Mapping Harassment on the Streets of Cairo

With many thanks to Tactical Technology Collective for letting us re-post this blog from their site. One of the major challenges with sexual harassment and tracking is the difficulty of collecting accurate data. A lack of reporting can provide limited numbers and make the problem seem smaller than it is. A group in Egypt called Harassmap is creating a movement using a mashup, Ushahidi, to provide a place for women and other victims of sexual harassment to report instances of harassment on the streets of Cairo. Using a number of methods to gather the information, people can submit reports via SMS [using FrontlineSMS], email and a web form.

Harassmap says: “This tool will give women a way to anonymously report incidences of sexual harassment as soon as they happen, using a simple text message from their mobile phone. By mapping these reports online, the entire system will act as an advocacy, prevention, and response tool, highlighting the severity and pervasiveness of the problem. The project will utilise FrontlineSMS and the Ushahidi Engine.”

This project combines several digital tools into a mashup in order to an advocate against harassment on the streets of Cairo. Cairo is notorious for the amount of sexual harassment that occurs.

The Harassmap team recently held a volunteer community outreach day, where volunteers came together to learn about harassment issues, how to respond to harassment, and what steps to take. In addition, Harassmap has provided a space to discuss these issues and how to respond to them.

In an interview co-founder Rebecca Chiao said that managing the project on a volunteer basis is a very difficult task. Rebecca says, “we don't have any money, so we have to be creative. We love working on a volunteer basis, but it also means we all have other commitments like jobs and families, so it takes a lot of effort from us all to coordinate our little bits of free time to work together and make things happen.”

“I'm actually surprisingly happy with the outcome so far,” Rebecca said. “I think I would have changed the amount of time I spent on trying to figure out how to legally register HarassMap in the beginning. It took maybe 3 or 4 months and the requirements were prohibitive. So we ended up deciding to run with volunteers and not have any funding.”

Recently, they released data from the website where they analyse some of the information they’ve collected and some interesting trends appeared. Victims are not limited to Egyptian females, but included males, foreign women, and children. Harassment locations varied from the neighbourhoods of Cairo, to private cars while driving and including educational institutions such as schools and universities. Reports were collected from these neighbourhoods, in order of submissions: Downtown, Dokki, Al-mohandseen, Nasr City, Zamalek, Giza and Maadi.

For the Harassmap team, it isn’t just about mapping harassment on the streets of Cairo, but also about engaging the community. In addition to the volunteer day, they have hosted a workshop where young people were invited to come share stories of harassment and violence. The workshop discussed the relationship of gender and storytelling. They have also hosted outreach days where volunteers descend on the streets and encourage people submit reports.

And Harassmap isn’t stopping to celebrate their initial successes. They have weathered the Egyptian Revolution in style, and are capitalising on the positive energy in the streets. “I'm excited about the discussions we're planning now with the public to decide how we can carry Harassmap forward after the revolution,” Rebecca said. “There's an exciting spirit now and people have seen what it's like to not have harassment as a problem. So we're excited to see how we can build on that.”

In addition to growing in Egypt, their future plans see Harassmap going worldwide. Rebecca says, “We're also going to globalize this year, to about 10 countries hopefully! Wish us luck!”

TOOLS USED: Ushahidi, FrontlineSMS, Facebook and Twitter

REACH: International. The story was picked up by bloggers and websites before being picked up by the international press.

COST: Most of the work was done pro-bono by tech partners, NiJel.

TIME: 100’s of hours

RESOURCES: We have 4 founding partners and our tech team - we're all volunteers. We also have about 100 other volunteers doing various things together.

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: 4 out of 5. Using Ushahidi as a platform and building around it a community can be very difficult. Utilising Facebook and Twitter to build support around the initiative are basic tools, but require time and effort.

Pictures courtesy of the Harassmap website.

For more information on the Tactical Technology Collective, who originally posted this piece on their blog, visit their website: http://www.informationactivism.org

Vote, Pray, Advocate: 2011 SMS Resolutions in Zimababwe

Freedom of information is often said to be heavily restricted in Zimbabwe. Kubatana is an organisation which aims to strengthen use of email and Internet in Zimbabwean NGOs and civil society organisations, in order to support human rights and access to information. They find many innovative ways to get information out, and to allow Zimbabwean citizens to share their views. We are proud to call Kubatana one of the longest standing users of FrontlineSMS, first using our software back in 2005. At the start of 2011 Kubatana’s latest use of FrontlineSMS demonstrates how text messaging can allow people to share their views and hopes for the future in Zimbabwe.

