"Build it Kenny, and they will come..."

An SMS is an SMS in any language

2008-05-13T15:18:00.003Z

With users in over forty countries around the world - and growing - keeping FrontlineSMS an English language application was never going to be the way forward. Thanks to some great work from the developers, and with the new FrontlineSMS a matter of days from launch, we're turning our attention to widening language support. Volunteers and supporters from around the world - some of which are members of the FrontlineSMS Supporters Group on Facebook - have been helping us translate the software into other core languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French and Swahili. FrontlineSMS will support these at launch, with additional support in the pipeline for Filipino and Cambodian.

Of course, if we're talking about NGOs, activism and human rights, no SMS platform would be complete without Chinese language support. So here we have it - another one we're including at launch. It's going to be interesting to see how this impacts adoption in China, a country which, so far, has no FrontlineSMS users.

FrontlineSMS and the culture of the goodie-bag

2008-05-04T10:02:00.002Z

This week sees the launch of the new and improved FrontlineSMS (or, at the risk of jumping on the bandwagon, FrontlineSMS2.0 as I prefer not to call it). As well as support for Windows, Mac and Linux, we're also launching a new website and, through a growing band of global volunteers, gearing up our awareness-raising campaigns. Although this feels like something of a fresh start, FrontlineSMS already has users in over forty countries around the world and continues to generate a buzz of excitement among NGOs who come into contact with it.

Next week will also see the new FrontlineSMS debut at Global Messaging Congress 2008 in Cannes, where I'm doing a keynote address on the use of mobiles - text messaging, more specifically - among the global NGO community. This follows on from my February talk at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Although most mobile industry events continue to be dominated by money-makers, aspiring money-makers and deal-breakers, it's refreshing to see NGO work finally gaining traction. Clearly, as more and more companies turn their attention towards emerging markets we'll see an increasing emphasis on the 'bottom of the pyramid' at these kinds of events.

With the exception of my twenty-five minute talk, the remainder of the two-day conference turns its attention back to mobile advertising, the mobile web, user experience, messaging business models, the role of IM and the future of mobile messaging. There will also be the chance to unwind with colleagues at the Global Messaging Awards bash, which I helped judge last month. It's going to be a very interesting couple of days, and I'm looking forward to hearing from some of the leaders in their field and exploring ways of leveraging some of this innovation for the benefit of the non-profit community.

And, just to be sure that on their way home no-one forgets the considerable impact of mobile technology to promote positive social and environmental change around the world, delegates will get a FrontlineSMS goodie-bag. I won't spoil the surprise, but let's just say that the contents will help remind them of the considerable challenges many mobile users face in the developing world.

Thanks to Wieden+Kennedy for the cute photo.

Lost in translation?

2008-04-23T07:34:00.001Z

A posting - if that's the right word - on the recently launched Silverback game, taken from the Gadget Blog:

It turns away that this migrant undertaking, Silverbackers, has universe to transact coupled with gorilla upkeep. Hike to the location to download the project prep added to learn by heart concerning these amazing creatures subsistence newest the forests of Vital Africa - their social order totals binding completed 700. Here’s the provocative tool: these gorillas are unguarded by reason of they keep body and soul toge in vogue a residence moneyed now Coltan, a man-made old en route for the acquire of jug phones. What bigger pathway to move keeping to this enigma than by our can phones?

It certainly looks like English... =D

Global gorillas

2008-04-14T12:21:00.008Z

Last summer things began to take a turn for the worst for the worlds' mountain gorilla population. Stuck between warring rebels, government troops and local populations, the deaths of a mother and infant took the 2007 death toll to nine. An estimated 380 mountain gorillas live in the Virunga National Park and surrounding volcanoes region, representing more than half the world's population.

Of course, it's not only the wildlife that's suffering. Since 1998 an estimated five million people have died, with hundreds of thousands more displaced by the troubles. With many living in refugee camps, there's increasing pressure on the environment, particularly for fuel wood. The Virunga National Park is an obvious - and worrying - target for those who find themselves within reach.

But despite the troubles, the conservation efforts continue. According to Wikipedia:

Land invasions and intense poaching have challenged the park authorities to the limit, but most rangers have remained active. Since 1994 about 120 rangers have been killed in the line of duty protecting the park from illegal poaching and land acquisition. Amongst other military activity, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have been been using the park as a safe haven when they come under sustained attack, such as Laurent Nkunda's offensives against them between April and May 2007

Back in 2003, as part of a project called wildlive!, I worked with an international conservation organisation - Fauna & Flora International (FFI) - to help them explore how mobile phones could be used to help raise money and awareness for gorilla conservation and local livelihoods. We ended up with a game called "Silverback", an eight-level epic taking the player through the life of a mountain gorilla from birth through to adulthood. The game was very well received by the mobile gaming industry, scoring highly in their reviews. Sadly, three years later the service was pulled. The game was dragged down with it and forced into early 'virtual' retirement.

After becoming increasingly aware of the escalating conflict last October, it occurred to me that the time was right for "Silverback" to return. Thinking through what would need to be done to bring the game back to life, I realised that I knew enough people to make it happen relatively easily and for little cost. Six months later the game has been updated, re-built to support newer phones and re-launched via a new www.silverbackers.org website.

Back in 2003 there were more barriers to getting a mobile game to market than you could throw a stick, or mobile, at. Sadly, little has changed. To combat this and to keep costs down, avoid administrative headaches and to give us global coverage, we decided to follow Radiohead's example and allow people access to the product first for free, and let them decide how much they think it's worth. They can then choose whether or not they want to donate to the cause, something which we obviously hope they will. In order to leverage the power of social networking, we have also set up a Silverbackers Facebook Group for people to join and show their support.

With no funding this is going to be a purely viral marketing affair. The whole project is highly experimental, too. How we measure success is unclear, but sometimes the best way to find out is to do.

To download "Silverback" on your phone, visit the Silverbackers Download page (and remember to donate!).

Text messaging. Democracy. Coffee

2008-04-10T12:22:00.003Z

What a week for FrontlineSMS. Activity was already on the rise - we're preparing for the launch of a new version of the software at Global Messaging 2008 in Cannes next month - but with news breaking this week on its use in Zimbabwe by Kubatana.net has come an additional flurry of press and user activity.

