KPC Bogor members collecting plastic garbage from the Ciliwung River 2012. Image: KPC Bogor

Community Care Ciliwung Bogor (known locally as KPC Bogor) was founded in March 2009 in West Java, Indonesia to harness the growing community concern for the sustainability of the Ciliwung River in the city of Bogor. We formed to raise awareness about the damaging impact of garbage and waste in the river; as well as mobilize the community to take action.

The community around KPC Bogor was initially formed by our friend Hapsoro who used to share his fishing experiences in the Ciliwung River. “If we go fishing in the river now, there is so much junk,” Hapsoro once said, “All we get is plastic, instead of fish.” It was after an increasing number of similar tales from the community about pollution levels that we decided to  conduct some field research. We set out to find the best spots for fishing along the Ciliwung River, particularly in the area stretching from Katulampa to Cilebut.

Some KPC members work in Research and Development of Ornamental Fish Aquaculture, Ministry of Marine and Fisheries and in fisheries laboratory in Bogor Agricultural University. So while we conducted the research voluntarily, they were always present to offer their skills and ensure our research methods were sound. In addition to the study of fish, some KPC members who work in mapping forest areas in Indonesia helped us to map the river area using GPS. We mapped the points where garbage was stacked, sewage levels and commensurate changes in the river. We also tested the quality of river water by using a simple method called ‘biotilik’, using organisms as an indication of the state of the river water quality in the Ciliwung River.

The results of the research were shocking. We found out that while the people who live along the Ciliwung River rely on its use for daily necessities including cooking, cleaning and washing; the river is increasingly being used as a place to dispose of trash and inorganic waste materials. The research helped us realize just how poor the Ciliwung river conditions were at the time with worrying consequences for the function, condition, and use of the river. Not only did we uncover poor river standards, we also identified that there was a lack of public knowledge about the importance of maintaining a healthy river amongst the community. Waste disposal practices have become rooted in the bad habits that have been ingrained in the minds of the people who live around the Ciliwung riverbanks over a long period of time. People are so used to the methods they use that they do not realize the severity of the environmental damage which they cause.

So members of KPC Bogor got together to ask, “What can we do to save Ciliwung River in ways that are simple, inexpensive and uncomplicated?” From there, a simple concept was born. We set out to recruit volunteers to become garbage scavengers in Ciliwung River. Every Saturday, KPC Bogor members and friends meet from 8 am to 11 am, to pick up any inorganic matter that litters the Ciliwung River and put it into the sacks before sending it to landfills. In many ways, we actually consider this activity as sport in the holiday and a way to meet new friends. It might be hard work that can cause us to sweat, but we understand that even though waste removal is a very simple activity, it important for the sustainability of our river and our community around it. The number of people who come every Saturday varies: sometimes there are only two, other times up to 100 people. For us, the number doesn’t matter. What’s important is that KPC Bogor must continue to remind citizens to take care of the Ciliwung River.

Hapsoro in action in 2010 at the Ciliwung River with a KPC banner (which reads Ciliwung: Our life has fallen to pieces) Image: KBC Bogor

About 3 months ago, we had some sad and shocking news that our friend and leader Hapsoro had passed away. A few of us were worried what would happened to our four year old community and how it could continue without his leadership.  We gathered at Hapsoro’s house before his funeral and we all committed to doing all we could to ensure KPC Bogor’s activities would carry on. We saw how vital this work was for the River, the community’s health and our livelihoods. We needed to honor and commemorate the important service Hapsoro had initiated in starting to form a sense of responsibility and awareness in the community. But how could we mobilize the community like he did?

Hapsoro was a man who always actively sent SMS to all our friends to participate in regular KPC Bogor activities, especially to remind them to get them involved with cleaning the river. With an old mobile phone, he used to send messages one by one to the numbers in his phone book. The day after we decided to keep KPC Bogor alive, I asked permission from Hapsoro’s wife, Yuniken Mayangsari, about whether we could keep using his phone number to send SMS to all the subscribers. She gave me the phone at once without hesitation.

I started using Hapsoro’s mobile phone to send SMS every Friday to the friends of KPC Bogor. When I was using the phone, I realized how patient Hapsoro must have been in sending the SMS alerts about river cleaning over his 3 years of organizing the activities. One by one, each of the numbers had to be selected from the address book and I could only enter 10 numbers at once.  It made getting though more than 200 numbers exhausting and it took me more than two hours! Not to mention when I forgot which numbers I’d already sent the message to. I’m sure there are a few people who got the message twice!

Because of the limited time I could dedicate to sending SMS every Friday, some friends and I decided to try using FrontlineSMS. A friend who lives in Jakarta went looking for a compatible Huawei E-series modem to send and receive messages with the software.  When we were finally able to buy one, we installed it on my laptop and KPC Bogor’s laptop. Now every Friday, we load up FrontlineSMS to send alerts about KPC Bogor activities due to take place the following Saturday. It’s great because I can carry on working while FrontlineSMS is sending the messages. I can easily manage contacts and send alerts to the community in a few simple steps.

KPC Bogor’s work with volunteers is now so successful that we started a “Garbage Scavengers Race” which has now become an official annual agenda event in the city of Bogor. Last year, 1,500 people came to the river to help and we collected 1,300 bags of garbage in just 3 hours. We are now preparing for this year’s scavenge due to take place in June 2013. In recognition of the need to tackle root causes of the waste issue rather than just the clean up, we’ve also started to do more than collecting garbage. KPC Bogor now provides environmental education for elementary school children, conducts research on water quality and plants trees around the Ciliwung River. We are also able to regularly assess the river water biota, where we analyze diversity of micro-organisms, plants and animals in the ecosystem. Recently, we even made a film about the waste problems in the Ciliwung River. Now, we use FrontlineSMS to let the community know about our new activities too. Every week we receive SMS from new people who want their mobile number to be added to the subscribers list so they can receive a regular SMS every week with information about how to join in with our activities.