On 5^th January Kubatana used FrontlineSMS to ask their email and SMS subscribers “What’s your resolution about how you’ll get involved in making change happen in 2011?” By the end of the day they had received 70+ responses. The most popular response from initial subscribers was that they would vote. This, of course, assumes there will be elections this year – nothing’s been officially announced, but rumours are suggesting an election for mid-year. Prayer was the next most popular response, with many subscribers saying they would pray for change this year (some of them said they are going to pray and vote). Other messages sent included plans for activities such as advocating for change, sharing information and standing up for human rights.

By the following week Kubatana had received another 150+ responses from subscribers about their resolutions for how they’ll make change in 2011. Vote, pray and advocate continue to be the most popular responses.

Many thanks to Kubatana for sharing this use of FrontlineSMS with us. Read some of the SMS resolutions Kubatana received below, and read more on Kubatana's blog.

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Will put the best of my ability in all I have to do. Will participate in national issues in which my participation is required.

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Advocate for peace building in preparation for elections thank u same to u

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2010 was a bit challenging year    if the Gvt can improve our living and salaries we feel better.

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CHANGE MUST COME NOT NOW BUT YESTERDAY.WE MUST NOT BE INTIMIDATED BY STONE THROWERS BEHIND GLASS HOUSE.IF WE DON’T WORK FOR CHANGE ITS OUR GRAVE WE ARE DIGGING

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To educate ALL ELIGIBLE people to register to vote and that it is their vote that wl speak for the FINAL AND DECISIVE time!

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My x is the right change

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A change shall come by  putting words into action

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Pray for good health and we will pull through

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Make everyone to vote to make change

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I will pray for the nation especially the Leadership

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Firstly to continue to pray & i am encouraging young people to get ID’s & register to vote for their future.

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Change is also my 1st resolution among others.

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SAME TO YOU. MY RESOLUTIOM ABOUT BEING INVOLVED IN MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN IN 2011 IS TO PUT MY (X) IN THE RIGHT BOX CAME ELLECTION.

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2011: To aim for success leading to great success (greatness without limits).

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2 in courage as many pple as I can 2 go and vote for total CHANGE and make them 2 be strong 4 there rights!!!.

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I will fill happy this year. I need to work as a one part kuti tikunde. this year i want to drive new minsters thank you happy new year

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If elections do take place my vote will help change. is this wiki-leaks thing true?

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kubatana!  happy  2011  hop wil  b  able 2  make a  beta  zimbabwe  this  yr

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I am going to make my voice heard through voting

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Nothing much waiting 4 the election time.

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2011 my vote will count it will call for change. Count it will towards a new political order. My vote will speak

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I resolved: to preach against violence     to encourage people to be registered voters  and to stand for just at any given opportunity.

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How can i make a change while i am jobless livng in country without a pasport

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Am going to vote for the changing party if there are elections.Prayer is the GREAT CHANGER.

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Start a child rights club in my community.fund raising for sports equipment&run a children’s talkshow

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PUSH TOWARDS DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES THROUGH PUSHING ON VIOLNCE, ELECTION CONDUCIVE, IMPORTANCE OF ELECTIONS

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Its now 2011, time for the new constitution and violence free election. I resolv 2 campaign for self defence of one’s statutory rights to achieve change.

NDItech: On the Front Lines with FrontlineSMS

NDItech has recently been doing a lot with FrontlineSMS. Via their blog they share thoughts on experiences using the software: Given its heritage it's not surprising that FrontlineSMS really nails our mantra of "appropriate technology" in a number of ways.

• It doesn't have a steep learning curve. Our partners in Eastern Europe downloaded and got it working on their own before I even got to show it to them.
• It runs on very common technology
• It communicates with people where they are: text messaging. Across Africa, as we've mentioned, mobile phones are far and away the best way to reach people.

In the vast swaths of the world where only elites are on the internet, this is a great way to build connections between organizations and their members, whether civil society groups, political parties, or other groups.

We're using Frontline in Haiti, where Katherine is involved with getting local "Information Centers" connected with their constituents via FrontlineSMS.

But it's also valuable in other situations: where there may be internet access, but it's heavily filtered, censored, monitored or otherwise controlled by the government. SMS texts can be monitored as well, of course, but it can be easier to fly under the radar if your volume is not too high or you're not using sensitive keywords.

The great flexibility of FrontlineSMS makes it easier to recover from blocking, too. If all you need is a normal phone, changing numbers - and making the censors find you again - can be as easy as swapping SIM cards.

Read more on the NDItech blog.

We Magazine: Technology for Transparency – SMS Helping Protect Children Against Violence

Here Linda Raftree, of Plan International, is interviewed about a project which uses FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi to improve reporting on violence against children in Benin and Togo:

The Violence Against Children (VAC) project is an initiative co-implemented by PLAN and Save the Children in West Africa and takes place over 4 years (2008-2011) in seven countries: Togo, Ghana, Benin, Guinea, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Gambia. The VAC project trains and engages children and youth themselves as advocates and agents of change to end violence, together with adult community allies. A comprehensive UN report proposes recommendations for action to prevent and respond to violence against children around the world. Earlier this year, the project explored the idea of setting up a text message based system [using FrontlineSMS] that will collect and map out [via Ushahidi] reports of violence against children in communities in Benin and Togo.

