Our Blog — FrontlineSMS

The role of Digital Technologies in Africa

By Amy O’Donnell, FrontlineSMS Media Project Manager

At an event held at the Royal Geographic Society, a diverse panel came together to discuss 21st Century Challenges with respect to digital technology in Africa, approaching the question: can technology offer realistic educational, economic and sustainable opportunities?

The BBC’s Technology Correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, chaired the event (as a last minute stand-in for Sir Bob Geldolf!) and he explained his impressions of technology’s impact in Africa. He recollected, “When I was in Mombasa I met some farmers, each of whom had a mobile phone even though they didn’t necessarily have water and power. They spoke about connecting with the rest of the world to sell their crops. On another occasion, from a data centre in Slough [in the United Kingdom], I was shown a screen showing transactions of Kenyan farmers who were transferring money via M-pesa.” M for mobile, pesa is Swahili for money; this is mobile-phone based money transfer service first launched in Kenya. These powerful examples helped to kick off an evening which highlighted the changes technology is provoking in Africa.

One of the speakers was Erik Hersman, Co-Founder of Ushahidi, who describes a spirit of “business ingenuity born of necessity,” when speaking about innovation in Africa. Erik has launched the iHub in Nairobi as a space for innovative software development (where the FrontlineSMS development team operates) and is about to open the doors to the mLab (an incubation space for mobile apps and services).

The default device for Africa is a basic mobile, explained Erik, and “SMS technology is now.” He described how iyam.mobi builds SMS services such as directories; and others can build services off the foundation of this structure. Technology is developing at such a rate that, “If you blink, you'll miss it.” Although basic mobile phones are still the most ubiquitous and thus useful devices in Kenya, there is a predicted 843% mobile internet growth by September 2011 compared to 1 year previous. 60,000 Android-powered IDEOS phones have now been sold in Kenya.

Internet use in general is growing, with Erik pointing to 9 million internet users in Kenya as an example of this. A blog by Steve Song shows  mapping of the exponential growth in undersea internet broadband cables across Africa. Steve’s site - manypossibilities.net-  paints a dramatic picture of the reality of how rapidly this infrastructure is being put into place.

Hubs of technology are emerging across Africa; in big cities such as Lagos, Nairobi and Kampala amongst others, which have proven that critical mass and investment are needed. During his presentation Erik called for more money to be invested in risky start ups to encourage African entrepreneurs to take risks in developing more new solutions. He pointed out the mLab initiative called Pivot 25 which will show us what’s next in the mobile space.  "Progress is never made by the pessimists; even we are too small to see the possibilities."

Other speakers at the event included Nicolas Negroponte, from MIT Media Lab who discussed the ‘One Lap Top per Child’ initiative and Herman Chinery-Hesse, who has been coined the 'Bill Gates of Africa,' and runs leading software developer company SOFTtribe limited and the innovative Black Star Line, which is described as an ecommerce market place like eBay.

All of the discussions at this event demonstrated how technology is creating rapid change, which is more accessible in Africa than some people might expect. Herman explained, “I studied manufacturing and when I came back to live in Ghana, I wanted to set up a factory but didn’t have the money. I had a PC and could write software and then I realised - that was my factory!” He also noted that "We have SMS in the bush, and Internet in the cities. We can innovate around that.”

From a FrontlineSMS perspective the key message of the event was empowerment of local people. Although approaching the issue from a wide variety of perspectives, the speakers were all aware of the ability of technology to empower people, particularly if built using local knowledge.

Ken Banks, FrontlineSMS Founder, was interviewed in the lead up to this event and you can watch the video here

You can watch videos from the event itself here: http://www.21stcenturychallenges.org/challenges/digital-technology-in-africa/

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Small-scale producers in Côte d'Ivoire manage international markets via SMS

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The below is content from a FrontlineSMS Community Forum blog post, by FrontlineSMS user Julien Gonnet.