KPC members after a garbage scavenge in 2012 with Vice Governor of West Java (brown shirt) . Image: KBC Bogor

Thanks to the community, the City Government is now giving full support to our activities by giving us budget for waste cleanup efforts through the official budget allocation (APBD).  Once, Ciliwung was a clean river that was highly venerated by the people for its famous fresh water and was relied on by the public in Indonesia for their livelihoods. It was once a source of clean water used for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing. This community wants the condition of the Ciliwung River to return to how it once was, and we’re getting there. One piece of garbage at a time.

You can watch a video with English subtitles about the KPC Bogor community here: https://vimeo.com/30354102

More information about KPC Bogor can be found at: http://tjiliwoeng.blogspot.com/ or via Twitter @tjiliwoeng and Facebook.com/KPCBogor.

Technology companies are in the business of changing habits. Creating a new tool, and getting people to use it consistently, means trying to change something about the way people get things done – moving from analogue to digital, from manual to automated, from one app to another, from WordPress to Tumblr.

FrontlineSMS is no different. We’re trying to make it easier to use simple text messages to do complex things. For FrontlineSMS to really work for an organization, we recognize that we have to see not one, but two changes take place.

First, organizations have to shift  from whatever technology or communications channel was in use before, to that plus SMS, or maybe just SMS. This is complex enough, requiring users to think through what is different about SMS than their previous solution – there may be privacy and data integrity concerns, there may be budgeting differences, staffing may need to change. We spend a lot of time talking with users and clients about these issues. Examples of actions that may arise from this type of change would be a new data protection policy, staff being issued additional phones for use just for work, or monitoring of a control group to ensure that use of SMS is not skewing data collection.

But second, and at least as important,  is adoption and rollout of a new platform – the organizational change process inherent in starting to use FrontlineSMS. Dealing effectively with this challenge goes to the heart of the FrontlineSMS theory of change.

We believe that lasting change happens at project and team level. Solutions are best designed by the people who have the problem they address – and that people up and down the chain of authority have different problems. Wherever in this hierarchy the technology is aimed, change which does not effectively take root in teams will not germinate successfully. For technology to be picked up by an organization at large, it must make sense to the people who will be using it – and this may not be the same tool at different points in the hub-and-spoke system or the food chain. We need to design systems that deliver what different people need at their own level. Adoption of technology will be easier if it uses appropriately accessible hardware, affordable or cost-effective and easy to maintain; if the interface is simple to use and easy to pick up; and if control and use of the platform rests at the level of the problem it seeks to solve.* If teams can see how a tool helps them do their jobs, they are more likely to embrace it. Staff at ActionAid Kenya expanded their use of FrontlineSMS from communications with communities to chasing monitoring reports, once they saw how effective it could be to reach remote staff. US Embassy libraries all over the world downloaded FrontlineSMS to keep in touch with communities – but they did so separately. For us, the team is the node of change.

Critics of ICT for development (although this post applies at least as well to ICT in any field, including business) are keen to see technologies moving beyond endless pilots to rolling out at real ‘scale’. An important understanding of scale, for us, is  FrontlineSMS in use by many nodes at once – and in future, aggregated to a central node where data analysis, cost management, and process-shaping can be carried out. This is a fairly rare conception of scale, at least when it comes to SMS, where scale tends to be seen as vertical – many SMS sent to many people at once from one central node.

FrontlineSMS training for WorldVision in Voi, Kenya, 2012 (photo credit: Laura Walker Hudson)

It’s also a new way of dealing with SMS data, in particular – SMS is already in use informally by people in every profession, all over the world. Respecting this and giving teams a tool to manage it where they work just means formalizing what’s already happening, and opening the door to aggregating that data and understanding it, later on.

To bring this back to adoption and rollout – our stated mission has long been lowering barriers to driving social change using mobile technologies. We know that building an easy-to-use, free or low-cost platform that uses last-mile technology is a lot of the battle – but we haven’t completely cracked this yet. We still need to help users navigate a fragmented mobile market and figure out complex and confusing coverage and pricing models. But making technology palatable and easy to use without expensive reinforcement is a large part of the problem, solved.

Making SMS truly powerful for teams is applied technology at its purest – taking SMS, which has been around for over twenty years now, and making it easier to use. We think more people should take this approach, as we’ll discuss in a forthcoming blog post. This is the missing link between taking the most widespread digital platform the world has ever seen, and turning it into a powerfully versatile, frontline business tool.

* SMS is great for this – it’s everywhere (as the speaker from Thoughtworks, said, for maximum reach, use SMS). it’s resilient, predictably costed, platform agnostic, and already in people’s pockets.

UN Special Envoy to the Western Sahara Christopher Ross landed in Morocco last Wednesday. While the international community anxiously waits to see where his next round of negotiations go, here’s a peek into the lives of those affected most by the outcome – Sahrawi refugees. For once, a little hope for the future coming from the Sahara…

Desert SMS

45˚C days and 0˚C nights—welcome to winter in Sahara. Thanks to a small innovation grant from UNOCHA, I recently spent the holidays in the Western Sahara Refugee Camps. In short, I was there exploring the applicability of mobile communication tools within humanitarian coordination and refugee/IDP camp contexts. The real aim: create a sustainable feedback loop between beneficiaries and food aid providers using the lowest common denominators of technology possible.