...It started off really as a youth project funded by our office in Finland and an effort to break down the UN recommendations from the Violence against Children (VAC) study into a more mainstream language. The idea was to make specific areas of the study more palatable to the general population. The original VAC study was conducted over about 3 years in consultation with hundreds of children, and the goal of the broader VAC project is to increase awareness amongst children and adults, to get them to learn about the effects of violence and how to prevent it and to share the knowledge with their peers. We (Plan) organized a conference in Kenya on social change through new media in December 2008, where my colleague Anastasie Koudoh in Dakar heard of FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi. She started wondering whether such a system could be set up to track violence via cell phone messages...

Read the full interview on the We Magazine website

Plan International case study: helping children report abuse in Benin

We're delighted to announce the publication of the first in our series of in-depth case studies of FrontlineSMS implementations, from Plan International, documenting their work in Benin to develop and pilot a Violence Against Children SMS helpline. Linda Raftree, who many of you will know as @meowtree on Twitter, has written extensively about the programme on her blog, but the case study tries to pull out a bit more of the institutional processes and the technical pitfalls they overcame in the process.

About the programme

In early 2009, Plan was working to strengthen both local and national reporting of trafficking and violence in Benin, West Africa. They were looking for a way to lower children’s and community members’ barriers to reporting, including the risk of reprisals and stigma, communications challenges, and access to places where violence could be reported. The Plan team theorised that collecting reports via SMS, which is anonymous and low-cost, would encourage reporting and allow for a better understanding of the nature and the quantity of violence that was happening.

This in turn could be used to raise awareness around the severity of the problem, advocate for the necessary resources to prevent it, and develop better and more targeted response and follow-up mechanisms. The ability to visualise the data on a map could also have an impact on decision makers and might be a tool that children and youth could use to generate dialogue and advocate an end to cultural practices that allow for violence against them.

The case study covers the training and piloting process, combining Ushahidi and FrontlineSMS, results and key learning to date, and some of the challenges they faced - such as finding appropriate modems, and getting people to SMS, rather than calling, the helpline number.

Seeking new case studies

We hope to produce many such case studies, which are aimed at staff looking to implement SMS or FrontlineSMS in their work, but also can be passed on to managers and donors to help them understand the concepts and challenges involved - if you would like to be one of them, get in touch!

To read more about the programme, download the case study here: Plan International VAC case study, [pdf 1MB].

SMS used for peacekeeping at Burundi's Elections

The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) strengthens, supports, and promotes peace activities at the grassroots level in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). Here, in our twenty-ninth guest blog post, AGLI Coordinator, David Zarembka, discusses how FrontlineSMS proved a valuable tool for supporting and coordinating peace building efforts during recent election violence prevention in program in Burundi. AGLI long ago learned that elections, rather than being a time of assessment, change and optimism, can, in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, often be a time of fear, unrest, and violence. Burundi is no exception. A traumatic civil war (1993-2006), instigated in part by the assassination of then president Melchoir Ndadaye, tore Burundian communities apart along “ethnic” lines and traumatized citizens on all sides. Tensions remain high, especially during election times. With this in mind as the 2010 Burundi elections approached, AGLI worked with the Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC) program in Burundi to develop the Burundi Election Violence Prevention Program.

With a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, the project ran from May 2009 until October 2010 in nine communities across Burundi. The Program involved participatory community workshops to help heal trauma and encourage reconciliation. The 720 workshop participants were then organized into eighteen Democracy and Peace groups, two in each community to serve as the basis for observing the elections and preventing election violence in their local community.

While not part of the original proposal and based in part on the example set by the use of cell phones in Kenya in response to the 2008 post-election violence, staff decided that the program would benefit from taking advantage of recently developed technologies for networking via cell phones. The program staff decided to make use of FrontlineSMS, because it is an open source software program that allows people to send a single text message that is then rebroadcast to other members of a pre-defined set of users. In this case those users were citizen reporters who were part of the Democracy and Peace Groups as well as HROC staff.

Various technical delays and the lack of timely funding meant that the program did not get completely up and running as quickly as we would have liked. One of the challenges was that funding was not available to purchase the phones, and collecting 42 used phones which were donated from the UK and the US was time consuming. In early June 2010 additional funding was secured from Change Agents for Peace, International and used to buy a number of very cheap phones that provided a greater degree of standardization and allowed the inclusion of more participants.

There were 160 citizen reporters who participated in the system. They were organized into nine groups, one for each community, as well as groups for HROC facilitators and staff. Training for the citizen reporters – to explain the basics of how to use the cell phones, how the phones would be used to promote the goals of the project, and how the phones would function with the FrontlineSMS system – were held in each of the nine communities.