A number of Africa, technology and mobile blogs picked up on the latest report after I wrote about here earlier in the week. The sites quickest to the news included SmartMobs, Global Voices, DigiActive, Black Looks and Kabissa, with numerous other personal blogging sites continuing to link through.

Yesterday, a news item on "The World" also went out across public radio in the United States, where their Technology Correspondent interviewed kiwanja and Kubatana about how the software has been used in Zimbabwe. A three minute audio is available here (MP3, 2Mb).

Interestingly, this increase of interest has lead a number of sites to re-visit the use of FrontlineSMS in providing coffee prices to farmers, a subject I covered a couple of weeks earlier, here. The more notable sites to pick up on this has again been Global Voices, Ode Magazine and none-other than The Independent, who list kiwanja's blog entry on the subject among its "Pick of the Blogs" for 9th April ("From conception to replication").

All of this has lead to a flurry of activity from the non-profit community, with enquiries coming from far and wide - the United States, Cameroon, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, France and Uganda among many others. FrontlineSMS users around the world are slowly beginning to connect.

With so much already achieved with what is still technically the Beta release of the software, next month is very significant not only for FrontlineSMS, but also for the global NGO community who desperately need these kinds of tools in their work.

Kubatana reaches out with FrontlineSMS in Zimbabwe

2008-04-07T12:20:00.007Z

The future of Zimbabwe hangs on a knife edge this morning, as it seems to have done for the past week (or the past few years, depending on your perspective). Like many people with an interest in the country, and like many others with friends or relatives living and working there, I've been closely following events on TV and online. International news sites such as the BBC have been as good as ever, but I've also been spending increasing amounts of time on local sites which, I feel, often give a 'truer', more personal sense of what's going on. One of the best sites for this has been Kubatana.net

Back in the summer of 2006 I was fortunate to spend three weeks in Zimbabwe working with them. A local NGO seeking to promote human rights and good governance, Kubatana were the very first users of FrontlineSMS when it launched back in 2005, starting a trend which has seen the software used for similar activities in a number of other countries around the world. In their own words, FrontlineSMS finally opened up the possibilities for text messaging in their work, and I knew they had plans to use it during the 2008 elections. This is what they've been doing.

In addition to their SMS election line (promoted on their home page, above), they have been running a "What would you like a free Zimbabwe to look like?" initiative. Zimbabweans have been incredibly responsive, with many people saying that the question gave them hope in uncertain times. According to Kubatana:

It's also been a real learning experience for us, reminding us that ordinary Zimbabweans have a wealth of good ideas to contribute, and our political and civic leadership must work on building a more participatory environment

A combination of SMS and email were used in the initiative, with text messages such as "Kubatana! No senate results as at 5.20 pm. What changes do YOU want in a free Zim? Lets inspire each other. Want to know what others say? SMS us your email addr" sent out to their mobile subscriber lists. FrontlineSMS was used to blast the messages out, and then used collect responses which were then distributed via an electronic newsletter and on the Kubatana Community Blog (see below).

According to Kubatana, "Without FrontlineSMS we would not have been able to process the volume of responses we have received, and we would not have been able to establish a two-way SMS communications service in the way that we have".

In the event of a Presidential run-off, Kubatana plan to produce a broadsheet with the feedback they've received from Zimbabweans in order to remind them what each other wanted, and to inspire them to go out and vote (again). After the election, they hope to produce a booklet with a page on some of these ideas and include an editor's comment, a cartoon or even a set of postcards carrying the most unique, original and practical ideas.

Unlike the Nigerian elections, where FrontlineSMS was used as a monitoring tool, in Zimbabwe it has been effectively used to mobilise and inform civil society during and after the election process. In both cases, the real success story has been the NGOs themselves - NMEM in Nigeria and Kubatana in Zimbabwe - who have both demonstrated the power of mobile technology in civil society initiatives, and what can be done when the right tools make it into the hands that need them the most.

FrontlineSMS comes of age

2008-03-28T15:57:00.008Z

Two-and-a-half years in the making, FrontlineSMS is finally shedding its Beta status and will soon, finally, be launched to the NGO community as a fully-blown product. Although it's taken much longer than I'd have hoped, at least we've had ample time to listen to the users and got the clearest possible indication of what we needed to add, remove, tweak and improve to make it more useful and relevant. The Beta - proof-of-concept as it was - naturally had its problems, but thanks to a great team of developers the new version is on target to exceed even my own expectations.

We're still in Beta in the new release (but at least it will get out of it this time!) and things are still a little rough in places. Many of the finishing touches are scheduled for later in the development cycle, but the software is already beginning to take shape and neatly builds on the current FrontlineSMS look and feel which we know works well.

Here's a sneak preview of just a few of the things we've been working on.

We've built two user interfaces in the new version - a Classic and Advanced view - allowing the user to determine how much functionality they want to be exposed to. Beginners will be happy with the Classic, which looks and feels pretty-much like the current release. We've also added right-click menu functionality, making things quicker, easier and more accessible throughout, and 'handles' which allow different elements of the screen to be expanded or reduced in size depending on how much the user needs or wants them.

A choice of database options are now available, allowing incoming and outgoing message data to be read and shared by other applications. Incoming messages can also be 'posted' automatically to web servers, or passed to other running programs which can then deal with them independently. There are also improved data import options allowing, for example, groups of contacts to be easily brought into the database, with generated message data more easily exportable from a number of modules in a number of popular export formats. One of the problems with the current version was that the data, useful as it was, wasn't easily accessible by anything other than FrontlineSMS. Not quite so useful.

Device installation and configuration is now largely automated in the brand new PhoneManager module, with auto-detect and auto-configure functionality. FrontlineSMS scans the host computer, looks for modems and phones (which can be internal devices, or connected via USB or bluetooth), determines whether they're any use, and then sets them up if they are. Multiple devices can be used at the same time, and each can be configured exclusively to send messages, or purely to receive, depending on what the user requires. A wide variety of GSM modems and phones will be supported at launch, with simple driver creation possible for new devices as they hit the market. Long gone are the handset headache issues of version 1.0

Additional functionality includes support for SMPP, which will allow messages to be blasted through SMS aggregators such as Clickatell. This will make it possible to send large numbers of messages far more quickly and cheaply than via any attached device, if and when an internet connection is available. The new FrontlineSMS will also be platform independent, so Mac and Linux users no longer need feel left out.