Charting it out: communication flows help identify core information managers and their “constituents” Photo Credits: Rosa Akbari

I first visited the camps in June 2010. After a brief stint in Haiti, the Sahrawi camps became a counterpoint to understanding humanitarian process flows at a manageable pace. For quick context, the Algerian camps house refugees born from conflict over the Western Sahara. There are five residential camps + one administrative (Rabouni). Sahrawi and expatriate authorities operate from Rabouni, while the actual organization of daily aid distribution occurs at local levels. [aerial views: http://goo.gl/maps/3aRxG]

In 2010, the Sahrawi Red Crescent (SRC)—the lead humanitarian coordination agency in the camps—managed 27 food distribution points for nearly 125,000 beneficiaries. They have since expanded to 116 distribution points: one per bario [neighbourhood]. Understandably, this has made distribution logistics and staff coordination increasingly complex. Thus my efforts quickly evolved from technological experimentation to practical implementation, relying solely on FrontlineSMS.

Technically speaking, the pilot was quite basic. It required establishing direct lines of communication between aid providers and beneficiaries that were both practical and easy to explain. While I explored a few open source platforms, FrontlineSMS was by far the easiest to install and most intuitive to use (especially as someone working solo). Once I introduced the software to Sahrawi partners, this became all the more apparent.

Crawl – Walk – Run

On the ground, the implementation process distilled into three-steps. The first required an honest assessment of technical applicability. (Or rather, is there a real need for innovation?) The second, to build local trust in the software itself. And last, to stand up the system and see how it performs.

Step 1: Ensure Relevance

Before anything, I familiarized with the status quo. How does communication around distributions work? What are relevant information flows and points of exchange? Where are the gaps? After a week with field teams, their “coordination ecosystem” emerged. Discussions with field managers made it readily apparent that internal communication habits were unreliable at best and non-existent at worst. Beneficiaries also made it clear that they wanted (and deserved) to know more from humanitarian leaders - good, bad, and otherwise.

In this instance, the Sahrawi were primed for innovation. All families own at least one cell phone, maintain consistent access to electricity (via solar panels), and have a history of adopting new ideas within the camps… even those introduced by external parties. After watching their mobile habits, it was also safe to assume that employing SMS for humanitarian coordination would not require huge behavioural shifts.

Step 2: Build Trust

Once we confirmed operational relevance, the SRC and I focused efforts on one daira [district] – four (4) neighbourhoods housing 1305 families. As such, I worked closely with a core group of eight (8) humanitarian coordinators stationed at various points along the distribution chain. They became my initial “mobilizers,” helping hone training and implementation procedures in preparation for future scale up. My goal was to make this group as comfortable as possible with FRONTLINESMS and its rollout. In turn, they would train fellow staff in the remaining 26 districts. Their buy-in was crucial to creating a sustainable system.

It did not take long to get them on board. Within a day of introduction to FRONTLINESMS, they were playing with the software on their own, sending me text messages in Arabic and dreaming up other use cases. More importantly, they implored colleagues to text back and play along. I found this supremely important as local-to-local suggestions always carry more weight.

Step 3: Try It Out

Surprisingly enough, implementing the software was the easiest part. We were able to integrate FRONTLINESMS into the information chain relatively naturally because we were so familiar with existing communication flows sans tech. All I did was write a “script” that outlined who was involved in the pilot, suggested message content, and estimated times for when to send SMS. Again, FRONTLINESMS was not an end all solution; the point was that people had to improve communication habits regardless of technological aids or not. The FRONTLINESMS pilot was just a catalyst to start getting the right information to the right people.

Lessons Learned

From the Trees & the Treetops

Because I had no formal organizational affiliation, I worked directly with Sahrawi authorities… on their terms.  I was also lucky to live with a family in the district I worked in. This provided a chance to witness distribution routines from both ends of the spectrum – working alongside staff by day and discussing observations with beneficiaries by night. Some of the most important information I gleaned came from offhand conversations with women in my host family. Did they know why the day’s scheduled distribution did not come? Did they even know there was a distribution planned for the day?

These dual vantage points kept me one step ahead of information flows at all times. For example, I found out about truck malfunctions in Rabouni [administrative camp] as they happened. I would then wait to see when that news would reach beneficiaries, if ever. This constant top/down observation kept beneficiaries’ voices at the forefront from day one.

Keep It Simple

Evolutionary innovation is rapid and unpredictable. It requires a great deal of adaptability and trust building for all parties involved. The smaller the implementation group, the easier this is to manage.

The Western Sahara camps are unique in that they are wholly self-administered. Sahrawi serve as aid administrators and recipients all the same. Organizationally, this means there’s only one agency responsible for distribution in the last mile: the Sahrawi Red Crescent. For me, this meant working with one partner and one partner alone. I found this immensely helpful, especially as I was a one-person team.

In addition, start-up costs were extremely minimal. The most expensive part of this entire project was my flight from Montreal. The USB modem was US$65 and SIM cards/mobile credit racked up to a grand total of US$20 for a month of unlimited texts plus calls. While the latter cost is entirely dependent on the country you work in, you’d be surprised how cheap SMS plans can be. Simply put, FRONTLINESMS is ideal for bootstrapping projects in the field.