The skill level of the participants varied, ranging from people who were already familiar with using phones and sending text messages to people who had never used a phone, were barely literate, and had difficulty seeing the letters on the buttons and pressing the small buttons. Another minor challenge was that the FrontlineSMS system was occasionally overwhelmed with text messages, particularly on Election Day, which occasionally created delays.

Based on the record of the texts that were sent between June 25, 2010 and July 24, 2010, there were 735 text messages received from participants; about 12 messages per day. These were then re-distributed, and the system sent out 7,449 messages; about 124 per day.

The most frequent messages were those reassuring people that things were calm, followed by messages reporting incidents such as grenade attacks on polling stations, arrests, or other concerns. They were also used to share ideas with observers about possible irregularities for which they should be alert.

One particularly interesting series of text messages were explained by a participant during the evaluation interviews:

“On the eve of the presidential elections, everything was very tense, the bars were all closed, and the police were on high alert. Then I heard that three people were arrested that evening who we knew were not actually engaged in illegal activities. I texted [another member of the Democracy and Peace Group,], who agreed to follow up on the case with the police. From there, the two of us communicated by cell phones to coordinate our efforts to speak with various local officials and administrators. Eventually we heard from the Commune administrator that  if one of us came the next morning we would see that they will be released. Later we heard from one of those arrested that one of the police officers was asking him, “Who are you that you have these administrators suddenly concerned about your status?” So it was really our coordination through the SMS network that helped these innocent people be released without harm.”

This indicates the type of coordination that was achieved through the FrontlineSMS network.

Participants suggested that there were in fact good reasons for having the option of text messaging. One advantage they mentioned was the possibility of privacy. For example, if one is witnessing an event first-hand it may not be possible to inform others by a traditional cell-phone call since people in the vicinity might overhear and might misunderstand the reasons why other people are being alerted, putting the observer at risk.

As with other communication tools, while the FrontlineSMS network enhanced the ways people were able to work together, ultimately the effectiveness of the network was a product of more traditional skills and relationships. The ease of communicating, and the ability to do so in a discrete way may have engaged citizens who would not otherwise have played an active role.

The group networks formed were functional and added to the overall program. Participants found the network useful for sharing information and keeping each other up-to-date. In this way the project set an important precedent for how similar networks might be used in the future.

For further information on how the Burundi Election Violence Prevention Program was organised, using FrontlineSMS as a tool, please see the AGLI Manual for Creating Democracy and Peace Groups to Prevent Election Violence.

Texting for life in Pakistan: the International Organisation of Migration

The International Organisation for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation working to support people to return to their homes after being displaced by disaster of conflict, have been using FrontlineSMS in Pakistan for some months. Below, the twenty-eighth FrontlineSMS guest post is an operational update from Maria Ahmed and Isabel Leigh, in the Mass Communication Team.

October 15th is Global Handwashing Day, and in Pakistan, the IOM have been sending messages about hygiene and sanitation as part of their response to the devastating floods that hit Pakistan in recent months, affecting approximately 20 million people according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA).

IOM are leading the  communication response on behalf of the UN 'Cluster System' of humanitarian responders, and have developed over 50 Public Service Announcements (PSAs) in Pashto, Sindhi and Punjabi on topics including  prevention of diarrohea and malaria, water purification methods, mother and child health during the fasting month of Ramadan, child protection issues, treating snake bites, setting up durable shelters and fire safety in camps.

IOM first started using FrontlineSMS in the North in 2009, to mirror humanitarian messages sent out using radio broadcasts with informational texts. People in Northern Pakistan, nearly 3 million of whom were displaced by conflict in 2009, use cell phones extensively amongst family members, often texting in Urdu ( the national language) using the English script. Using FrontlineSMS has saved IOM over $15,000 compared to the  costs they would have paid to develop an organised, mass texting system using a commercial supplier. Supported by Zong, the Pakistani subsidiary of China Mobile, IOM is sending free, bulk, informational messages to affectees and humanitarian workers across Pakistan to enhance informational outreach.

In the South, people are used to using mobiles for voice calls, but send far fewer text messages. So IOM are partnering with Zong, who have donated a million free phone calls through 100 cell phones to IOM to enable a free phone service for flood victims to get vital information, seek help and access relief services offered by the Government and aid agencies. IOM hope to continue to expand the service to reach more handsets in Sindh, Punjab and KP, and from January onwards, in Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Pakistan Administered Kashmir.

ECOCARE Maldives: Project Mobilize

Our twenty-seventh guest post comes from ECOCARE Maldives, an NGO working for the protection and sustainable development of the environment, writing about how they've used FrontlineSMS in their environmental awareness programme with local school children. It's an incredibly simple use case, but it helps them to continue offering the service, and making a difference on the ground...

