and the resulting benefits.

This all started when I found I'd be travelling to Haiti, and two individuals I met on a TechChange course on Mobiles for Development were already working in the country. We therefore decided to have an informal lunch meeting to discuss mobile tech and more specifically, FrontlineSMS. Our  group moderator on the TechChange course, Flo Scialom (FrontlineSMS Community Support Coordinator), offered to help pull members of the FrontlineSMS community together for the meeting.

Each day, as we criss-crossed Port-au-Prince and Leogane with meetings at various ISP's and Mobile Network Operators, I'd get an email from Flo, "Tom, do you have room for one more?", "Do you have space for another?"...etc...So what started with three or four for lunch, turned into 17 individuals, representing five continents and eight countries - and a full blown FrontlineSMS user group luncheon at the Babako Restaurant in Port-au-Prince. We had organizations at the table representing public health, microfinance, sexual violence, IDP camp resettlements, human rights abuses, education, and others. It really was inspiring to look around that table and realize how many people in Haiti were benefiting from the work of these individuals and their organizations. A true force multiplier!

After some not-so-brief introductions (remember we had 17), we discussed issues around getting started with the software. This included everything from modem hardware compatibility, to running FrontlineSMS on MacOS, and managing incoming/ outgoing SMS. We also covered local resources within Digicel in Port-au-Prince, that can prove helpful in choosing the right modem, and supporting any possible setup issues. Of those at lunch, there were a couple of groups that had FrontlineSMS instances up and running, and others were interested in using it in their respective work, including us with the Notre Dame Haiti Program.

Next, the talk revolved around other mobile and open-source tools in the development space, such as RapidSMS, Ushahidi, OpenMRS and more. So this group was not so much about a single software application, but more about affecting change with any technology - a community of practice around the way technology can impact development and social change.

Finally, as we finished lunch (and by the way the food at Babako was as delicious as the conversation), we talked about the importance of working together, sharing our successes and failures, and staying in touch. The big win was looking around the table and realizing that as diverse as our needs and applications are we all shared a common purpose, enthusiasm and a collective knowledge, to affect positive change with mobile technology.

Call it community of practice, collective passion, or human synergy. This was a testimony to The Awesome Power of Connecting People! We are stronger together!

Thanks so much to Tom for his amazing work and enthusiasm in organizing this meet-up! o/ To organize a FrontlineSMS meet-up and / or connect with others using FrontlineSMS in your local area please join the new Meet-Ups Group on the FrontlineSMS forum.

Get the Word Out: Using SMS to Support Harm Reduction for Vulnerable Women

Guest post from FrontlineSMS user Gordon Gow, University of Alberta Here at the University of Alberta we are using FrontlineSMS to support graduate student research in communication and technology. Among its range of activities, the Mobile Applications for Research Support (MARS) Lab provides access to FrontlineSMS and mobile phones to allow students and community groups to set up and run pilot projects using text messaging.

UniAlberta2

Among our projects, the MARS Lab is providing support for “Get the Word Out” program operated in partnership with Edmonton’s Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE). CEASE works through partnerships to create and pursue strategies to address sexual exploitation and the harms created by prostitution. Their work includes public education, client support, bursaries, counselling, trauma recovery and emergency poverty relief for individuals working to heal and rebuild their lives after experiencing exploitation.

“Get the Word Out” is a harm reduction service that uses FrontlineSMS to enable women involved in prostitution to anonymously report incidents or concerns about violence or crime that is affecting them or may affect others. The program also offers an network for these women to share thoughts or provide peer-based social support using anonymous text messages. FrontlineSMS is set up to auto-forward incoming text messages to a distribution group that includes frontline support agencies and clients who have chosen to subscribe to the service. The auto-forwarding process removes the callerID from the text and preserves only the contents, ensuring anonymity of the issuer. Text messages are also forwarded to a set of email addresses provided by the frontline agencies, as well as a protected Twitter account.