Takeaways

I think it’s most important to make sure there’s actually a problem to address before you propose a solution. Furthermore, is the introduction of new technology even necessary? Too often people get wrapped up in the novelty of tech without critically assessing the context in which it will be applied. From my experiences, technology is never an end all, be all. It only improves human processes if the time and place are right.

Finding the right people to work with is also crucial. Suleiman, the distribution field manager, was my go to man. I could go on for days on how much this fellow does with such few resources, but if it wasn’t for his supremely amenable nature, none of this would have worked. For all intents and purposes, I was just some kid with tech tools. He gave me a chance and kept an open mind.  It was a nice reminder as to the importance of finding passionate partners in the field and work with them, not just for them.

Finally, whoever said work and play don’t mix is surely missing out. The point being – if you and your partners are not having fun, something’s gonna give.

What’s Next

Escalating situations in Mali and the Sahara in general have meant that expat visits to the camps are on hold. While I am still working remotely with the SRC and local NGOs, it is a tad more difficult to watch progress from abroad. These unexpected constraints inherently reminded me that you don’t have to accomplish everything in a day. Take a breath. Think it through. Do it right.

That said, initial efforts did reach the right eyes and ears. Because we had a working pilot up within a week, the accessibility of FRONTLINESMS was readily apparent. Coupled with extremely low implementation costs, FRONTLINESMS quickly stuck on people’s radar. I was (and am still being) approached by Polisario authorities and external organizations with requests to broaden the work and build it into organizational communication plans. Despite the abrupt departure, this is highly encouraging.

Conclusions

Given the advent of open source technologies and rapid proliferation of mobile use, UNOCHA (among other humanitarian agencies) has also recognized it’s time to adapt. Funding pilots like mine is one of many ways institutions are adapting to the digital age, the White House included. I can only assume there’s plenty more to come.

For better or worse, refugee camps and forgotten conflicts will always exist. It is only a matter of time before innovative solutions from the “ICT4D” world are applied to these contexts… whether it’s on my watch or the countless others’ who want to expose actionable voices from those most vulnerable. With tools (and communities) like FRONTLINESMS to back us, it’s safe to say we’re just getting started.

Promo Cards: Before heading, I printed “promotional postcards” as a bit of a social experiment. (Thanks again Theo.) The thought was to pass these out during food distributions and see if women texted the number provided.

Quick and dirty translation for non-Spanish speakers:

[FRONT] Receive food  // send your comments (# on reverse) // Receive a confirmation

[BACK] Send your comments to # // examples: “we received flour in Smara Farsi on 7 January,” “the fish is good,” anything you want.* (all comments are kept anonymous)

The MFarmer SMS service, a project of the Nakaseke Community Telecentre in Uganda, helps farmers in rural areas to connect with better markets. It encourages two-way feedback with farmers, buyers and agro-processors, and other service providers. The project is designed to help farmers access agricultural market price information and weather information through their mobile phones.

We are using FrontlineSMS to manage, send and receive SMS. The key advantage of FrontlineSMS is that it can be customised to suit any organisation’s needs. You can adapt it for all sorts of services, and communicate with your community about anything: agricultural market price information, weather, natural calamities, or an alert system.

Haji Muwanga is a farmer benefiting from the program Photo Credits: Peter Balaba

The project intends to reach 600 farmers by the end of 2013. Last year, 34 Farmers were trained in the application of the service – one of them was Haji Siraje Muwanga (pictured left). Muwanga lives in Kiziba, in Nakaseke District and relies predominantly on farming to support his family. He grows bananas, maize, beans and coffee. He also rears cattle and keeps poultry to supplement his income and household food requirements. Some of the challenges he has encountered in the past include poor storage facilities and poor prices for his produce, especially during the most productive parts of the harvest.

He says, “Our major challenge is that most farmers sell to middlemen who buy our produce at low prices. In most cases we don’t know if they are buying cheaply, which is why we fall prey to them!”

The Mfarmer SMS  service has helped Muwanga to link up directly with buyers. He once received a message from the Telecentre showing that someone was looking for beans. As he says, ‘last season I planted 300 kilograms of beans, which I had bought for Uganda shillings 800 per kilo costing me Shillings 240,000 (about $96 US), and I harvested 2800kg.’ After responding to the message, the buyer bought 2500kg of beans at 1300/= per kilo; thus earning 3,250,000/ (USD1300). He will keep 300 kg of the total crop for planting next season.

Muwanga calls the opportunity ‘a god-send’ – because of MFarmer, he has managed to send his three children back to school. Two are taking vocational training courses in Computer Repair and Maintenance and Motor Engineering, and the youngest completed his O’Levels (secondary level education) in 2012.

As a farmer, Muwanga says he’s happy because most farmers need agricultural price information, especially about maize, beans and coffee.  He is optimistic that this service will benefit his fellow farmers and urges them to seize such opportunities.

The project was supported by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa within the framework of resolutions made during the African Knowledge Network workshop held on 22-23 November, 2011 at UNECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is coordinated by Mr. Balaba Peter of Nakaseke Telecentre who has been contracted by ECA for a short dedicated period of time.

The resolutions recognized that the growth and penetration of ICTs, particularly mobile phones in Africa, is attracting both solution providers and development actors in the development of community-based applications in supporting areas ranging from financial services and government service delivery to support the socio-economic sectors in agriculture, health, education and commerce, etc.

Hence, there was a need for Telecentres to adopt new and crosscutting applications to serve their communities better and to ensure sustainability. The Mfarmer SMS project at Nakaseke has been stimulated by the fact that mobile phone penetration within the area, as in many other African villages, is high and most households have access to mobile phones.