RONGEAD is a non profit organisation in Côte d'Ivoire which helps facilitate small producers in Africa  to gain better access to markets. In Côte d'Ivoire they transmit information on the cashew market via SMS. This is a big job, considering Cote d'Ivoire is the second largest exporter of raw cashews, generating incomes for approximately 250,000 producers. RONGEAD are regularly in contact with producers of cashews in five regions of the country, and they use FrontlineSMS to send 3,000 SMS every week providing up to date information on market prices. In addition they provide valuable training and educational materials.

Julien Gonnet, of RONGEAD, recently shared details on our FrontlineSMS community forum about how they have set up a project to enable more than 8000 producers and 250 peasant leaders to have access to the information, tools, knowledge and skills which can help to enhance and secure revenue sources. The project involves "creation of a proactive network of shared knowledge of the world market for cashew value chain in Cote d'Ivoire."

This project has thus far provided five training modules for the producers and peasant leaders. The training modules address particular descriptions of the industry (covering main actors and relationships), an explanation for the formation and evolution of the price (including information on changes in supply and demand), and guidance on market decision making, such as when to sell and how to store goods effectively. A dozen educational materials - as shown in images here - have been developed during the project, including a role play!

At the level of information dissemination, each week, a market analysis is performed by relevant two specialists in the sector in Côte d'Ivoire and France. These summaries are released in a variety of ways, including as an electronic newsletter, though local radio and through 3000 SMS, differentiated by region, sent each week by FrontlineSMS.

This RONGEAD project has caused a great excitement, by providing accessible to information and training. Plus it has helped create relationships of solidarity between local producers. In the past relationships have been diminished following the stigma affecting certain cooperatives, and the climate of suspicion within a sector perceived as opaque and unstructured. Therefore,  it is good to find positive projects which counteract this.

Julien points out that the objective of RONGEAD's project is not "simply to disseminate collected prices, but add elements of market understanding." As he explains "it is necessary to assist producers receiving the information to promote their own decision making and avoid counter-productive misunderstandings."

To learn more about the work of RONGEAD visit their website: http://www.rongead.org

Please feel free to join the FrontlineSMS Community Forum to connect with other FrontlineSMS users, and share details of how you are using FrontlineSMS too!

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A Crowd-Seeding System in Eastern Congo: Voix des Kivus

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With thanks to Ushahidi for letting us re-post the below from their blog.

Guest blog post by Peter van der Windt, PhD candidate in Political Science at Columbia University focusing on Africa. Peter has been directly involved in Voix des Kivus from the start in 2009 when he presented the project (see video) at the International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM 2009). More on Peter's research, teaching and background available here.

Voix des Kivus

A crowd-seeding system in Eastern Congo that uses cell phones to obtain high-quality, verifiable, and real-time information about events that take place in hard-to-reach areas. This pilot project is led by Peter van der Windt and Macartan Humphreys from the Center for the Study of Development Strategies at Columbia University.

The pilot

Atrocities in hard-to-reach areas – for example many areas in Eastern Congo – often go unnoticed because of the lack of accessibility, both due to poor infrastructure and to the simple fact that fighting makes it too dangerous to get close. The inability of international organizations and humanitarian NGOs to collect information under these conditions hampers the provision of assistance in a timely and effective manner.

There is fast growing recognition of the role that technology can play in addressing these problems. But a real challenge faced by many approaches is the difficulty of getting data that is not just real time, but representative. Columbia University (with support from USAID) began the Voix des Kivus pilot project in summer 2009 to assess the technical feasibility of a decentralized, representative, SMS-based information system in the region and to assess the utility of the program to participating communities and potential users. Presently (beginning 2011) the program is operating in a random sample of 18 villages from four territories of the war-torn province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Phoneholders and the goal

It works like this. In each village participating in Voix des Kivus there are three cell phone holders: one representing the traditional leadership, one representing women’s groups, and one elected by the community. Holders are trained extensively on how to send messages to the system. They are provided with a phone, monthly credit, and a codesheet that lists possible events that can take place in the village. Sending messages to the system is free but it is also voluntary – while users do not have to pay for each message they do not get any financial rewards for sending content to the system.

For participating communities Voix des Kivus provides a system for creating histories, archiving testimonies, and communicating with the rest of the world about events that affect their daily lives. For researchers and practitioners working in the region the information gathered forms an important resource to learn more about the situation on the ground in hard-to-access areas.