The MARS Lab is also involved in other projects using FrontlineSMS.  For example, it is working in collaboration with Simon Fraser University to pioneering the use of FrontlineSMS in combination with Ushahidi to explore the use of social media in campus health and safety.  This project is using FrontlineSMS to receive text messages from students and staff at both the University of Alberta and Simon Fraser University to report health and safety concerns on campus. The goal of the project is to better understand how text messaging can provide a low cost, low barrier means of reporting to encourage the campus community to help mitigate risks to health and safety on a university campus.

Furthermore, in early 2012 the MARS Lab will be launching a pilot project in partnership with LIRNEasia and the Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture to explore the use of text messaging to support Agricultural Extension Services in the Dambulla and Matale districts. This pilot will involve deployments of FrontlineSMS at three agricultural information centres and is also expected to include a deployment of FrontlineSMS:Radio with a local radio station to support audience interaction for one of the live agriculture talk shows.

It's great to see the diverse range of projects which the University of Alberta is supporting in their use of FrontlineSMS! This post was originally shared on the FrontlineSMS Community Forum. You can see the full original post and connect with Gordon on our forum here.

FrontlineSMS:Radio Trial continues in Kisumu

Following from the post in September, “FrontlineSMS:Radio Trial Begins,” Geoffrey Muchai, one of our FrontlineSMS developers gives an update on his visit to one of the radio stations which is taking part in the trial. By Geoffrey Muchai, FrontlineSMS Developer

I have been working on the FrontlineSMS developer team based in Nairobi and have recently been involved in the customization of our SMS management tool for radio stations. Radio Nam Lolwe, a radio station in Kisumu, northern Kenya has been participating in the FrontlineSMS:Radio trial and a few weeks ago I went to help with an onsite evaluation of the newly installed system.

Radio Nam Lolwe is the most established radio station in the region and it receives a significant amount of SMS messages from its listeners. Previously, the station had problems storing significant numbers of text messages and the presenters often had to delete older messages from their former system when it hit its 1,000 message capacity. Contrast this with the fact that the morning show at Nam Lolwe receives on average more than 500 messages – and that’s on a bad day. In seeking a different solution, Nam Lolwe have been taking part in the trial of FrontlineSMS:Radio since August 2011 and I went to Kisumu to see how they were getting on. During the four days I was there, there were 1,300 messages received by the newly installed FrontlineSMS:Radio!

To read the post in full, please see the FrontlineSMS:Radio website

FrontlineSMS Opens Up New Frontiers for Radio Mashaal

Republished from FrontlineSMS:Radio Guest Post By Zydrone Krasauskiene, Editorial Manager, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

FrontlineSMS software has opened up new frontiers for Radio Mashaal -literally- by creating a completely new and unorthodox way of making interactivity possible for Pashto-speaking audiences in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reports the news where a free press does not exist or is not allowed by the government. RFE/RL reaches nearly 25 million people in 28 languages and 21 countries in Russia, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia. One of RFE/RL's newest services, Radio Mashaal was launched in 2010 and provides reporting in Pashto language in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and part of Balochistan province.  Until now the huge cost of calling the RFE/RL Prague headquarters prevented our listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan from contributing to our programming.

I first heard about the FrontlineSMS open source software, which can turn any computer into an SMS hub, at the Online News Association conference in Washington DC last September. Then when I was in London in April, I visited the FrontlineSMS office and during a chat with Amy O'Donnell the Radio Project Manager, I asked whether we could try it out here at RFE/RL.  Our Mashaal colleagues used to experience great difficulties in engaging their listeners because they found that it was too expensive for them to call in.  So an SMS service looked like a promising solution.

After consulting with my colleagues, we installed FrontlineSMS software in our bureau in Islamabad and connected it to a GSM modem. Colleagues in Islamabad arranged to use a local SIM card and negotiated an extremely reasonable package with the local network provider connection, the subscription cost $1.75 per month including 10,000 SMS messages.

All was set, and on May 11, 2011 Radio Mashaal announced its phone number and invited listeners to contact moderators and program makers.