I recently joined FrontlineSMS on an internship, as Community Project Assistant. I’m a recent graduate in Computer Science, so I’m very passionate about technology and the great impact it has on social change. I am working closely with Sila Kisoso, the community support manager to support user engagement. This internship with FrontlineSMS is a great opportunity for me to learn more about user experience, a key consideration when building an application.

Community Engagement with SMS Workshop Photo credits: Sila Kisoso

Given the incredible growth in mobile usage in the last decade, it comes as no surprise that many organisations are embracing the use of mobile technology to expand their reach and engage with communities. This has come with its fair share of challenges, given some of the limitations of technology such as poor mobile connectivity in some areas, SMS has become the more reliable and inexpensive option. FrontlineSMS supports the utility of text messaging as a communications platform, and we hold workshops from time to time to educate our users on how to maximize the use of FrontlineSMS as an SMS platform. As an intern, I was excited to be part of one such workshop, the Community Engagement with SMS Workshop, held this past January. The workshop got off to a great start, with Laura Walker Hudson, CEO of our Foundation, starting us off with group introductions and also requested participants to share their expectations of the workshop. It was clear within the next few minutes how eager everyone was to make the day a great learning experience.

The sessions were interactive, actively engaging those in attendance, something I found truly enjoyable. Laura tackled questions from the participants, using previous case studies detailing how various organisations are using the software to engage the communities they work with. We had a great turnout of participants from a range of international organizations such as World Vision International, Danish Demining Group among others.

There was also a one-on-one session explaining how to set-up FrontlineSMS; we learnt how to troubleshoot mobile connection (a popular FAQ among our users) with FrontlineSMS using a modem. We launched v2.2 that morning and our participants had the opportunity to test it first-hand. Laura explained some of the new features that had been introduced to the new release, 2.2.0 which included Subscriptions, which enables users to enable people to sign up for messages that interest them. For example, someone could join a group for farmers by sending in a keyword; all the updates sent to the farmers group would then go to them. You can even auto-reply to confirm your subscription. Web connection is another great activity which allows one to send SMS up to a web server or service such as Ushahidi or even Twitter. Other new improvements in the software include Basic Authentication, where a user can be able to set up a password for their platform across the network so at improve on security.

Towards the end of the programme, we went into groups of four where each group was expected to come up with a communication strategy illustrating how the software may be deployed, taking security, sustainability, accountability, and monitoring and evaluation into consideration. The winning team project was proposing to use FrontlineSMS to report sensitive cases of sexual abuse in the community. They effectively outlined how the software can help reduce the occurrence of these incidences by providing a platform where one can report without fear of prejudice or stigma. The group clearly explained how they would deal with data security issues were clearly outlined in this project, which was an important factor to consider. Each of the members of the winning team was honoured with a FrontlineSMS badge as a token of appreciation for their efforts in simulating that project.

Laura with the Workshop Participants Photo credits: Sila Kisoso

The sessions were well paced and time allocated for each item on the agenda was adequate; though there was so much discussion and people were so interested that we think the next training is going to have to be two days so as to cover the functionality of the software more exhaustively as well as give more time for Q&A.

All in all, it was a day well spent.

Motorola M3888

I had my first mobile phone in 1999, a metallic blue Motorola M3888. Its street name was “phone booth” because it was the cheapest mobile phone available, even though it was a luxury. It cost 14,000KES ($160) – a gift from my father bought during a Safaricom Valentine’s Day special. I could make calls – for 40KES (50 cents) per minute, and send SMS, and that was it; I loved that phone!

Today, you can buy a phone for as little as 1,000KES ($12) and make a call for 1KES ($0.01) per minute. 14,000KES will get you two Android phones – which, like many handsets, enable you to do far more than just send and receive SMS and make calls.

In 1999, few realised how significant mobile software development would be to the Kenyan economy; as an income driver, employment option, and as part of our financial infrastructure. Kenya now has 26 million mobile subscribers. According to the GSMA – the global trade body for mobile network operators – the number of African mobile phone users has grown by nearly 20% every year since 2007; and Kenya is at the heart of this technology boom. It is home to M-Pesa; a well-known innovation that has defied the old order and created a ripple effect and a new wave of innovation in financial services. Today, 50% of Kenya’s GDP moves through mobile money, and M-Pesa reportedly handles $20 million a day in mobile money transactions.

Nicknamed ‘Silicon Savannah’, Kenya’s IT initiatives have already propelled the country to the forefront of the industry in Africa. In 2007, Kenya set its Vision 2030, incorporating IT development as a pillar of its economic growth. While in some parts of the world the emphasis has been on equipping mobile phones with everything you might find on your computer, in Kenya the focus has been on developing new technology that can enhance everyday living. Whether it is moving money without a bank account, reporting incidences of corruption or sharing health education to new mothers; this innovation is being made possible using even the most basic mobile phone on the market. A thriving industry has grown up here, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, around the development and sale of mobile apps which allow you to do everything from finding a hair salon to chatting with friends to taking a photo and sharing it via email or social media – critically, most for the feature phone market.

