Submitted by Mike Grenville on Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14

The FrontlineSMS text messaging platform for the grassroots NGO community has been completely updated with new features including multi-language, more handsets and online messaging intergration.

Using FrontlineSMS grassroots non-profit NGOs any where in the GSM world can easily set up two-way group text messaging. While group messaging applications do exist, the majority remain web-based and are either too costly or too technical or rely on internet connectivity to work, something which continues to be a challenge for many grassroots non-profits working in remote areas in the developing world.

Forty Countries

Since its initial release in 2005, FrontlineSMS has been adopted by NGOs in over forty countries for a wide range of activities including blood donor recruitment, assisting human rights workers, promoting government accountability, keeping medical students informed about education options, providing security alerts to field workers, election monitoring, the capture and exchange of vegetable (and coffee) price information, the distribution of weather forecasts, the co-ordination of healthcare workers, the organising of political demonstrations, the carrying out of surveys and the reporting and monitoring of disease outbreaks.

Since Ken Banks, Founder of kiwanja.net and the originator of the FrontlineSMS spoke at a keynote address at Global Messaging Congress in Cannes in May 2008, an additional two hundred NGOs from around the world have signed up to use the software.

New Version Released

The new version adds support for Windows Vista, and also for Mac and Linux platforms and it now works on an increasing range of handsets and modems. Reflecting the broad range of countries where FrontlineSMS is being used, there are now language options for Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili.

Data Collection

A key new feature is the ability for remote data collection functionality for organisations needing to electronically capture information in the field. "For a long time it's been clear to me - and many others - that collecting data in the field in developing countries can be a real challenge" said Banks. "Quite often it's done using pen and paper, or not done at all."

"Some technologies already exist which allow health information, for example, to be collected on a handset and sent to a database on a remote server. Most tend to use GPRS as the method of transferring the data, and this is still a problem for many NGOs working in rural areas in developing countries where networks don't support it, or their handsets are too old. We already have a strong FrontlineSMS user base, and we know that some of them are desperate to begin collect data, so thought it made sense to provide additional functionality in the new version of FrontlineSMS to allow NGOs to do data collection without the need for GPRS. We're using a J2ME client on the mobile phone which compresses the data into text messages, and sends it to FrontlineSMS where it's unpacked. It's very entry-level but the first step in seeing how users respond to it."

User Community Support

"We're hoping to build a strong user community around FrontlineSMS, and have a new Community section on the website which is already gaining traction" said Banks. "Seeing one user answering support questions from another is exactly where we want to be going, and seeing that happen already is fantastic. Ideally we'd like the user base to become self-supporting, and hope it will help us develop further ideas for the software."

Online Messaging

"There are literally millions of uses for SMS text" said Chuck Drake, EVP of Marketing for Clickatell; it makes great sense that SMS would be used for such a worthwhile and important cause such as FrontlineSMS to provide mobile communications for healthcare, ecommerce, human rights, and more. We especially like how FrontlineSMS takes full advantage of easy to use SMS that is already inherent on 99% of cell phones today. People don't want to deal with cumbersome applications or network connectivity problems when wanting to communicate for these often times life saving reasons."

"With natural disasters and unforseen events reeking havoc on the lives of millions, governments and communities worldwide are facing a critical time of need for mobile communications. Clickatell is ready, willing and able to provide the necessary SMS services to help save lives said Drake."

"As the only web-based SMS provider for FrontlineSMS, Clickatell is proud to be involved in this initiative - and is also working with with other very important worldwide causes. Having been in this business for almost a decade, and serving more than 8,000 customers, we take the delivery of SMS messages very seriously and look forward to working with kiwanja.net into the future."

NGO User Feedback

"Not only is this a very exciting day for us, but also for the countless grassroots NGOs out there who desperately need this kind of technology to help them make that first step onto the mobile technology ladder”.