Ken Banks originated the concept of FrontlineSMS in late spring 2005 in Willingham, Cambridgeshire, UK. At its heart is empowering small, local NGOs:

“The default position for many people working in ICT4D is to build centralised solutions to local problems – things that ‘integrate’ and ’scale’. With little local ownership and engagement, many of these top-down approaches fail to appreciate the culture of technology and its users. … My belief is that users don’t want access to tools – they want to be given the tools. There’s a subtle but significant difference. They want to have their own system, something which works with them to solve their problem.”
Ken Banks, A glimpse into social mobile’s long tail, January 2009

The concept was developed into a project proposal in partnership with Karen Hayes and Simon Hicks in Frome, Somerset, UK. Initial funding came from Partnership Innovation Limited and Forensic Mobile Services, both based in Newbury, Berkshire, UK. The system was designed in Cambridge and finally written in Forssa, Finland throughout August 2005. A new, revised version was supported by the MacArthur Foundation, designed in California and coded by Masabi in London in 2008. Our newest version, incorporating new features and bug fixes, was coded in London through late 2009 and the first half of 2010 and was released in May 2010.

The FrontlineSMS success story has been cited in numerous NGO and industry research papers, websites, news sites and publications since its launch in 2005. It was short listed in the Mobile Messaging Awards 2007, named WSIS “ICT Success Story of the Month” for its use in monitoring the Nigerian elections, was a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge 2008 and won a prestigious Silicon Valley “Tech Award” in 2009.

Picture credit: Afrinnovator