In 2011, it was reported that Africa had 500 million mobile phones; 485 million of which were non-smartphones. There is a great demand in Africa for tools and apps for the non-smartphone user. This population live, on average, in areas that lack mobile (internet) connectivity or have access to mobile connectivity but can’t afford it. SMS remains a powerful platform in these communities. In the coming years we’ll see the development of cheaper, more robust smartphones; hopefully reduced pricing for mobile data; and as a consequent rise in the uptake of high-end mobile communications. For rural and low-income populations, however, SMS will continue to be a critical platform. I’m excited to work with our users to support them engage communities, manage staff and gather and visualize information in increasingly sophisticated ways, through FrontlineSMS. \o/

Kenya is the heart of technology in Africa and where FrontlineSMS strategically set up its offices in Nairobi. Being new to Mobile for Development (M4D), myself, I am fortunate to join one of the best teams in mobile software engineering whose core mission is to lower the barrier to communication while serving a wide base of users, reaching over 40,000 users in 135 countries. I joined the team mid-last year as the Community Support Manager in our Nairobi Office, where our in-house software developer team is based. We are housed close to the iHub, alongside other similar organizations such as Ushahidi, Kopo Kopo, Praekelt Foundation and M-Farm among others.

Flo and Sila on her first week at FrontlineSMS (credit: Rick Roxburgh)

In the last eight months I’ve learned a lot about ICT4D, as a newcomer to the field – from colleagues, of course, but most of all from our users. Our users have taught me how essential SMS is and how versatile FrontlineSMS is through the innovative ways they have adopted it in their work.

We are always interested to share your stories and photos. If you would like to share your use of FrontlineSMS, in the form of a blog post or case study, and have it featured on our website, please get in touch with me at sila@frontlinesms.com. We have already seen great value in sharing user experiences empowering other users to see the potential of SMS in their work.

Read the guest blogs we have posted by clicking here. We would also love to receive photos of your team using FrontlineSMS in the office or better yet, in the field. We are also currently collecting photos of our users in celebration of FrontlineSMSat7 sharing their message to the world on how they are using FrontlineSMS. Join in and share yours to sila@frontlinesms.com! We will post it on facebook and even tweet about your work!

Share your user story and empower others in the process \o/. I look forward to hearing from you!

Jukebox | Photo credit Flickr jlaytarts2090 (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Airtime is an awesome piece of software, built by Sourcefabric, which lets radio stations take control of programming via the web. It includes a simple scheduling calendar, smart playlists and automated playout. To mark World Radio Day 2013, FrontlineSMS:Radio‘s Amy O’Donnell wrote a post for Sourcefabric’s blog on how this scheduling tool can be complemented by channels including SMS to help to make radio interactive. A snippet of the post is republished below, or you can read the original post in full here.

The occasion of UNESCO’s second World Radio Day (February 13, 2013) encourages us to reflect on radio as a medium which is celebrated for reaching the widest audience worldwide and is often a primary source of information, even for the most marginalised communities. Radio is a powerful low-cost, accessible medium which brings groups together who are united by song tastes, interest in certain issues or simply by virtue of their location. Whatever reason people have for tuning in, the radio community are recognising that radio is changing in nature and the medium no longer serves as just a one way broadcast. Instead, radio is an interactive platform for audiences to share ideas.

Working with both the Airtime and FrontlineSMS communities in the radio space, I’ve seen the number of channels through which thus type of interaction happens. Both of these tools are widening the spectrum of options available to presenters to make radio the truly interactive, multi-platform conversation that it can be. In my work with FrontlineSMS – a platform which supports sophisticated applications of text messaging, I am witnessing how radio stations are exploring innovative ways to allow audiences to drive content. Using a spectrum of different options for audience engagement, including harnessing mobile technology, many stations are working to ensure that radio is not a lecture, but a conversation; not a set playlist, but a jukebox.

Airtime and FrontlineSMS share more than a user-friendly interface. Both are free and open source (essentially anyone can access and tinker with/modify our code). This underlies our commitment to collaborative and creative thinking which we’re keen to explore. Speaking with the folks at Sourcefabric, I know many Airtime users are exploring interactive options to allow listeners to engage via communications platforms with which they are already familiar. Some of the questions which intrigue me include: how do presenters make radio programming interactive and responsive? What communications channels do audiences use which radio stations could harness to reach them in ways otherwise unexplored? What technology or toolsets do radio stations use which have complementary functions? Who really controls the content? As I see it, when it comes to the tools radio stations use to manage both content scheduling and audience interaction, the next step we should be considering is how to make sure these tools are as multi-platform as the conversations happening around them.

To read the post in full click here

• The Airtime Community and Sourcefabric are celebrating World Radio Day on February 13, 2013. Find out more details about their events on their Facebook page.

The FrontlineSMS Nairobi team hard at work before the launch of v2.0 Photo Credits: RickRoxburgh.com

“Our dev team does SCRUM, with user-centric, test-driven development”. We’re proud of that statement, but also very aware of how unsubstantiated that claim can sound. We’ve all heard the stories of the tech companies with 6-month-long ‘iterations’ and 3000-page specification documents that nonetheless brand themselves Agile. These horror stories could push some to follow their agile approach of choice to the letter, for fear of being swept downstream into the dreaded waterfall, but at FrontlineSMS we feel we’ve adapted much of the industry’s best practices and most trusted tools to create a process that gives us confidence in our code, and the ability to create an ever-improving product for our users.

Building robust, reusable code as a team, in a predictable amount of time and to a dynamic and user-reactive roadmap is no trivial task. Our dev team is all located in our Nairobi office, which helps. As useful as distributed source control and cloud-based progress tracking are, there’s indisputable value in sitting next to the people you are collaborating with, asking when you’re stuck, and showing off your latest one-line gem of code. We make full use of this advantage by frequently pair programming, designing mockups on the whiteboard in the office and interrupting each other with our little technical challenges all the time, as well as more formal approaches like our daily standup meetings and face-to-face iteration planning meetings.