Of course, this is only half of the project. A team at Wieden+Kennedy are working hard to re-brand the software and build a simple, functional, accessible website, work which is also going fantastically well. But that's the subject of an entirely different blog post altogether...

All of this work - the application itself and the website - will be publicly launched on 8th May at Global Messaging 2008 in Cannes, where I've been invited to give a keynote speech - "Mobile messaging as a means of empowerment: How has SMS been harnessed by NGOs around the globe?".

Two weeks later, 22nd May, sees FrontlineSMS feature as a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge where it's been selected for its use in monitoring the 2007 Nigerian elections. The project then enters a new phase on 1st June as the MacArthur Foundation funding ends and a new grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI) begins.

I've always felt that FrontlineSMS had a huge amount of potential. Thanks to a dedicated team - supporters, users, developers, bloggers and donors among them - we may soon start to see it.

From conception to replication

2008-03-24T17:14:00.006Z

Tonight, a hundred and fifty farmers and their families who I have never met will be going to bed better off. Not only is this significant for the farmers, it's also significant for me. Because without FrontlineSMS, which is being used to provide coffee prices to these smallholder farmers, this would not be happening.

There's a tendency to think that, as a free entry-level texting solution, FrontlineSMS is only relevant for smaller, grassroots non-profits who are most likely to lack the funds or in-house expertise to develop their own solutions. Over the past couple of years I've begun to see otherwise. As a case in point, this coffee project is being run by the UN. Not the suited, New York-based UN you see on TV, but a field-based team of UN staff and volunteers who simply wanted to try something. All they needed was a simple, low-cost tool which allowed them to rapidly prototype their idea.

Today, using FrontlineSMS, their pilot project is distributing prices from five large buyers to about 150 farmers, village leaders and farmers groups by SMS in a classic "market transparency" intervention. And it's working. Prices are going up for farmers, and the buyers are getting access to more quantity and better quality. Prices are collected via phone once a week and within ten minutes are entered into FrontlineSMS and sent out. The project has been successfully running for several months.

What's notable is the benefit this project brings to the coffee dealers, the middlemen. Usually tarnished as unscrupulous and exploitative, they also have families and also need to make a living. Rather than cutting them out altogether they have been brought on board, and their reward is better quality coffee and access to larger quantities of beans.

Of course, there are countless "market price" examples out there, but what makes this significant, for me at least, is that they used a tool that any organisation working on economic empowerment or market issues could use. Unlike the Kerala fishing example, where mobile phones helped fishermen in southern India increase their profits in a similar way, this latest UN project is using freely available, NGO-specific, easy to implement named software. Interested NGOs simply have to Google "FrontlineSMS" and - if they choose - learn about it, download it and use it themselves. Barriers need to come down, and they are.

But issues of cost, replicability and knowing what's possible remain three of the biggest hurdles to mobile adoption among the grassroots conservation and development communities, something I regularly blog about. As yet, this UN project is undocumented (which is why I can't be more specific), so the knowledge is largely confined locally to where they work. Hopefully this will change. For the hundred and fifty coffee farmers involved in this project the concept has been well and truly proven, but for countless thousands of others, it hasn't. Our challenge is to make it so.

Somewhere. Someday

2008-03-20T17:36:00.004Z

A place for people to turn dreams into reality...

Going... Going... Gone.

2008-03-17T04:55:00.005Z

I'm not the kind of person who tends to get easily attached to material things, but this was a little different. Since my second month at Stanford - way back in October 2006 - this particular "material thing" has been my home, kiwanja's North American HQ and my Sunday morning ride to Trader Joes, Peets Coffee and the laundrette. Until today, that is.

I decided soon after arriving in California to get a VW camper, not just because it was going to work out better on my finances but because I felt that living the simple life in the complex Stanford environment would keep me focussed and "real". It became apparent after my first few days here that it would be very easy to get caught up in a place like this, very easy to lose focus and forget why I was here, and I didn't want that to happen to me. I blogged about my thoughts last summer, as my Fellowship came to an end and many of my friends returned to their own particular corners of the globe.

Now, with just two weeks left here at Stanford myself, it was time to move on. The van had to go. I didn't realise it, but last night literally was my last night.

This was the van I retired to late at night after a long day working on my - and the other Fellows - projects. It was the van which kept me warm during one of the coldest winters in California for a century, and the van in which I read numerous Africa and technology books, strategising my future direction. It was the van that brought me NPR radio and an hour of the BBC World Service each evening, and the van in which I lay while I edited and re-edited my proposal for the new FrontlineSMS. It was my home when I got my first ever grant, from the MacArthur Foundation last summer, and pretty-much the only home I have known since moving here.

This old van has been very much a part of my life here as have the people, the places, the coffee and the Fellowship. I had dreams of keeping it, storing it away somewhere and coming back for it some day, or shipping it over to England. But none of this was ever really that sensible, because at the end of the day this van was only really meant to keep me real, right?

Job done, I'd say.

Mobile apps for the long tail

2008-03-12T04:33:00.007Z

Even though I regularly blog about things which directly relate to my work, I rarely make use of any of them in my work. But then a few weeks ago I blogged about "Social mobile and the long tail", an entry in which I tried to imagine what the non-profit/developing country/mobile applications landscape might look like. I had been toying with the idea of blogging about it for a few months, but just hadn't come up with an image I was happy with. For a while I'd had the long tail in mind, so eventually I plumped for it even though it was originally conceived for something entirely different (consumer demographics in business, of all things).

During my recent presentation at the Texting4Health conference at Stanford, the graph caused quite a stir (you'd have to have been there to know the context), but it proved an incredibly useful visual for something which would have previously taken me a minute or two to explain. Since then it's effectively got me an invite to another conference, this time in San Francisco, which has an interest in the focus areas for mobile applications in the developing country/NGO world. The fuller blog posting has also proved popular - a document I'll be using later this week at a gathering in Washington D.C.

Reactions to the relevance of the long tail in the mobile applications space have been mixed. Some people just got it, some people debated and discussed it, while others just didn't click. But that's fine. The whole purpose of the graph was to try and generate awareness around something I see as extremely important. There's a lot of energy, and increasing amounts of money, being funnelled into the social mobile space right now. If - in the context of grassroots NGOs in developing countries at least - mobiles are to live up to their full potential we need to make sure that all this time, money and effort are concentrated in the right place.