Technology and the data

The technology for Voix des Kivus is cheap to set up and simple to use. Built on the freely available FrontlineSMS software, the system allows holders to send numeric or full text posts from almost any cell phone. On the receiving side a standard cell phone linked to a laptop linked to the internet comprise the necessary equipment. With other freely available software (R and LaTeX – our code is available upon request), messages received are automatically filtered, coded for content, cleaned to remove duplicates, and merged into a database. Graphs and tables are automatically generated which can then be automatically mounted into bulletins spanning any period of interest and with different levels of sensitivity. Translations of non-coded text messages (often from Swahili into French and English) are undertaken manually.

Over the last 18 months phone holders have sent thousands of pre-coded and text messages ranging from reports of attacks and abductions to reports of crop diseases and floodings. The constant flow of data from our phone holders is kept in a database and captured in weekly bulletins. Each Monday a bulletin is produced and disseminated that presents events that took place in the preceding week. These bulletins are shared with organizations that have received clearance from Voix des Kivus and its phone holders. The latter includes several development organizations based in Bukavu, DR Congo who can use the data to evaluate the situation on the ground throughout the region.

Crowseeding vs crowdsourcing

An important question for a system like this is whether the messages received can be trusted. Here we find the true value of crowdseeding. In most crowdsourcing approaches anyone can send information directly to the system. Crowdseeding works in a more restricted way with phone holders that are pre-selected, and only they can send in information. Crowdseeding has three main advantages for data quality: 1. The data is received from a representative set of areas; 2. All senders are known to the system and are in a  long term relationship with the Voix des Kivus program; 3. Because more than one holder is selected in each village “internal validation” is also possible. The system can also be used for sending information to holders and for engaging in more interactive forms of data collection. There are also disadvantages of this approach relative to crowdsourcing, the most obvious is that because of their relation with the program there may be concerns about the security of holders.

What we learned from the pilot

We have learned a lot from the pilot. The technical and social capacity is there right now. Interest in participating areas has been very great as witnessed by the steady stream of messaging. Technical barriers were also not as great as expected; solar technology can be used to power phones in the most remote areas and cell phone coverage is much greater than some maps suggest. Data quality appears good with fairly high levels of internal validation. Two questions though are still unanswered. First although we encountered no security concerns we do not know how safe the system would be for holders if it operated on a larger scale. Second, we don’t know whether this information will get seriously used. At the scale in which we have been operating many organizations expressed great interest in the concept and the data; but we do not know of any serious reactions from international actors to the messages coming in, including real time reports of attacks and abuses. Phone holders have continued to engage with the system despite the poverty of reactions, but we cannot expect that to continue forever.

Continuation?

After operating for more than  a year and a half as a pilot in Eastern Congo, the Voix des Kivus experience suggests that obtaining verifiable, high-quality data in real-time from these hard-to-reach areas is not only possible, but needs much less expense and oversight than previously thought. Our pilot is now coming to an end and Columbia is bowing out from Voix des Kivus. The big question we face now is whether and how to continue the system after the pilot, whether this should be run by a domestic group or an international group, whether this should continue as an open resource or as a resource tied to the operations of organizations that can respond. Please post your thoughts here.

For more information see: http://cu-csds.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Voix-des-Kivus-Leaflet.pdf and www.cu-csds.org

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Emerging Explorer project makes Buckminster Fuller finalists

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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 and Nsonje Siame

FrontlineSMS has been recognized for bringing the communication revolution to poor and remote regions, through harnessing the power and reach of mobile phones. The software works without the Internet, is easy to implement, simple to operate, and free to download.