Any agile software development proponent would feel at home at the standup meetings. Referring to our task board, each team member updates the others on what they did the day before, and their plans for the day ahead. We update our burn-down chart to see if we’re on track to complete the work scheduled for the iteration, then after a quick coffee run, we get started on the coding tasks for the day.

The FrontlineSMS dev team is passionate about releasing quality code, and our tests help with that. We have unit, integration, functional, javascript, and database migration tests, and neat metrics giving us quantified code coverage ratings for our test suite. Our task board dictates that tests are written before the first line of functional code, however much you might be itching to try out that new Grails plugin or Javascript library. Of course, tests don’t guarantee perfect code, so we’re not hesitant about refactoring and rethinking our implementations, if it makes it more stable, extendible and useful to the end user. We peer review each others’ code when testing new functionality, and change code as soon as we come up with a better way of doing things.

FrontlineSMS developer Story Map. Photo Credit: Geoffrey Muchai

This attitude is extended to our processes as well – we have tried, tested and documented approaches to coding, testing, building and releasing, but never hesitate to revise our approach. The columns on our task board reflect whatever we currently feel is the most productive way to classify each new piece of functionality’s journey from idea to release, but even they change from time to time as we iteratively improve our approach to work. You could say we’re agile about being agile.

Then there’s the tools – automation is almost an addiction. From little bash scripts to one-click building and uploading of new releases, we generally aim to automate anything we can envision ourselves doing more than once. Our Jenkins continuous integration server jobs are configured to run all our tests multiple times a day, and no feature gets merged into the main development branch until Jenkins gives the green light. We’ve got an awesome dev team dashboard that gently prods you if you forget to merge and delete a completed story’s git branch, or disable the dedicated Jenkins test job. Even when the dev team might be found upstairs at the iHub, procuring a Pete’s Coffee or sharpening our foosball skills, Batman, our in-house build server, is slaving away in the corner running functional tests to ensure everything works just right. Any ideas about how to make life easier for the devs is immediately thrown into JIRA (the task management platform we use) along with the tasks for the current iteration, because we believe in improving our processes as much as we believe in improving our product.

This evolving, iterative approach is part of what makes it great being a developer at FrontlineSMS. Skeptics may doubt our standup meeting ritual, and purists may scowl at our online task board, but we are proud of our approach and think it’s the best possible way to get the most out of our team, and put the best possible product behind those download links. And when we no longer think it’s the best approach, we’ll change it again.

Still, there’s no escaping it. Things are digitizing. Everywhere. Whether you’re registering to vote in Washington State using Facebook or banking on your mobile phone in Kenya, there are, all of a sudden, a bunch of third-party organizations involved in the most intimate parts of your life that weren’t there before. And, for the most part, that’s a good thing. Services are delivered more quickly, collective action is easier to organize, and you can do, well, almost everything, better.

So what’s the catch? There’s a great saying: “If you are not paying for it, you are not the customer; you are the product being sold.” That’s never been more true than it is right now- the digitization of interactions means that every time we carry a smart phone, send a text message, or buy something online, we’re creating value for someone. A lot of it, as it turns out. These days, information isn’t just power, it’s big money.

The Data Divide, (c) Vaneyck Otoki, 2013

Telecommunications and online services companies are posting some of the world’s largest profits by doing two, transformational things: collecting huge amounts of data, and using it to increase profit margins. Everyone, from Google to governments, is realizing the value of well-defined, correlated, and usable information. This is where online service providers have made so much progress- in collecting data on nearly everything they touch and a number of things they probably shouldn’t. More importantly, though, these organizations have developed algorithms and refining processes yield clear insights from otherwise unmanageably large data sets, enabling them to drive value from us. And all of their interactions with us.

As it stands, we have all given up any ownership interest we may have in that value, even though our interactions are the ones creating it. For the most part, the decisions about the morality of data capture, ownership, and licensing practices have been buried in the corners of unread terms of service agreements. Service providers have been free to set, and more concerning, unilaterally change, the agreements that determine how billions of people’s most personal information is treated. And while there have been some early challenges (like the outcry over Instagram recently), most web platforms do so with impunity. The legal community hasn’t been particularly quick, or consistent, in recognizing the increasingly vital role played by telecommunications technologies and the digital data they create.

Over the years, there has been a lot of conversation about the Digital Divide- the ways that comparatively sophisticated digital communication technologies increase disparities in wealth and access to services. But as governments, businesses, and vital service providers move their interactions to digital platforms like the Internet, mobile and browser applications, and SMS, they’re also creating another kind of divide: a Data Divide.

Here, I mean the Data Divide as the  marginalization of individual interests in the collection, analysis, use, and commercialization of data generated through digital interactions to the disproportionate benefit of institutions and service providers. Said more simply, big companies and governments exercise an enormous amount of power over us based on the data that we give them- often unknowingly or without choice.

The strongest advocates for us, the individuals, have come from the online security and privacy communities. Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the World Wide Web Consortium, have been advocates for creating “Do Not Track” policies and tools, toward helping people gain control over the data that the world’s largest online platforms collect. These tools and policies, though, have faced a tough road toward achieving their goals and there’s significantly further to go.

Still, “Do Not Track,” only really creates the option to prevent the collection of personal and online interaction data- which is different than being able to download and commercialize it yourself. In other words, the options are, either let big companies collect data on you, or no one can do it at all.

I can’t help feeling like that still misses the point, like it’s a bit scorched Earth. What if there was a middle ground?  What if you could share in the value that you create, simply by doing whatever it is you already do on these platforms?

