Rethinking socially responsible design in a mobile world
“The Curry Stone Design Prize was created to champion designers as a force for social change. Now in its fourth year, the Prize recognizes innovators who address critical issues involving clean air, food and water, shelter, health care, energy, education, social justice or peace”. Yesterday was an exciting day for us as we announced FrontlineSMS had won the prestigious 2011 Curry Stone Design Prize. This award follows closely on the heels... Read More
The FrontlineSMS message reaches new audiences
Photo credit: Ken Banks, kiwanja.net It has been an exciting few days for FrontlineSMS in terms of media recognition for the work we do. Recent coverage of FrontlineSMS has included an article in Wired magazine, a guest opinion piece in CNN World, and an interview with FrontlineSMS founder, Ken Banks, in National Geographic Traveler magazine too. As a result of all this attention there has been a dramatic rise in downloads of FrontlineSMS, with... Read More
Emerging Explorer project makes Buckminster Fuller finalists
FrontlineSMS has been selected as one of only four Finalists in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, the prestigious annual design science competition. Named “Socially-Responsible Design’s Highest Award” by Metropolis Magazine, the Challenge awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a whole systems-based solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. By Sarah George, Florence Scialom... Read More
English in Action: Mobile Learning in Bangladesh
This post is the latest in the FrontlineSMS Mobile Message series with National Geographic. To read a summary of the Mobile Message series click here. In her role as the Content Producer for the SOCAP conference series, Amy Benziger has the opportunity to interview innovators from around the world on how they are changing the landscape of social enterprise. For this installment of Mobile Message, she interviews Sara Chamberlain, project director... Read More
What is your Mobile Message? Sharing ideas via National Geographic
Photo credit: Ken Banks, kiwanja.net “Today, with over 500 million mobile subscribers across Africa alone, and more people around the world owning a phone than not, mobile phones seem to be everywhere,” points out FrontlineSMS founder Ken Banks in the opening post of our National Geographic blog series: Mobile Message. There has been a remarkable growth in mobile phone use in recent years, and increasingly mobile phones are being used for... Read More
Announcing the “Mobile Message”
Over the past year or so, it’s become increasingly clear to us that we need to take the “mobile message” out of its technology silo and make it more available – and accessible – to a wider audience. This was the thinking behind our regular series on PC World, and is the thinking behind a new series we’re launching today in collaboration with National Geographic. The “Mobile Message” is aimed at a broad... Read More
Celebrating the ecosystem approach
It was a cold evening last October when I heard from National Geographic that we’d won an Emerging Explorer Award for our work in mobile. Seven months is a long time to keep a secret, but now news is out it will hopefully be the ideal platform to help us spur further development of FrontlineSMS, and increase interest in wider circles around the potential for simple, appropriate mobile technologies to solve some of the more pressing problems people... Read More