Results from a FrontlineSMS user survey, held at the end of 2010, help to illustrate efforts to design software to work for “100% of humanity.” In the survey 84% of users said they found our software easy to use.* Results also demonstrated that FrontlineSMS is being used in over 70 countries, and is particularly useful in areas of the world where other forms of communication can be difficult to access. One FrontlineSMS user said:

I was using FrontlineSMS to communicate with administrators, principals, and teachers in 50 secondary schools. In the area I was working landlines and faxes were largely unheard of, postal services unreliable, and even road access was poor. FrontlineSMS allowed me to coordinate communication between these schools to organize various school events and programs

At its core, FrontlineSMS software turns a laptop or desktop computer and a mobile phone or modem into a mass messaging platform, empowering users to gather and share information of any kind, in any place. The software forms part of a strategy that grassroots organizations around the world can adopt to leverage mobile technology for the greater good. FrontlineSMS focuses on reaching the “last mile” by designing the platform to take advantage of basic mobile phones already in the hands of billions of people throughout the developing world.

While the core platform is use-agnostic, the FrontlineSMS team is committed to incubating sector specific solutions. For example, sister projects work with FrontlineSMS to confront challenges in access to healthcare, education, financial credit, legal representation, and media. There are clearly many other sectors in which FrontlineSMS can be utilized, too. In the recent user survey examples emerged from over 15 sectors, including conservation, human rights, and agriculture, amongst others.

For FrontlineSMS, winning the $100,000 Buckminster Fuller prize would provide critical support for developing Version 2 of the software; an upgrade that will improve and extend core functionalities, making the software even more user friendly and interactive. Version 2 will help users of FrontlineSMS do more with the software than ever before.

Finalists were chosen by BFI’s multi-disciplinary review team, made up of 11 distinguished jurors. These include Valerie Casey, founder of Design Accord; David Orr, writer and professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College; Andrew Zolli, producer of PopTech and Danielle Nierenberg, Project Director of State of World 2011; and Sim Vanderyn, visionary ecological design pioneer.

On Wednesday, June 8th FrontlineSMS will be presented to jury members and an audience in New York City. On Friday, June 10th the Winner will be revealed at a conferring ceremony. Both events will take place at The Graduate Center, CUNY. More information about the event is available here.

About the Buckminster Fuller Challenge

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is the premier international competition recognizing initiatives which take a comprehensive, anticipatory, design approach to radically advance human well being and the health of our planet’s ecosystems. The 2011 Semi-finalists are providing workable solutions to some of the world’s most significant challenges including water scarcity, food supply, health, energy consumption and shelter. The Challenge is a program of The Buckminster Fuller Institute which aims to deeply influence the ascendance of a new generation of design-science pioneers who are leading the creation of an abundant and restorative world economy that benefits all humanity. For more information on the 2011 Finalists visit the Challenge website. You can visit the FrontlineSMS page here.

* The FrontlineSMS user survey received responses from 174 people

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Facilitating Dialogue on Governance in Africa

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By Hussain Abdullah. Reposted from the FrontlineSMS:Radio blog

The increasing penetration of mobile telephony in Africa is widening opportunities for people to take part in discussions about governance. Radio is a widespread medium through which communities can tune-in to listen to debates on topics such as health, the environment and politics. FrontlineSMS:Radio is a software which is being designed to help facilitate radio listener interaction via text message.

The FrontlineSMS:Radio project is generously supported by the Cairns Charitable Foundation which was founded by Lord Simon Cairns. Simon was the chairman of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) between 1981 and 1992, chaired the Overseas Development Institute between 1995 and 2002 and is currently a board member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Created by Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese businessman, the Foundation is focussed on enabling African civil society to hold their governments to account and improving the quality of governance across the continent. Simon also has a longstanding interest in mobile telephone technology, and he was appointed chairman of the African telecommunications company Celtel in October 2007.

Amy O’Donnell met Simon in the Mo Ibrahim Foundation offices, just off Oxford Street, to speak with him about how he thinks new technologies, such as FrontlineSMS:Radio, can help African citizens to influence processes of governance which affect them. The interview is written up here by Hussain Abdullah from FrontlineSMS:Radio.