ECOCARE was introduced to FrontlineSMS software by 350.org during one of their SMS projects, Project Mobilize. After the October 24, 2009 event we used the software in one of our environmental awareness programs.

At the beginning of 2000, an ongoing environmental awareness program, called the Sonevafushi Nature Trip, was launched to create awareness among the primary school children of Malé and Baa Atoll. Baa Atoll lies about 96 miles to the north of Malé. Transporting 100 school children and teachers to the atoll was quite a challenge. School children from Malé and islands in Baa atoll work as colleagues to study the environmental issues such as mangrove ecosystem, coral reefs, beach erosion, biodiversity, natural vegetation, and waste in the atoll. We run the six-day program every year, during the school holidays.

The project makes it possible for children from Malé, who don't have the opportunity to experience greenery in the dusty, smoke-laden city. They are given a chance to learn what the environment is and what could be done to protect and preserve the environment for sustainable future development. They learn about the dependence that the fishing industry and tourism have on the coral reefs and life around it, and the great importance of protecting the reefs. At the same time, school children and the community in the islands of Baa atoll learn from their counterparts from Malé the extent of the environmental degradation that Malé has gone through in its urbanization, and understand the consequences if Baa follows in Malé's footsteps. In future, these children will become the citizens making the decisions to turn away from a path of environmental damage.

While the participants spend almost one week away from their family and concentrate only on the environment, we send important updates and other information via SMS to the mobile phones of their family members and other authorities, using FrontlineSMS. We've found it to be much more reliable than other softwarewe've used.

We’re still using FrontlineSMS on Project Mobilize and also we’ll be using it on our future Sonevafushi Nature Trips. FrontlineSMS is great software that we all at ECOCARE Maldives salute!!

Introducing... FrontlineSMS:Legal!

As we welcome the newest member of the FrontlineSMS family, below is a guest post from its founder, Sean Martin McDonald. You can find out more about them on their website, or by following them on Twitter. Congratulations and welcome to the team! The Case for FrontlineSMS:Legal Mobile technologies are changing the way that governments deliver services. Whether it’s coordinating local medical treatment or crowdsourcing disaster assistance, innovators everywhere are harnessing the power of mobile phones to reach entire populations who live outside the traditional reach of their governments.  As the FrontlineSMS community continually demonstrates, many of the barriers to service delivery are based on communication problems, not the services themselves.  The law is no different.

Millions of people live outside the reach and purview of their national legal systems, forcing them to endure abuse and neglect.  In the absence of law, people turn to either local leaders or settle disputes themselves, resulting in informal, and even violent, resolutions.  At the same time, there are a number of incredible local leaders and civil society actors who step-in to fill this void.  These people and organizations often risk their own safety and credibility in order to resolve simple disputes for their communities without government support or protection.

FrontlineSMS:Legal uses mobile technologies to extend, improve, and coordinate dispute resolution systems, increasing local capacity and access to justice in the areas that need it most.  For more information, check out the newest member of the FrontlineSMS Family here!

White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood: Mum's Tattoo Parlour at Glastonbury Festival

Our twenty-sixth guest post comes from the lovely James at the White Ribbon Alliance, who piloted FrontlineSMS in campaigning in a particularly innovative and fun bit of awareness-raising - offering free transfer tattoos at Glastonbury Festival... The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood is a coalition of individuals and organisations that campaign to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for all women and newborns. With members in 148 countries, I had thought for a while that FrontlineSMS could be a very useful tool for many of our members, so was keen to "road-test" the software when the opportunity presented itself.

Glastonbury Festival seemed like a great opportunity to do so. For the second year running, we were running a campaign to raise awareness of Maternal Health - by offering people the ultimate way to show how much they love their mum - by coming to our "tattoo parlour" and having a classic "mum" heart tattoo.

In the first year, we were taken aback by the amazing response and the vast number of people that got a tattoo and signed up to be part of our movement. However, this left us with thousands of people's handwritten contact details to type up onto the computer for our mailing lists, which made it really difficult for us to get back to them quickly and simply.

So, this year, I downloaded FrontlineSMS, bought an old electric pink Sony Ericsson phone and USB cable from the Queensway Computer Market (for any London dwellers, this is a veritable Aladdin's cave of old phones, computers and parts), and a SIM card, so that people could text us their email addresses instead.

I had a couple of hiccups setting up FrontlineSMS with the phone - firstly, drivers weren't available for, or didn't work with, Windows 7 - which meant that computer that I'd been putting off upgrading from Windows XP was suddenly my least favourite machine in the office no more - and then the first set of drivers that I downloaded for the phone didn't allow FrontlineSMS to see the handset.