The simple point is that technology tools and services continue to base their billion-dollar businesses on our data. That’s not to say they shouldn’t have the right to do so- they provide valuable services that many of us enjoy for free. That said, as the amount of digital data that we create and volunteer about ourselves continues to grow in volume, value, and impact, so, too, does the importance of fair, participatory, and open conversations about how that value is used and spent. After all, it is our data- and that may make it the world’s most democratic commodity. The trick now is just to figure out how to make sure it creates value for all of us.

It’s time that we recognize that the conversation about personal data isn’t just about security, it’s about how we share value. And values. And until we have that conversation openly- outside of rarely read contracts- it will be the divide that pulls us apart.

Follow/Like ChatSalud on Facebook and on Twitter. 

Our Story:

In Nicaragua, sex is embarrassing.  Yet in a country where approximately 50 percent of the population is below the age of 18, and where 1 in 3 adolescent girls will become pregnant before they reach the age of 18, it’s clear that people are having sex—they’re just not talking about it due to pena—a wonderfully ambiguous word located somewhere between shame, embarrassment, and awkwardness.

ChatSalud’s Logo

When the only way to access reliable sexual and reproductive health information is through a face-to-face consultation with the community doctor or nurse, it’s not surprising that most people opt to get their sexual health information from “la calle”—or rather, from friends and family who may not have complete or accurate information.  Rural populations are hesitant to consult with a doctor due to the perception that the community will find out and think of them as promiscuous, unfaithful, or diseased.  As a result, misinformation about sexual health is rampant, especially among youth.

The ChatSalud team is comprised of Nicaraguans from various institutions, as well as Peace Corps Volunteers who are living and working in rural Nicaragua, in places ranging from the northern-most mountains all the way to the Río San Juan. From these collective experiences, certain realities have become abundantly clear to us: 1) there is a high rate of young girls getting pregnant; 2) women are at high-risk for developing preventable diseases, such as cervical cancer, due to cultural barriers to getting screened; 3) sexually transmitted infections often go untreated; 4) and lastly, more people have access to cell phones than to indoor plumbing.

Accordingly, ChatSalud aims to provide rural text-based education in order to empower Nicaraguans to advocate for their sexual and reproductive health, which will lead to positive behavior change such as increased condom usage, more testing for HIV and other STIs, and learning to use cell phones to access and share information regarding their sexual and reproductive health.

Our Project:

An SMS message from ChatSalud sent using FrontlineSMS Photo Credits: Lauren Spige

ChatSalud will work as a “ping-pong” system, which is designed to be interactive in nature so that the user can customize their experience with the platform, deciding which information to read and which to skip, based on a series of menus and coded themes.  Our “ping-pong” system is modeled after FHI 360’s Mobile for Reproductive Health project in Kenya and Tanzania, though ChatSalud will differ in that it will cover a wider range of themes, ranging from HIVaids, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and safer sexual practices.

The user will initiate the interaction with ChatSalud after viewing an advertisement such as a poster, radio spot, or television ad, or through talking with friends and family that have used the system.  The user will send “info” to ChatSalud and will automatically receive an initial menu that will include the four umbrella themes: HIVaids, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and safer sexual practices.  From there, the user can choose which theme to learn about. All of the themes are coded by number in the ChatSalud system.  The coded automatic responses will give rural Nicaraguans low-tech, text-based access to a plethora of information—essentially a sexual and reproductive health encyclopedia at their fingertips.

ChatSalud is quickly becoming a national-level mobile health platform. While we used a modem for initial tests with limited users, the modem began experiencing a lag time of upwards of 45 minutes.  Since we are expecting a high volume of SMS traffic, the throughput required will be significantly more than could be provided by a modem.

Obviously a new system was needed.

While still in development, the new system, which will utilize FrontlineSMS Version 2 mounted on servers and remote browser-based access, will bring together resources provided by several local stakeholders. CIES, the Nicaraguan School of Public Health, will donate and maintain their servers, which will house the FrontlineSMS version 2 software.  Meanwhile, a local tech firm, GüeGüe, will provide technical support and assistance to secure and maintain a VPN between the software housed at CIES and the local telecommunications network.  The VPN will provide key links to both Claro and Movistar, the local telecommunications providers, and from there, connect to users nation-wide. While the old system could only send and receive six text messages per minute, this new system will have the ability to handle millions of text messages per day, ensuring a smooth and instantaneous interaction between ChatSalud and its users.

In order to gain governmental support, one of the major barriers we had to overcome was to figure out how to make the system 100% anonymous. Normally, when a user communicates with ChatSalud, their personal phone number is displayed along with their message. While we cannot use cell phone numbers and maintain anonymity, an identifying feature was still necessary to allow us to analyze our user interactions. We were lucky to connect with developer Alex Galonsky, who generously donated his time to help us modify the program. Alex’s solution was to hash the phone numbers of users as they come in to effectively create a “digital fingerprint” of each user without allowing system operators to view user phone numbers directly on the main interface. This allows us to provide basic anonymity to all users while still monitoring and evaluating the project’s effectiveness. This will also ensure confidentiality if we use the platform to open up direct communication between users and health workers in the future.

The ChatSalud team share their mission statement while texting Photo Credits: Lauren Spige

Final Hurdle

We are almost ready to launch ChatSalud.  Before we can do so, we must secure funding to cover our SMS expenses.  In spite of this remaining hurdle, with each passing week, we are gaining more and more momentum from local stakeholders. With our system in place and nearly ready to go, we hope to launch ChatSalud in the next couple months and start making an impact in the lives of Nicaraguans.