The response was overwhelming. On the first day, over 130 text messages were received containing political comments, pieces of poetry and praise for Mashaal programs. They even received some jokes via text! While we currently broadcast 9 hours daily, some of the listeners asked for an increase of Mashaal daily programming to 24 hours. In just six months, we received over 20,000 messages.

As a colleague from Radio Mashaal, Shaheen Buneeri explained, “The SMS facility has created an excellent opportunity for Radio Mashaal listeners to express their thoughts and feelings on social, political, cultural and security issues in the region. Through these messages, which are an important part of our news bulletins, listeners connect to their dear ones in foreign lands, and the Pashto diaspora shares messages of peace and goodwill with their friends and families at home.”

But even more than that, some incoming SMSs contained information that turned into reports. For example, about two months ago someone sent an SMS to Radio Mashaal from the Kacaha Panga area near Hango,  complaining that although they lived very close to a gas distribution station, they had  been disconnected from the main gas supply. The issue was taken up by producer Stonzi Aow Sarkar of Radio Mashaal, who challenged the relevant authorities to find a solution. The authorities promised to solve the problem. Similarly, Radio Mashaal received messages in August 2011 about the shortage of water and electricity in Pakistan's Balochistan province. Radio Mashaal correspondents checked the situation on the ground and found that it was true. A local reporter was tasked to take the issue to the relevant authorities. He did so and filed a report on it, creating widespread interest in the issue.

This SMS project has established an extremely effective communication channel for Radio Mashaal listeners. The only drawback is that because of the huge amount of incoming SMSs, we are unable to send SMS replies to all of our listeners.  But as Mudaqiq Amin, Radio Mashaal director says, “The most important thing is that the SMS service enabled our listeners, even the poorest of them, to contact us.”

More than 3 million Pashtuns live in the FATA region. According to last year’s audience research, Radio Mashaal's weekly reach in this region is 5.9 percent of the Pashto population. This demonstrates the power of radio in communicating with this community and the increasing need to offer platforms to allow listeners to engage with the station.

To quote just one SMS which came in last week, in English, “Mashaal Radio is 1 of the best radio [station] in the world!” Isn’t it rewarding?

This post was republished from FrontlineSMS:Radio. If you are interested in the combination of radio and SMS check out radio.frontlinesms.com

New London-based Internships Available Now at FrontlineSMS!

Interested in supporting a community of people using mobile in innovative ways? Want to learn more about mobile technology's role in social change and development? Intrigued by how text messaging can be used in community radio stations to give a voice to under-served communities?

If you're a creative and enthusiastic individual, and you have answered "yes" to any of the above questions, we'd like to invite you to apply for our two internship positions to join the growing FrontlineSMS team!

FrontlineSMS is a free, open source software which is used all over the world to enable positive social change by helping people to communicate using simple text messaging. We currently have two exciting internship opportunities to work with the team at our London office. Since we are a small but fast-growing organization, FrontlineSMS interns are provided with valuable opportunities to get involved in many different areas of our work and take responsibility within key projects.

We need someone to help us build, support and understand our ever-buzzing online communities and networks of users. We also need someone to support the emergence of a tailored version of our software optimised for radio DJs and help build an understanding of the sector specific application of the tool within the media. And if you just can't choose between these two positions please feel free to apply for both in the same application.

This is what Lisa, one of our Community Interns said about her experiences with FrontlineSMS:

“I spent three months working with FrontlineSMS and my experience was both humbling and inspiring. I had a chance to soak in the very tangible passion and enthusiasm that the team feels for their work. I had a very real opportunity to contribute, to participate and to share in the team successes and challenges. Each team member that I worked with gave me their attention, gave me the information that I needed, and gave me the freedom to use my skills/strengths to help improve the experience of working at FrontlineSMS.”

So, if you think you've got what it takes please see our Jobs and Internships page for full details and job descriptions.

Supporting disaster affected communities in Haiti using FrontlineSMS

Guest post from Andy Chaggar, Executive Director of European Disaster Volunteers (EDV) who are using FrontlineSMS in Haiti:

European Disaster Volunteers' mission is to help disaster affected communities worldwide achieve sustainable recovery. This means doing more than simply addressing the damage caused by disasters; it also means addressing the underlying, long-term factors that made communities vulnerable in the first place.