And for me, at least, that means putting most of it in the long tail.

Seizing the moment

2008-03-10T15:35:00.000Z

Back in the summer of 2005, a few friends and colleagues gathered in a corner of the Commonwealth Club in London. There were environmentalists, conservationists, communications experts, senior mobile industry executives, businesspeople and a couple of potential investors. What brought us there was the Galileo Masters, an annual competition which awards incubation opportunities for innovative satellite navigation applications. FrontlineSMS development was just about to begin, kiwanja.net was beginning to grow and it was a time rich in ideas. Not surprisingly for a meeting dominated by conservationists, it was an environmental application which won through. On 8th June 2005, our Mobile Environmental Monitoring Device was born. Our idea was this.

A Mobile Environmental Monitoring Device (MEMD), tracked by Galileo, would gather environmental information as people move through their landscapes. Indicators such as temperature, air quality, CO₂ levels and air pressure would be recorded along with a fix on each location. For the first time individuals will be able to monitor their own exposure to local, relevant environmental hazards. Although initially a standalone unit, MEMD could converge with other technologies in the future, such as mobile phones and PDAs, providing enhanced functionality and communications ability. Each data set, gathered by each MEMD unit, would provide the user with a snapshot of the state of their environment

The idea was a bit on the grand side (see a bigger diagram) and we didn't win, which was probably a good thing since none of us really knew if the thing was possible. MEMD was consigned to the archives like an earlier mobile payments concept (which has also since taken off). I started work on another project which later became FrontlineSMS, and life moved on.

The idea was well and truly buried until recently, when I came across this - the Nokia Eco Sensor Concept. According to Nokia:

Our visionary design concept is a mobile phone and compatible sensing device that will help you stay connected to your friends and loved ones, as well as to your health and local environment. You can also share the environmental data your sensing device collects and view other users’ shared data, thereby increasing your global environmental awareness

Interestingly, their monitoring device pairs with a mobile phone - which was what we had in mind - collects similar kinds of environmental data, allows it to be shared and aggregated and is designed to increase environmental awareness. It looks like we were just a little early on this one.

Ideas, of course, are one thing. Having the resources to execute them is another (something which, to this day, remains a challenge). Back in 2005 we were left to wonder if MEMD would ever have been possible.

Two years later, Nokia have shown us that it is.

London calling

2008-03-06T03:34:00.005Z

In a sense, kiwanja.net is something of a deception. With so much going on so much of the time, it exudes the aura of a small, tightly-knit organisation, a team of people busily working their way through a range of mobile and ICT-related projects. If, back in 2003, I had called the site kenbanks.com as I originally planned - thank goodness it was taken - this confusion probably wouldn't arise today. Many people assume there are at least a couple of people behind kiwanja.net, nGOmobile or FrontlineSMS. The deception is well and truly driven home when I get emails asking to speak to someone from my London office. One day, my friend. One day.

The last couple of weeks or so - a few days either side of my return to Stanford, in fact - have been particularly productive. Here's a wrap up of some of the latest kiwanja.net News.

kiwanja.net was appointed a member of the Program Committee for the W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development. Scheduled for Sao Paulo in June, the Workshop aims to understand the specific challenges of using mobile phones and web technologies to deliver services to underprivileged populations in developing countries. A Call for Participation for the 2008 event went out at the end of February.

A talk on the uses of FrontlineSMS by grassroots health NGOs, and a live demonstration of the software, took place at Stanford University's Texting4Health Conference. This followed closely on the heals of FrontlineSMS's inclusion in a new UN "Compendium of ICT Applications on Electronic Government". The first in a series of volumes, this one focuses on the use of mobile technology in the areas of health and learning.

After a series of discussions which started last autumn came an appointment to the Advisory Board for Open Mind, a non-profit organisation which houses Question Box, a project developing a simple telephone intercom which connects rural people to the internet. After blogging about it a few days ago (see the entry below), Question Box was picked up by the popular Boing Boing website.

After successful outings with the Global Mobile Awards 2008 and kiwanja's own nGOmobile competition, 160 Characters appointed kiwanja.net a judge for the forthcoming 2008 Mobile Messaging Awards. FrontlineSMS, which was short listed for a 2007 Mobile Messaging Award, will be at the centre of a speech I'm giving in Cannes - where the 2008 winners will be announced, and where I'll be making the non-profit keynote address on the use of SMS by grassroots NGOs around the world.

On the subject of Awards, FrontlineSMS has been nominated in the "Equality" section of the Tech Awards, an international Awards program that honours innovators from around the world applying technology to benefit humanity.

kiwanja.net made its fourth appearance on the BBC World Service, this time talking about the recently announced winners of the inaugural nGOmobile competition. The interview, broadcast on Digital Planet, profiled the projects in Kenya, Uganda, Mexico and Azerbaijan and covered more broadly the continuing relevance of SMS as a tool for grassroots NGOs in the developing world.

The Social Mobile Group on Facebook, set up by kiwanja in November 2006 (and which has just hit the 1,400 member-mark) was praised in a blog posting by Social Media Guy in an entry titled "Facebook Groups Done Right". The use of Rotating Group Officers, relevant discussion topics, the presence of an external site for non-Facebook users and a voluntary Members Directory were all highlighted as innovative ways of developing and maintaining groups on the platform.

Finally, "Design Traditionalist", a blog run by Alan Manley (a lecturer in product design in India) has named the kiwanja.net website among several others in its "Good site" section. As someone forced to do their own web design and development (it would normally be a job for the London office, right?) it's always quite pleasing when a qualified observer has a "positive interaction".

Maybe I won't make those changes after all...

In the know

2008-03-03T03:07:00.007Z

We read a lot about the delivery, and popularity, of SMS services such as market prices, health advice and job alerts in developing countries, information there is clearly a need for. These are the services you'll get to hear most about when you search the web, trawl the blogosphere and attend various conferences on the subject. It all seems pretty sewn up on the content side - I mean, what else could people earning a few dollars a day (at most) possibly want?