Simon began the interview by recollecting a discussion he had with Mo Ibrahim many years ago, which eventually led to the creation of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance: a framework enshrining the foundations of good governance. “Mo Ibrahim and I both had, from our separate standpoints, views on why certain countries worked and why certain countries didn’t work.” Simon explained, “We found that it came to thinking in terms of ‘have you got the right leader?’ Then almost everything else will follow. In due course countries can build good institutions, but in the first instance they have to have good leaders... We then got together with the Kennedy School of Governance At Harvard to try to describe what made good governance.” (Read more)

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Safe Motherhood: Mobile healthcare in the Philippines

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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 this installment of our special “Mobile Message” series, Irma F. Saligumba – Health Research and Projects Coordinator at Molave Development Foundation – talks about a project in the Philippines which aims to reduce mother and infant mortality rates, and provide education and support to expectant mothers, all through their mobile phones.

“Ma’am, I already gave birth. Thank you for the messages you sent”. This was the SMS message I received from Meriam. She is one of the 100 pregnant women who registered in November 2010 for the pilot implementation of the Mobile e-health System for Safe Motherhood Program, run by Molave Development Foundation Inc.

This program aims to support the Philippine Government in reaching towards the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals to reduce maternal mortality ratio by three quarters by 2015.

As the Health Research and Projects Coordinator of Molave Development Foundation, Inc., I spearheaded a study on the effectiveness of using mobile phones to reach out to pregnant women to improve their maternal health.

We chose the town of Roxas, located on Mindoro Island about 400 kilometers south of Manila, for the research. Its population is about 50,000 spread across 20 villages; its Health Center has 2 physicians, 1 nurse and 8 midwives. To supplement the lack of health staff, there are 140 village health volunteers (VHV) who are trained to do most of the legwork for the midwives, and disseminate information on primary health care, maternal and child health, family planning and nutrition.

I was introduced to Meriam during a visit to her upland village. Like most of the mothers in our program, Meriam is in her mid-20′s, has some years of high school education, is unemployed, and her husband doesn’t have a regular job. Subsistence farming provides additional income, and their average monthly salary is about $150. The only means of telecommunication in their area is through mobile phones. She shares one with her husband.

In the Philippines, where nearly 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, the equity gap is stark and wide. However, the ownership of a mobile phone is one of the few things that has crossed the income divide, making telecommunication relatively affordable and more accessible in this country of 7,100 islands. There are 70 million Filipinos who have mobile phones, compared to only 7 million installed fixed phone lines.

This is the basis for developing a program that uses text messaging to inform and educate pregnant mothers on safe motherhood. Aside from its mass appeal, mobile phones provide the advantage of two-way communication. Mothers are not just passive participants receiving information, but can also ask questions or communicate their concerns if they need to.

We are using FrontlineSMS as our communications platform because it is easy to use for health workers’ with low technical know-how, it works without an Internet connection and provides a way to send SMS through pre-paid SIM cards, thus making it a low cost option. It is also vitally important that the software allows for data storage, and we have created a database of the mothers and the health workers on our on-site computer.

Prior to implementing our pilot project, we conducted various training sessions for the Health Center staff. First we provided a Basic PC Literacy Course which covered use of mouse and keyboard, familiarization with computer symbols and commands, basic computing using word processing and spreadsheets, and how to use the Internet. When they gained sufficient confidence, we then moved on to training basic FrontlineSMS skills (for the PC and mobile phone) to show staff how to use key functionality. Five health personnel were also trained on advanced FrontlineSMS, including administration, management and troubleshooting.

Meanwhile, village health volunteers were trained on how to use the mobile phone for data entry of pre- and post-natal registration, in order to register pregnant women and new mothers in the program.

With the system in place, we started sending out the messages to participants who had already registered during pre-natal checkups at the Health Center. We also worked to reach out to new pregnant women. Posters and brochures were distributed giving instructions on how to register, by sending in an SMS.

Every day for three months, these women received messages on introduction to safe pregnancy and delivery, baby’s phases of development, tips on preparing for labor, common pregnancy problems, benefits of facility-based childbirth, breastfeeding, neonatal care, and child immunization. Through this program we sent a total number of 11,100 text messages or 111 for each of the 100 women registered.