We’ve been working in Port-au-Prince, Haiti since June 2010 and have placed a high priority on education since the beginning. EDV has rebuilt or repaired 36 classrooms in eight schools, are providing scholarships to 50 primary school children, and also run free English classes for adults.

Having originally graduated with a degree in electronic engineering in 1999, this work is a major change in direction for me. However, given my previous career it’s probably not surprising that I’ve retained a strong interest in technology, particularly in its application to disasters and development.  So, when I heard about FrontlineSMS, I immediately saw its usefulness to EDV’s current work in Haiti.

From the outset I knew FrontlineSMS would be particularly helpful for our English Education program. English is a key vocational skill for Haitians seeking employment and, almost as soon as we arrived, we started getting requests from our community for language support. Over the past 17 months, what began as informal classes has developed into a structured program that includes 120 students in eight weekly classes at four different levels.

Managing communications in the program was a challenge from the outset.  In addition to the students, we have to coordinate our Haitian teachers and international volunteers. Everyone needs to be kept informed of the time and location of meetings and scheduled classes are prone to disruption.

In a country like Haiti, everyday issues like teachers being ill are compounded by problems of instability. Potential hurricanes, political unrest or simply a particularly heavy rainstorm all have the ability to disrupt class, so the ability to communicate is vital.

Very few Haitians have regular access to the Internet so group emails aren’t an option.  Before using FrontlineSMS, we would often have to scramble to call, or text, everyone affected to reschedule a class. In some cases, such as during heavy rain, an unlucky volunteer would have to walk to a class where we knew very few students would turn up simply to apologise to the few who did and tell them to try again next time.

Now, by using the software’s ability to create contact groups, we can very quickly and cheaply text all students in a given class or call all of our Haitian teachers in for a meeting.

Our English program is very popular and also has a big waiting list.  When spots in our various classes recently opened up, we were also able to use FrontlineSMS to text over 100 prospective students and invite them to take a placement test so we could fill the classes with students at the right level.

Overall, this simple but effective technology has made managing our English Program much easier.  Without FrontlineSMS, we would still be using chaotic, time-consuming and inefficient methods of communicating, all of which would distract and disrupt the actual work of teaching.

The fact that FrontlineSMS is free is also very appealing to us. While we’re a growing charity, we’re still fairly small and love to save money by using free technology. Beyond this, however, an important principle is at stake. EDV is committed to working with disaster survivors to build local capacity to meet local needs. This partly means connecting survivors with tools they can use themselves. Even if we could afford to buy expensive, licensed software, the survivors we work with never could. As a result, we always prefer to use technology that is as accessible to survivors as it is to us.

We’re in the process of handing over leadership of the English Program to our local teachers and a Haitian school administrator. As part of this process, we’ll be providing a computer with the software and contact groups installed so that our communications solution is transferred. We’ve found using FrontlineSMS to be very intuitive so we’re confident our school administrator will continue to retain and develop use of the technology.

We have other future plans for use of FrontlineSMS in addition to our English Program, and see many ways it can help us operate more effectively. We currently also use the technology for our own internal messaging which is critical in Haiti due to security issues. Political demonstrations can be dangerous and can happen with little warning, so being able to quickly text all of our in-country volunteers and tell them to return to base immediately helps keep everyone safe.

We’ll definitely continue to use FrontlineSMS internally in other disaster zones, and we will continue to explore other potential project-related applications for the technology as well. For example, a couple of years ago I visited a community group in the Philippines who provided early warning alerts to its members living in typhoon and flood prone areas of Manila. While doing an amazing job, they were reliant on an aging infrastructure of radios and loudspeakers and this process could have been strengthened using FrontlineSMS.

I see the need for such early warning systems time and time again and I’m fairly confident that in the future such work could be complemented and improved by using FrontlineSMS to quickly text those in danger. Moving forward, I’m excited to see how FrontlineSMS, and technology overall, can be applied to solve important real-world challenges and both help to save and improve lives.