I remember my days back in Nigeria, where I worked for the best part of 2002 at a primate sanctuary in Calabar. The mobile phone networks weren't quite operational yet - there was sometimes a signal and sometimes it worked - but the number of internet cafes was on the rise. I remember going in during the evenings, usually to find people doing one of four things - entering competitions to win cars or holidays, looking at females (and males) in varying degrees of undress, trying to find a partner on a dating site, or sending and receiving email (which was perhaps, in some cases, related to one of the first three activities). Clearly, this wasn't the only use of the internet in Calabar, but nevertheless it interested me to see what people did online once you gave them the opportunity to get there. Let's put it this way, few people were doing their homework, looking up university education options, checking the price of matoke or learning how to stay fit and healthy.

Last Autumn I met Rose Shuman, a young entrepreneur based out of UC Berkeley, California. With a background working in developing countries and a Masters in International Development from Brown University, Rose had developed a clever 'intercom' style box which, when placed in a rural location, allowed people access to the information they sought in a slightly unusual, but innovative manner. It was a 'one-step-removed' type of internet access.

It works like this. A villager presses a call button on a physical intercom device, located in their village, which connects them to a trained operator in a nearby town who's sitting in front of a computer attached to the internet. A question is asked. While the questioner holds, the operator looks up the answer on the internet and reads it back. For the villager there is no keyboard to deal with. No complex technology. No literacy issues. And during early trials at least, no cost. Put simply, Question Box provides immediate, relevant information to people using their preferred mode of communication - speaking and listening. I thought it was great.

When I met Rose she was trialling her first Question Box, which had been placed in Phoolpur village in Greater Noida, close to New Delhi, in September 2007. These early prototypes have been using landlines to connect the Box to the operator, and this has proved to be the weakest link in the technological chain. A reliance on landlines also severely restricts the location where a Box can be placed. It was clear we had a fixed-line problem waiting for a mobile solution. That's what Rose and I talked about five months ago. Soon we'll begin exploring options, both technological and financial.

Last week Rose sent me the data from the first trial. It's priceless. When you allow rural people in developing countries - in this case a single village in India - to ask any question they like, what do they ask? What's important to them? Does it follow our health information model, or market prices idea, or an anticipated need for paid employment? Rose is still working through the data, trying to knock it into meaningful shape so we can present it to potential funders, so I can't go into too much detail right now for obvious reasons. But I can tell you that the results are cool.

Sure, there were a few of the more likely suspects in there - people asking for exam results, health questions, enquires about land rights and food commodity prices. But there was also a demand for all sorts of other types of data, much of which I'd never have anticipated.

Often when we plan and build mobile solutions for developing (or emerging) markets, we forget, neglect or are just plain unsure how to ask the users what it is that they want. The irony might be that, here at least, Question Box might end up being the answer we're looking for.

(This Question Box blog entry was picked up by Boing Boing the very next day, and an interesting discussion ensued. Visit Boing Boing to see what people there had to say. Then, a couple of days later Ned Potter, the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" reported on Question Box. What a great week for the project!))

Africa through my grandparent's eyes

2008-02-25T17:10:00.010Z

Back in what I believe were most likely the 1960's and 70's - perhaps a little earlier - my grandparents from my mothers side embarked on what at the time would have been an epic world journey. My grandfather retired quite early after a successful corporate career working for an oil company of all things, and the two of them grasped the opportunity to see some of the world. I remember, as a child, reading their letters and postcards. I was always particularly captivated by this place called Ceylon, a name now long consigned to the history books. It's been called Sri Lanka since 1972.

What made my grandparents travels so intriguing, though, wasn't the letters or postcards, or the various souvenirs which they brought back with them, or the safari brochures. Most fascinating was the cine film. Believe it or not, my grandfather somehow got hold of a cine camera, and they took it with them on many of their trips. About ten years or so ago, we transferred one of the family films onto VHS. There are the usual shots of us, as kids, playing on the beach, my brother pushing me into the sea, one of my sisters screaming. But then, right at the end, for about 15 seconds or so, there's a totally random clip of an African village. To say it is fascinating is a total understatement. Where was it filmed? When? Who were the people in it? Sadly, these questions may never be answered.

After my grandfather passed away in the early 1990's - he was preceded by my grandmother - all of the films went into storage in an uncle's loft, somewhere in deepest darkest England. Shortly after that he emigrated to New Zealand, and the films were forgotten. Forgotten by everyone except for me, it seems.

Once or twice in recent years I've tried to find out if the films are still around. I'd almost given up all hope, but my mother emailed her brother again recently and it turns out the films are still sitting in that loft. In June, once I'm back from Stanford, I hope to meet up with my uncle, and hope to get a chance to transfer some of those films onto DVD. I know my grandparents spent quite a lot of time in Africa - Kenya and Uganda for sure, most likely Nigeria, too. And I think Egypt.

Seeing these places through my grandparent's eyes, 40-odd years after they were there, is going to be incredible. And one thing is for sure - there won't be a mobile phone in sight...

Shedding light on the charging challenge

2008-02-18T19:58:00.006Z

(Since this post went up a number of people have been in touch asking where they can get this solar charger. I'm talking with the manufacturer and will post details as soon as I have them).

Barely a week after blogging about the challenges of charging mobiles in developing countries (see February 5th post), I had the chance to meet Clemens Betzel, President of G24 Innovations, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. G24i develop a range of solar charging solutions, some of which are geared towards developing countries, and mobile phone users in particular. I left our meeting with a portable solar charging pack for the ZTE mobile which I recently bought in Uganda, and here it is down my local village green at the weekend (yes, we do occasionally get sunshine in England).

In some rural areas, where the lack of reliable mains power might be the difference between making it worth owning a mobile or not, a small solar panel such as this could be a deal clincher. Of course, solar energy has been touted as a solution for charging mobile devices for years now, but what's interesting about this is the cost. Suddenly, it actually seems possible. And by possible, what I really mean is affordable.

Here's the breakdown. My basic, no-frills ZTE phone comes in at around $22 new, putting most rival entry level handsets in the shade. And the solar panel to charge it? Add another $20. So, suddenly, for about $42 we have a works-out-of-the- box rural mobile solution. (Just one short year ago the handset alone would have come in at around that). What's more, the owner of the solar charger could earn a little extra income running a small charging business on the side. Maybe one day these panels will come as standard in Village Phone programs around the world, if they're not already.