However, a quick search for the phone's model number on FrontlineSMS's forums turned up a link for alternative drivers, which linked the phone up and meant it could send and receive texts perfectly.

Not wanting to risk taking a laptop to the muddy fields of Somerset, I anxiously left the computer in the office running FrontlineSMS with my fingers crossed that it wouldn't crash and that no-one turned it off whilst I was at the festival.

Happily though, when I returned, everything was still running - and a couple of minutes later, I had exported all the email addresses into a nice .csv file ready to be imported into our mailing list server! Unfortunately, we still had thousands of handwritten signups to transcribe. Whilst I don't think we'll ever eliminate this, FrontlineSMS seems like a really effective way to reduce the use of paper, offer easier ways for people to ask for more information about our campaigns, and for us to get back in contact with them.

Perhaps more importantly, it proved itself a reliable tool that I think has the potential to be really useful to our members around the world - and we look forward to introducing them to it and hearing their thoughts and ideas of how they might use it for their own work in support of Maternal Health.

Social Change - to go, please

In our twenty-fifth guest post, the lovely Jon Camfield highlights his past work to get FrontlineSMS running on an OLPC laptop. Anyone else running o/ on an OLPC? Let us know! The recent Technology Salons have been on local and sectoral implementations of mobile technology in development.

Mobile is hardly "new" anymore, but we're seeing increasing tools for peer-to-peer communications and decentralized development. Instead of SMS reporting for mHealth metrics or election observation (both amazingly powerful), we have Ushahidi and a team of volunteers from colleges and Haitian diaspora communities across the world saving lives in Haiti after the earthquake by synthesizing and translating reports from on the ground into actionable, trustable pieces of information.

Instead of training-and-visit agricultural extension work, we have tools like Patatat which are building group email lists through SMS messaging, enabling farmers (or anyone) to collaborate on their work, market prices, crop diseases, and so on - with increasingly little need for anything at the center. And of course there's twitter, which, while still "centralized" as a website, enables un-mediated communication amongst basically anyone in the world with a cell phone and a good text-messaging plan.

My favorite technology in this realm of empowerment remains FrontlineSMS. Last year, I cajoled my OLPC XO-1into running FrontlineSMS - combining the XO's hardy but lightweight construction, full-sun-readable screen, and grid-free capabilities with FrontlineSMS's ability to run an SMS messaging center without Internet access. These two combine into a completely mobile SMS command center that can be recharged using car batteries or solar panels, moved quickly, and ditched almost instantaneously (presuming you run a "guest" OS from the OLPC's SD card slot). This applies now to a new wave of netbook computers with even better batteries (though many are not built quite as well as the XO for ... let's say "non-standard" usage).

It took a few decades, but we now have technology which is powerful enough and popular enough to support a global revolution in how "development" happens. It no longer means a visit from a white USAID SUV, or even a health worker motocycling out to check the medicine stocks of a remote clinic. A well-targeted SMS message can reach any part of the world, or just over the horizon to a colleague you want to ask a question of without spending a day and wasting gasoline in transit. More importantly, the "headquarters" of an organization is no longer tied to a central office, or necessarily needs to pay for reliable Internet to communicate with its members/beneficiaries/activists. This enables a renaissance of new local solutions to local problems, and that is exciting impact that has only just begun.

This post originally appeared on Jon's website. We're very grateful to him for allowing us to repost it here.

Jaalaka: Connecting the HIV/AIDS Community through Technology

In the twenty-fourth in our series of guest blog posts, we'll hear about how FrontlineSMS is helping Karnataka Health Promotion Trust, and a team of students from the University of Southern California, to build a network of people living with HIV/AIDS in India.

“Jaalaka” means “network” in Sanskrit. In Hubli-Dharwad, FrontlineSMS technology is being used to connect members of the HIV/AIDS population in a widespread rural network to improve service delivery and social support.

Hubli-Dharwad, a peri-urban district in Karnataka, India, has experienced a significant HIV/AIDS endemic. Most of the infections occur amongst the rural female sex-worker population. There is a significant lack of knowledge about STI prevention and treatment amongst these sex workers, which has contributed to the growth in the rate of infections. The Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT), a government organization that funds and administers public health programs in Hubli-Dharwad, spearheads several programs to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STIs. In order to target the high risk population of female sex workers, KHPT formed a partnership with the Bhoruka Charitable Trust (BCT), a local NGO aimed at promoting health and livelihoods among female sex workers. Since the Hubli-Dharwad region includes over 372 rural villages, BCT employs both professional Outreach Workers as well as volunteer Peer Educators (whom are also female sex workers) to travel to distant villages to educate female sex workers about the risk of HIV/AIDS and to promote safer sex practices.