As we hoped, we received messages back from the mothers. Some expressed appreciation for the messages. Others raised serious questions regarding their pregnancy. An expectant mother named Jane inquired if using the computer is bad for the baby. Jocelyn asked what she should be feeling if the baby is due for birth. At 7-months pregnant, Rebecca wanted to know if it is normal to have swollen and painful vagina.

These questions were forwarded to their respective midwives for advice because they were better aware of their patients’ pregnancy status. The midwife’s response was sent by the system to the mother. In the case of Rebecca, she was advised to go to the hospital for evaluation. She even went as far as Manila to have better care, and she ended up staying there until she gave birth because her condition was too serious for traveling.

We are now looking into expanding the Safe Motherhood Program in other parts of the country. Our initial assessment shows that the program has influenced the parent’s decision to use a health facility instead of their home for childbirth. The system also facilitated the prompt recording of new pregnant women and post-natal reporting. This data helps midwives prepare and plan for the pre- and post-natal care activities in the village. This more efficient and interactive information management system can ultimately contribute to improved maternal care, and thus decreased mortality levels.

Mothers involved say they will recommend the Safe Motherhood Program to others. They feel assured that someone is concerned about their welfare and that there is someone they can go to if they have questions. This gives them a feeling that they are important because someone cares, and that feeling of being important strengthens their desire to take care of not only their health, but also their babies.

Irma F. Saligumba has been the Health Research and Projects Coordinator of Molave Development Foundation, Inc. since 2007, and is Lead Researcher of Pan-Asian Collaboration for evidence-based e-Health Adoption and Application (PANACeA) Network with member countries in Central, South and Southeast Asia.

Prior to her involvement at MDFI, she spent 4 years in Attapeu, Laos as provincial health trainer of Health Unlimited. She also served as Training Specialist for 4 years at Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement focusing on leadership-building, gender and development, and advocacy. She is a registered nurse and earned her masters in Public Health at the University of the Philippines.

Fast Company: US State Department Is Trying To Make A Thousand Ushahidis Bloom

a href="http://www.frontlinesms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Fast-Company.png">By E.B. Boyd, re-posted from Fast Company website "When the earthquake decimated Haiti last year, technologists around the world converged online to develop tools to help rescuers find victims and raise funds. Now the State Department wants to see if it can take that impulse and put it to work helping grassroots organizations tackle humanitarian problems around the world even when there isn't a horrible disaster to deal with.

To do that, the State Department is convening a series of “TechCamps” in different parts of the globe this year to bring together non-governmental organizations that know the problems, with technology experts who might have innovative ideas about how to tackle them....

“It’s a way to identify the next Ushahidi or FrontlineSMS and help them scale quickly,” Boly says."

To read this post in full visit Fast Company's website.

Learn more about our work: FrontlineSMS sister project, FrontlineSMS:Legal is helping vulnerable people gain access to legal services. Find out more on the FrontlineSMS:Legal website

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“Farming Out” Agricultural Advice Through Radio and SMS

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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. Amy O'Donnell, Project Manager, FrontlineSMS:Radio

The Organic Farmer, a Kenyan magazine about ecologically friendly farming practices, recently launched two radio shows aimed at smallholder farmers. John Cheburet is spearheading the use of FrontlineSMS on the radio shows, and, as Project Manager of FrontlineSMS:Radio, I was keen to speak with him. Radio represents the dominant media source for many people worldwide and it offers a vital tool for outreach, particularly to rural communities. FrontlineSMS:Radio works with community stations to discover how combining mobile phone technology with radio can engage listening audiences.

John Cheburet is a radio producer and a pioneer, offering a farmer information service for small-scale farmers and actively seeking new technologies to improve outreach. He is seen by the farming community as a friendly source of information which is vital for their livelihoods. While The Organic Farmer (TOF) was born as a print medium, John sees radio as a way to increase awareness and reach more farmers.

John’s listeners own an average of 2.5 acres. Many farm for subsistence and sell surplus to cover household needs and also pay school fees for their children. They may not have received training or know about the latest technologies, and they seek access to solutions and advice."

“In Kenya, agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and the population depends on the land both directly and indirectly. The country is a major exporter of tea and coffee, and 70% of the workforce is in agriculture and areas that service this sector.”

Read more