I couldn't help but leave the meeting with thoughts of grassroots NGOs running solar powered FrontlineSMS hubs off OLPC's or $200+ Acer EEEPC laptop computers.

Now that really would be empowering.

And the winners are...

2008-02-14T08:57:00.003Z

Most of my ideas come on trains and buses. nGOmobile was no exception. The 1645 Kings Cross to Cambridge train was responsible this time around, after I'd spent the day getting 'processed' by the American Embassy in London. It only seems like yesterday that we launched the competition, and yet here we are, five months and over seventy entries later, with the four winners.

It's been a fascinating exercise. We have projects from Kenya, Uganda, Mexico and Azerbaijan looking to work with local communities to promote the protection and sustainable use of environmental resources; another planning to launch an SMS-based service for rural communities allowing them to ask a range of water-based questions on topics such as sanitation, hygiene, water harvesting, and water technologies; one seeking to help rural Central American and Mexican communities solve problems of deforestation, poverty, malnutrition, unemployment and the marginalisation of women; and another seeking to help grassroots and politically excluded people understand their human and legal rights, and to engage them further in the political process.

nGOmobile is a text message-based competition aimed exclusively and unashamedly at grassroots non-profit organisations working for positive social and environmental change throughout the developing world. Non-profits were asked to send in proposals on how they sought to use mobile technology, with the top entries getting laptops, modems, phones, software and cash to enable them to implement the work.

It was tough turning down so many other amazing and worthy entries, and the hope among all the Judges is that we can scale this further and provide further prizes and opportunities when we re-run the competition in the coming months. Mobile World Congress has been a great platform to announce and profile the winners, and there is widespread interest in what nGOmobile is trying to achieve. For a project which only took five weeks and $20 to set up - I couldn't get anyone to donate the URL - it's a great example how it needn't take months and cost thousands of dollars to get a project up and running. Rapid prototyping is a strong theme in all my work.

Last night I introduced the four winners to each other, and they've already started sharing their stories and experiences via email. In the next couple of weeks we will profile these projects in more detail on the competition website, and begin to plan ahead. It's very early days, but the potential positive social and environmental impact of nGOmobile is there for all to see...

Scary Spice

2008-02-13T16:12:00.005Z

While most of the delegates here at Mobile World Congress have been busy fighting over next-generation GPS-enabled phones, playing with Nokia's latest N-series or scrambling to get their hands on an Android-powered device, I went out in search of something a little more spicy.

During one of my recent trips to Uganda, I bought a ZTE handset from a street vendor. It was pretty basic, as you would expect for a phone which costs a little over $20 new. As much as possible had been stripped out to make it this price competitive - no browser, no data capability and no Java, and a monochrome LCD display with a bulk-standard orange backlight. But it worked, had good battery life and had four of the key functions demanded of a phone in this kind of market - a phone book and an alarm, and the ability to make and receive calls, and send and receive SMS. I thought this was about as basic as it could get - after all, what else could you possibly strip out to make it even cheaper?

Well, this week in Barcelona I may have found the answer. And the answer is, apparently, the screen. Spice Mobile have launched what they are calling "The People's Phone" in India, and plan to roll it out in Europe by the summer. And it has no screen. At $20 (ironically, around the same price as my ZTE) it's billed as a device which promotes "the power of the spoken word" and is designed for illiterate or visually impaired users. It boasts voice response technology, long battery life, a braille language keypad and a universal charger.

Could this be the future of "handsets for the masses" in developing countries?

kiwanja at Mobile World Congress 2008

2008-02-10T16:17:00.000Z

This week I'm making my first appearance at the Mobile World Congress event - formerly 3GSM - in Barcelona, thanks to support from the GSM Association itself and the MacArthur Foundation, who are funding me through my FrontlineSMS project. Although predominantly a commercial event (in other words, crowded out by the big, and aspiring-to-be-big players in the global mobile industry), there's increasing interest in the use of mobiles in the non-profit sector, particularly in developing countries, and this is reflected in kiwanja's invitation to present at the Society on the Move track on Day Two. There's also the Global Mobile Awards with its own 'Bridging the Digital Divide' category, which I was honoured to help judge this year. These are exciting times, and it's great to be part of a growing movement and to have the opportunity to fly the grassroots NGO flag at leading industry events such as this.

It's going to be a fascinating week. This is my schedule so far:

Monday February 11th
Attending the VIP screening of Mobile Planet. Produced by the GSMA and TelecomTV, Mobile Planet is the first film to bring to life the extraordinary social and economic impact of mobile communications across many diverse countries of the world. I'll also be meeting with the producers of the film, and hope to explore opportunities to help TelecomTV expand its reach further to cover more of the grassroots NGO use of mobiles in the developing world. I hope to get hold of a DVD of the film, so if you're interested in seeing it get in touch

Tuesday February 12th
Discussing the application of mobile phones in the NGO sector, the many uses of FrontlineSMS around the world and the global response to the nGOmobile competition at the Society on the Move track, which focuses on the social and economic impact of mobile technology. Mike Short, who will be moderating the session, is Chairman of the Mobile Data Association and VP of Technology at UK carrier O₂. He also happens to be a judge on kiwanja's nGOmobile competition, the winners of which are being announced on the eve of the event. Talking of competitions, later in the evening I'll be attending the Global Mobile Awards ceremony, along with many of the other judges, at the National Palace in Barcelona. Hosted by UK comedian Graham Norton, it promises to be an 'interesting' evening (keep it clean, Graham!)

Wednesday February 13th
Attending an invitation-only working lunch to hear about the work of the GSMA Development Fund and the Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF), which both seek to promote the use of mobile technology for social and economic development. kiwanja's early work on wildlive! and t4cd were both funded by the VGF, as was the 2004 study on the application of mobile technology in international conservation and development

Thursday February 14th
So far a free day, during which I hope to get the chance to tread the conference floor and connect with companies and organisations interested in emerging markets and/or kiwanja's work (for either commercial or philanthropic gain), and to grab as many free USB sticks, rucksacks and mobile phone holders that I can get my hands on

Anyone who's around and wants to meet, feel free to fire me an email with a contact number, and I'll get back to you.

Early morning. Bushbuckridge. September 2003

2008-02-08T19:59:00.000Z

Women begin their long wait for water...