In summer of 2009, a group of University of Southern California (USC) students, along with financial and logistical support from the Deshpande Foundation, helped launch a pilot program with FrontlineSMS software to improve BCT’s data collection and service delivery. Currently, BCT employs two uses of the Frontline Forms program. Peer Educators make contact with rural female sex workers in the field and complete a Referral Slips via Frontline Forms and the information is immediately sent to the BCT headquarters. The Outreach Workers in the field also completes Daily Reports through Frontline Forms and sends it to the headquarters. By using FrontlineSMS technology as opposed to paper forms, BCT is able to expedite the exchange of information with its staff members in various remote rural areas throughout the district.

As of today, BCT has implemented the program with 37 Peer Educators and 10 Outreach Workers. Both BCT and KHPT have been extremely pleased with the results and are eager to expand the program. Currently, a new team of USC students will be working during the summer of 2010 to troubleshoot technical issues and develop new uses of FrontlineSMS for BCT and other HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations in Hubli-Dharwad.

For more information, check out the USC team's page about the project.

SMS:Gov - Local Government Interface for Constituents via SMS Text Messages

In the twenty-third in our series of guest blog posts, Wayan Vota from Inveneo reflects on the potential of SMS - and FrontlineSMS - to hold local government to account in the developing world. Local governments in the developing world face a serious communications problem. As Roomthinker tweets, there is currently no easy mechanism for constituents to communicate with their elected officials - in urban or rural and underserved areas:

Mass media can quickly inform or educate but radio, TV, and newspapers are usually state controlled by national organizations distant from local needs or decisions. And none of these media are two-way communications. Just one-to-many broadcast mediums.

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In addition, local governments can be ignorant about constituents' changing needs and interests - especially marginalized communities that have been historically ignored or under-represented. Local governments may produce services that they find interesting or please national politicians without any feedback from the people they are expected to serve.

Yet there now exists a technology application that could give feedback on the needs of a community, even providing for targeted two-way communication between local governments and their citizenry. This technology is easy to implement and can be easily modified with changing needs: SMS text messaging.

SMS:Gov as 311

Local governments could set up automated SMS systems in their offices and then promote the phone number so citizens in need could text for local government assistance.

Using tools like FrontlineSMS, the local government would set us a simple menu tree for incoming text messages - each keyword would generate a particular response, leading to a new keyword. The system would track mobile phone numbers, allowing for a basic census of constituent needs and interests.

For example: someone texting "Weather" would receive a basic forecast & could respond with CropForecast, FishingForecast, or National Forecast for specialized weather forecasts in each area. This would both educate the respondents and track how many citizens were interested in each area.

Multiply this over the many local government services and a single FrontlineSMS instance could become an automated information service similar to the 311 service in New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC in the US, at a fraction of the cost.

SMS:Gov as Citizen Pulse

Smart politicians try to stay engaged with their electorate - keeping in constant communication with them to gauge their mood and needs. Yet how can a local politician know what his geographically dispersed constituents need and inform them of his efforts?

Again, using a FrontlineSMS system, officials can easily gather citizen input via SMS, grouping constituent interests by keywords. Then, based on those keywords, informing them of his actions in their interests. Think My Barack Obama, but via text message.

Try out live SMS:Gov

Intrigued? Then text "LOCALGOV" to this phone number +1.202.506.0148 and you can test out our live SMS:Gov demo. Yes, really! Try it yourself from anywhere in the world.

This post was originally published on the ICTworks blog from Inveneo in March 2010. Thanks to Wayan for kindly allowing us to republish.

From Russia with Love

In the twenty-second in our series of FrontlineSMS Guest Posts, a bit of a departure from the norm. Aleksei is our star software tester, and as part of the testing he's been trying it out in his wife's "live environment". His story provides some interesting insights into how small enterprises of any stripe can make use of FrontlineSMS for staff coordination and management. His wife Elena Ovsiannikova, leader of a beauty consulting team, tells us how she has been using the software to support her new team members. “I work with a lot of people, and a lot of information. I advise my clients about cosmetics and perfumes from several famous international companies, and I have a team to help me. Sharing information about so many products with new team members is not easy. I have lots of lovely pamphlets for them, but carrying them all around with you all day in a little handbag? Impossible, they're too heavy. We are beautiful women, not robots!

Yet even with a smartphone with a good browser, and email client, and instant messenger services, keeping in up-to-date in the field can be a challenge for a new consultant. That's where FrontlineSMS comes in.

Aleksei Ivanov, my husband, has been a nut about technology and social optimization all his life. He's now an IT project manager and he suggested using my business to help the FrontlineSMS team test software and translate it into Russian. He showed me how to use the software to get information quickly, do surveys among my team members, support them and save them time.

