FrontlineSMS and Oro Verde: Market Price information via SMS in Colombia

FrontlineSMS and Oro Verde: Market Price information via SMS in Colombia

The Oro Verde Program, a social enterprise committed to supporting mining communities in Colombia shares a case study on the impact market prices via SMS have had on ensuring miners have access to  current Gold prices. This pilot has demonstrated the potential of SMS in improving the way market prices are communicated to miners; both in terms of efficiency, and the utility of the information shared. This case study details how the Oro Verde Program set their Price SMS service up, and shares the key learning from the experience.

Happy 2013: user survey, the release of Version 2.2, and other news!

Happy 2013: user survey, the release of Version 2.2, and other news!

The development and growth of FrontlineSMS has been driven by feedback we receive from our active user community. Each year we give our users the opportunity to share their use and vision of FrontlineSMS through our annual user survey. This year is no different! We would like to hear from you through our 2013 User Survey  - tell us how you're using the software, how we can make it better, and help us show how FrontlineSMS is making a difference. The survey takes less then 10 minutes!

A Few Words About Problem Solving

A Few Words About Problem Solving

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a bit obsessed with words. Not just words themselves, but how we use them, what that shows us about how we think, and what it means when their definitions creep. It’s a side effect of having been trained as a lawyer and a journalist, I think. Or at least, that’s what I blame it on. Either way, it’s gotten me thinking about something. We have to change the way we talk about solving problems. Let me explain.

Don't Call It A Comeback: 5 Reasons SMS Is Here To Stay

Don't Call It A Comeback: 5 Reasons SMS Is Here To Stay

SMS remains the most popular two-way communications platform on the planet. In most cases, it's inexpensive, casual, and discreet for users. It also represents one of the more profitable features offered by mobile network operators. And while SMS does face an increasingly fractured market, largely from the growth of messaging apps, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Here are 5 reasons why:

Star FM in Zimbabwe ensure Young People are the Stars

Star FM in Zimbabwe ensure Young People are the Stars

As with other community radio models, the Star FM community owns, manages and determines the content for programs – and in this case it is a community of young people. It is important for Bulawayo Youth Broadcasting to encourage youth participation because, as Philani explained, “They are the future leaders. The youth are encouraged to participate as they know that these issues affect them directly.”

FrontlineSMS at 7: ActionAid in Kenya, Nepal and London

In the seventh and final post in our FrontlineSMSat7 series, our CEO Laura Walker Hudson highlights a FrontlineSMS use case that makes her happy - ActionAid's award-winning, bi-continental pilots of FrontlineSMS in Africa and Europe.

“I am Loy, You are Loy”: A multimedia edu-tainment initiative engaging Cambodian youth in civic responsibility

I’ve been volunteering with the FrontlineSMS:Radio project and recently had the pleasure of speaking with Colin Spurway of BBC Media Action, an organization which helps people around the world to harness the media to promote change in their communities. Colin is the Project Director of Loy9(pronounced ‘Loy Pram-booun’), a multimedia initiative in Cambodia geared towards encouraging youth participation in civic life through the use of a television series, phone-in radio shows, online discussions and roadshows. We had a great discussion about the significance of the Loy9 initiative in promoting youth engagement in civic society through mobile technology, as well as some of the challenges.

Low tech adaptations for a community communications system

For the past month, I’ve been in Sudan working to set up the information flows and tech that will support SUDIA’s Community Communications System. From the tech and information management perspective, SUDIA’s System is interesting because it adapts to a low tech environment by integrating SMS and radio, and processing information largely offline. The System collects and disseminates information useful to communities that live along the migratory routes in Blue Nile State. It focuses on information that communities themselves can use to make their livelihoods more sustainable and more peaceful. In other words, the System is not aimed at organizations (Government or non-Government) that can use information to provide services or design interventions. Rather, it is aimed at communities helping themselves, and provides information that is useful to community leaders in organizing local community responses to livelihood challenges.

FrontlineSMSat7: Mobile Money made easy and accessible

In the sixth of our seven blog posts celebrating the month that FrontlineSMS turns 7, Enock Musyoka, our FrontlineSMS: Credit Project Assistant, shares the impact FrontlineSMS:Credit's PaymentView has on Nunguni Financial Service Association and its members. The power of owning a mobile phone is beyond SMS messages; PaymentView makes it easier to manage payment plans.

 

News Participation Starts at 'Home'

Seemingly every major news event worldwide is heightening participation in news. People are eager to share updates and photos of an unfolding news event, ask questions of media outlets, and share important information. But there are two important aspects to this type of participation: (1) people are most interested in sharing news about the community around them, specifically with others in their community and (2) the mechanism by which they choose to share information is dependent upon personal habits and access. In other words, people write about their immediate world using their 'home' or go-to platform.

FrontlineSMSat7: Your Health is in Your Hands

In the fifth of our seven blog posts celebrating the month that FrontlineSMS turns 7, Sila Kisoso, our Community Support Manager, shares her first inspiring encounter with FrontlineSMS - at her previous role with the Innovations for Poverty Action Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IPA-WASH) Benefits Project in rural Kenya. 

FrontlineSMS case study featured in new Rockefeller Foundation report: Learning from experimentation

The Rockefeller Foundation recently launched a new website, Capacity to Innovate.org, which examines lessons from a number of organizations including Ushahidi and Internews, and encapsulates them in three short reports which are well worth a read. FrontlineSMS is featured in the 'Learning From Experimentation' report, available from the website. Here's an excerpt, but we really recommend the whole report as a very readable and thought-provoking set of examples.

Designing Behavior and the Importance of Being Multi-Channel

We spend a lot of time talking about the ubiquity of the mobile phone at FrontlineSMS. So much time, in fact, that we've now forbidden the use of the word in the office. It's not the word's fault, though, that it's been so difficult to get an accurate idea of exactly how many people, how many unique entities, have mobile phones. Mobile network operators hold on to that data pretty tightly, so we go with the best data we can find.