I use this photograph a lot, particularly during my "Keeping it Relevant" talks. It was taken back in 2003 during one of several research trips to South Africa and Mozambique for the Vodafone t4cd project proposal, and the "Mobile Phones: An Appropriate Tool for Conservation and Development?" report, which I co-authored with good friend and colleague Richard Burge. Looking back, 2003 seems remarkably early to be attempting something like that, and it was indeed challenging at a time when mobile phones were only just beginning to show their potential. We even discussed an idea for mobile payments, although this didn't get into the final document. If only I'd had the time and resources to explore that one...

I wanted to use this image on the front cover of that report, but was voted down in favour of a more 'traditional' photo. Most people just never got what a picture of women queuing for water had to do with appropriate technology.

The charging challenge and the entrepreneur

2008-02-05T08:57:00.000Z

In "Mobile Telephony: Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities for Socio-Economic Transformation in Nigeria" (a book which I blogged about last year), Christiana Charles-Iyoha sheds some fascinating light on the barriers to mobile ownership among Nigerian market traders. Erratic power supply, and difficulty charging, came top with a staggering 87%.

Users in many African countries - and not just those in rural areas - face similar problems. In Uganda, this "charging challenge" is being met head-on by a growing band of local entrepreneurs and business people.

Rural users are able to charge their phones from a car battery (top), charged up by a local entrepreneur when power is available, or charged in a nearby town with better supply and transported back. In urban areas, where grid power is generally more reliable, kiosks (below) dotted around local markets provide charging services to passing customers.

The spread of mobile technology in developing countries has opened up income-generating opportunities on a massive scale. But what is most interesting is how local entrepreneurs have taken advantage of this growth using their own skills and ingenuity. According to the Uganda Communications Commission, the telecoms sector there provides direct employment to a little over 6,000 people. Indirect employment - which includes mobile charging entrepreneurs, airtime vendors, accessories sales-people and mobile repair shops - comes to a staggering 350,000.

Classic grassroots, bottom-up business development, and not a hand-out in sight.

(These, and other images of mobiles in use in developing countries, can be found in the Mobile Gallery. For further examples of African ingenuity at work, visit AfriGadget.com).

Social mobile and the long tail

2008-01-28T20:50:00.001Z

Erik Hersman at White African talked about it. The Economist also recently talked about it. And Tactical Tech are talking about it. Three commentators and a common theme, even if they don't realise it. What am I talking about? Social mobile's long tail, that's what.

So, why the long tail? Well, it goes something like this. There's no disputing that the mobile for good space is hotting up, with near-daily announcements extolling the virtue of mobile phones in promoting social and environmental good the world over. The problem is, despite the excitement we're still struggling to scratch below the surface, meaning the majority of non-profits, particularly those in developing countries, can all but sit back in awe at the incredible things these little devices are doing. Solutions are tantalisingly close, but without the tools and a practical helping hand most of these NGOs remain passive observers. It's these - the ones who aren't yet able to do anything - that interest me the most. Let's look at the graph.

We have three categories. Firstly, there are high-end high-cost solutions running SMS services across national or international borders, with little chance of replicability for your average grassroots NGO. These are represented by the red part of the curve and generally get the highest amount of exposure. Then we have lower-cost custom solutions, developed by individual (often mid-level) non-profits to solve a particular problem in a particular country or region, or to run a specific campaign. These have a slightly better chance of replicability for grassroots NGOs, are represented by the amber, and generally get a medium to high level of publicity.

Finally, we're left with the simple, low-tech, appropriate technology solutions with great opportunities for rapid, hassle-free replicability among grassroots NGOs, represented in green (even better, take out the need to replicate altogether and actually give them the tools to do the work, a gap FrontlineSMS is working hard to fill). These projects generally get the lowest level of publicity, if any, since few have an international profile of any kind. Notoriously hard to communicate with, and with little or no money, it's perhaps no surprise that most of the attention on the long tail is elsewhere.

In order for the mobile revolution to truly become a revolution, we need to be inviting infinitely more non-profits to the party. So much can be done, but so few are active. Going by my thinking, that means we need to be working on the green, because that's where most grassroots NGOs sit, and that's where help is needed the most.

As kiwanja's nGOmobile competition seems to prove, social mobile is not about a lack of ideas or a lack of understanding, but a basic lack of tools...

(A fuller, expanded version of this Blog entry is available as a PDF here)

View from the front row

2008-01-24T09:53:00.000Z

One of the best things about being a consultant, freelancer, wanderer or independent (choose whichever title you think best fits) is that I'm not tied to any one cause, NGO, company, community or website. Since I don't actually work for any of them I can openly communicate, engage and contribute to many sites in many different areas and in many different ways. I quite like this. It helps promote my whole ethos of shared, open learning, and means that information and knowledge I pick up from one can often be equally shared with another (non-disclosure agreement permitting). Sometimes not being paid can have its advantages, too (although I do, occasionally, take on temporary consultancy work with some of them).

Right now, in the "mobile for good" space, we're in the middle of very interesting times. We're also, perhaps, at a crossroads. And the role that I've managed to carve out for myself, intentional or not, means that I consistently find myself at the centre of many of the current - and newer - initiatives. Take, for example, mobile communities and mobile portals (call them what you like). In recent months we've seen the launch, and re-launch, of numerous sites. Indeed, one of my FrontlineSMS-related plans involved the creation of one. I've since had a major re-think, although with users in over forty countries there is clearly a perfect opportunity to build a community of some kind. Building a truly vibrant community website around the wider social and environmental use of mobile is never going to be easy, and I would argue that no-one has yet managed to crack it (indeed, building truly active communities around anything can be a real challenge).

Right now I have a little experiment going on through Facebook. The Social Mobile Group is an attempt to bring people together who share an interest in mobile, from developers through to practitioners, bloggers, researchers, academics, writers and the general public. Since the Facebook structure was already present, it took ten minutes to create the group, and it now stands at around 1,150 members from a starting point of about 20 six months ago. I'm not sure where it's going, but it slowly seems to be taking shape and it requires the minimum of effort. I've also tried to involve the members as much as possible, creating "Rotating Group Officer" roles which provides them with the opportunity to help grow and develop the group in their own way.