"Although broadband Internet, Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks have good penetration in Moscow (Russia), mobile phones became indispensable personal devices so long ago that I can't honestly remember when it happened,' Aleksei says. 'It feels like we've always had mobile phones and GSM networks in our lives. The first GSM network in Moscow was only built in 1992 and it was very expensive, but now it's quite cheap and you can use several SIM-cards for different needs - from voice calls to 3G mobile internet in a USB-modem on a laptop or netbook. But for young people, text messaging is still the best known and most-used communication tool, and it seemed to me that it could really help Elena.

"Knowing all of that, I decided to help my wife to design and build a mobile database to help answer frequently asked questions around her activity, such as dates of marketing campaigns, dates of training courses for new representatives and coordinators, and so on. And it works really well! For example, not so long ago a new representative, meeting with a client, forgot the dates of the current campaign when 30% discounts apply. She sent the short message CAMPAIGN07 to our FrontlineSMS number - an ordinary mobile number which was written in her mobile phone address book. She got a response in less than a minute with dates of the beginning and the end of the campaign."

I also use FrontlineSMS for surveys. I have no time to meet every week with every member of my team to check up on their working process, and not all of them have email - but all my team members have mobile phones and are able to use them for one simple action – responding to text messages.

Finally, I use FrontlineSMS to coordinate team attendance at training courses. If I SMS the team to ask who would like to attend a particular course, using FrontlineSMS, those who are interested text back 'YES', and their names and mobile numbers are emailed to me using the Email option in keyword actions. They are then one conversation in my email, and easily forward to a secretary to book the right room the training.

We want to say huge thanks to Ken Banks - kiwanja.net founder - who realised this fantastic idea, and to all the FrontlineSMS team! o/

Mountain meets mobile

In the twenty-first in our series of FrontlineSMS guest posts, Laura Hartstone – one of the organisers behind the “3 Peaks 3 Weeks” Challenge – updates us on their recent use of FrontlineSMS to provide daily climbing SMS updates to supporters around the world "Keeping in touch with family and friends while in Africa can be a challenge, and even more so while climbing Africa’s highest peaks. Remarkably, mobile phone connections can be picked up from the tall grass plains of the Serengeti to the tallest summit, Uhuru Point - Mount Kilimanjaro.

Every January a team of a dozen women from all areas of the world unite in East Africa to take on three of Africa's highest peaks. After fundraising the previous year for three "peak" issues affecting Africa - namely health, the environment and education - the teams aim to use their time in Africa as a holiday. Coined the "3 Peaks 3 Weeks Challenge", the team must complete all three mountains (Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and Mount Meru) within 21 days.

To stay in touch with family and friends during the climbs in January this year, the 3 Peaks team used FrontlineSMS. With shaky internet connections in town and heavy power rationing in the cities this past year, the base camp computer was strategically placed in the Serengeti. At this location, the use of solar power and battery banks ensured that both internet and electricity were reliable.

The team then chose a phone (with the support of GSM Association) that had a small integrated solar panel to ensure the team could keep it charged while hiking. All that was then needed was a Safaricom SIM card that provided the team with mobile phone connectivity in both Kenya and Tanzania.

Ready to go, with mobile phone in hand, the team set off for Mount Kenya. Family and friends had subscribed to their FrontlineSMS group list and eagerly awaited updates. Luckily for all, along the way the team sent various SMS reports on their status.

Our sun dances are not working yet. The rain persists and snow arrived this morning. All well regardless and en route to summit tonight

All 11 of us just reached the top of Mt Kenya to a magnificent sunrise

Team was greeted by a beautiful sunrise on the summit of Mount Kenya yesterday morning. Have just arrived at Met Station (alt 3050m) and were greeted by some amazing singing by the porters. All doing really well and having a great time. Also a monkey ate our soap

After Mount Kenya the team traveled across the Kenyan border to Tanzania. They had a quick two days of rest and then headed up Mount Meru, a four day climb. Again with their mobile phone in hand, they kept all of their supporters well informed of their status.

Texting you from the summit of mount meru! Yeehaa! All tired and elated

The number of subscribers increased as the team headed for their final peak - Mount Kilimanjaro. And as they climbed higher, the texts got more and more interesting.

Celebrating Australia Day up here. Just reached top of Barranco Wall. Please send more milo!

We are preparing for summit night on kili tonight. We’re all excited and a little nervous too. The weather has been good so hoping for a beautiful sunrise in 12 hours time. Wish us well

And perhaps the most exciting message was received the next day.

We ROCK! All 11 of us summited Kili this morning at 715am. Delighted, excited and exhausted!

Many thanks to FrontlineSMS, the GSMA and Safaricom for helping make our LIVE updates brilliantly easy and exciting for our supporters to receive. 3 Peaks 3 Weeks is excited to use them again next year!"

[This story was also covered by the GSMA on their Development Fund blog].

For more information:

The “3 Peaks 3 Weeks” website: www.3peaks3weeks.org More on live updates: http://3peaks3weeks.wordpress.com Contact me: laura@3peaks3weeks.org