There are, of course, other sites out there acting as 'mobile information' points. Even the kiwanja.net site has an element of this with the Downloads section, Mobile Database and Mobile Gallery, although this is not its primary purpose. Other sites include a mix of the old and the new, and it will be very interesting to see how they evolve over time, and how many cross over and blend into others. Last year I began to note down the number of sites I've either become involved in, or provided input into, or spoken to people about, in the mobile space. This is what I came up with:

PAMONET
Following a meeting of African activist organisations in Nairobi early last year (each either using mobile, or with an interest in using mobile, in their work), Fahamu plan to create a Pan-African Mobile Network to encourage the sharing of information between activist organisations working in this field. This is due for launch sometime in 2008 and is currently limited to a membership of approximately 40 individuals or groups who attended the meeting

W3C Mobile Web Initiative
Following on from their Bangalore workshop in December 2006, the W3C Mobile Web in Developing Countries initiative aims to create a Wiki containing information specific to the use of mobile in developing countries, and how the organisation should go about promoting access to the internet in developing regions via mobile phones. There are currently 58 subscribers to the wiki

MobileActive
The MobileActive site was one of the earliest attempts to create a community of mobile activists. It provides information on how to go about developing mobile campaigns, and has produced a number of useful Strategy Guides on the subject. MobileActive has undergone a couple of re-launches in the past couple of years and currently has 127 participants according to the NTEN Affinity list

ShareIdeas
A recent Vodafone/Nokia-supported initiative, ShareIdeas is an online community and Wiki for sharing ideas on how to use mobile communications for social and environmental benefit. Organisations which have used mobile effectively in their work are encouraged to submit their case studies to the site, and to share their experiences with other non-profit organisations. The site recently announced a membership in excess of 700 people

Mobile Advocacy Toolkit
Following on from their successful NGO-in-a-Box solutions, Tactical Tech are in the process of developing a Mobile Advocacy Toolkit and Wiki, designed to help non-profits interested in making use of mobile in their work. The Toolkit will provide a range of open source tools, and the Wiki information on how to go about using the tools, and how other NGOs have utilised the technology in their work. No subscriber data is currently available

The Social Mobile Group
The Social Mobile Group is an attempt to harness the power of the Facebook community to create a network of developers, practitioners, bloggers, researchers, academics, writers and the general public all interested in the use of mobile for social and environmental benefit. Although relatively new, the Group already boasts a membership in excess of 1,150 people

Although many of these sites - and others like them not listed here -have different audiences, approaches and objectives, the one thing that binds them together is their shared interest in the social revolution being brought about by mobile technology, particularly in the developing world. In a space becoming increasingly crowded, many communities are dominated by a small number of active members. Facebook groups aside, ShareIdeas seems to be the one to watch, with Tactical Tech and PAMONET soon to join the party.

The Cobra's Heart

2008-01-19T16:31:00.000Z

"I lived in Africa for several years. I first went there in 1957. Then, over the next forty years, I returned whenever the opportunity arose. I travelled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humour.

This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there - about encounters with them, and time spent together. The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."

Ryszard Kapuscinski, "The Cobra's Heart", 1998

When actions DO speak louder than words

2008-01-16T20:35:00.000Z

Winston Churchill once famously remarked that it was "better to be making the news than taking it. To be an actor rather than a critic". But there are times when this simplifies, and trivialises, the complementary roles that 'actors' and 'critics' can play. Half-a-century on, modern technology has empowered 'critics' in ways Churchill could never have imagined.

In 1984 a BBC news crew, accompanied by reporter Michael Bourke, travelled to Ethiopia and brought news of a growing humanitarian crisis to the worlds' attention. "A biblical famine in the 20th Century" and "The closest thing to hell on Earth" was how he described it. The international community were shocked into action, and the following summer saw Live Aid - Bob Geldof's massive mobilisation of the music industry which helped raise hundreds of millions for the famine victims. Michael Bourke - 'critic' turned 'actor'.

Today, modern-day blogging is creating mini-Michael Bourke's the world over. Human rights violations, environmental vandalism, political killings, oppression against citizens, animal cruelty and unlawful detentions make the news from all corners of the globe, made possible by brave souls empowered by mobile and internet technologies. The line between 'actor' and 'critic' is becoming increasingly blurred, if it exists at all anymore. Recent events in Kenya - which have spurned the creation of Ushahidi.com - is a perfect case in point.

A few short days ago, good friend Erik Hersman (who Blogs as the widely read and highly respected White African) aired his frustration at the lack of news coming out of the country from the man and woman on the street. In "It's Not About Us, It's About Them", Erik noted:

"While blogging, emails, Twitter and the internet are doing a great deal of good getting the news out of what’s going on in Kenya to the rest of the world, I find myself troubled. You see, the communication that needs to be happening is at the grassroots level. Everyday Kenyans do not have access to any of these services. Let’s put our minds and capabilities towards solving real problems for people beyond the technologically elite"

True to his word, just five days later saw the launch of Ushahidi.com, a site which allows Kenyans to report acts of violence via the web and SMS, incidents which are then aggregated with other reports and displayed on a map. Ushahidi - which means "witness" in Kiswahili - provides an avenue for everyday Kenyans to get their news out, and news of its launch has been widely hailed in the mainstream press (and the Blogosphere, funnily enough). Putting Ushahidi together is a textbook study in rapid prototyping and collaboration, and Erik takes a huge amount of credit for blurring the 'actor' and 'critic' distinction yet further by pulling his finger out and actually doing something. As he says, when all the dust settles in Kenya, he doesn’t want to be one of the ones saying “I should have done something”.

From a personal perspective, Bloggers such as Erik have been hugely supportive of kiwanja's work, without which there would have been little chance of initiatives such as FrontlineSMS and nGOmobile ever getting off the ground. nGOmobile alone has generated interest from over seventy grassroots NGOs, all of whom are now in with a chance of winning equipment to run their own text messaging services. FrontlineSMS has empowered NGOs in over forty countries from all corners of the globe. Essential to this has been a dedicated band of supporters, including White African, ZapBoom, Tactical Tech, ShareIdeas, Textually.org, Ore's Notes, Total Tactics, Black Looks, Saidia.org and 160Characters, among many others.

Whether or not we're 'actors' or 'critics' - and whether or not it really matters - we all have a valuable role to play. Ushahidi shows us just how valuable that role can be.