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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:41 |
The developer of FrontlineSMS messaging software for NGOs has received funding to add MMS capability, create a non-profit SMS aggregator and repeat the nGOmobile competition.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation have announced a major grant in support of kiwanja's ongoing activities. This grant follows previous grants from the MacArthur Foundation and the Open Society Institute. The Hewlett grant, worth a total of US $400,000 over two years, will see the ongoing support and development of FrontlineSMS, the creation of an MMS version of the platform, proactive promotion of FrontlineSMS, the creation of a non-profit online text messaging aggregator, and re-run the nGOmobile competition in the early spring of 2009.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation makes grants to address the most serious social and environmental problems facing society, where risk capital, responsibly invested, may make a difference over time. The Foundation places a high value on sustaining and improving institutions that make positive contributions to society.
The grant also represents the official launch of The kiwanja Foundation, a US 501c3 non-profit organisation founded last year with the support of Perkins Coie. The kiwanja Foundation will act as a wider fundraising mechanism for kiwanja's work and, in the future, aims to become a source of seed funding for innovative "social mobile" projects.
MMS Version
Ken Banks, kiwanja's founder (pictured), said that he expects to see the MMS version out next autumn, with development starting sometime in the first half of 2009. "We anticipate a multimedia version of the platform having strong potential in the health, education and agricultural sectors" he said. "Imagine, a remote health clinic could send images and/or audio to a central hospital, and seek advice on a patient's condition, or a farmer could send in images of crop damage or pests, and receive advice on how to deal with it" said Banks.
Used BY NGOs Around The World
FrontlineSMS is playing a key role in making text messaging accessible to a wide range of NGOs around the world.
In Aceh, UNDP and Mercy Corps are using FrontlineSMS to send market prices and other agricultural data to smallholder farmers. In Iraq it is being used by the country’s first independent news agency – Aswat al Iraq – to disseminate news to eight countries, and in Afghanistan it is helping keep NGO fieldworkers safe through the distribution of security alerts.
In Zimbabwe the software has been used extensively in a number of human rights campaigns, and in Nigeria and the Philippines it has helped monitor national elections (it’s also being lined up to help register 135,000 overseas Filipino workers ready for their 2010 elections).
In Malawi, FrontlineSMS is generating a huge amount of interest in the m-health sector where it is helping run a rural healthcare network for over 250,000 people (pictured right).
It was used by bloggers in Pakistan during the recent state of emergency to get news out of the country, and also in the October 2008 Azerbaijani elections to help mobilise the youth vote.
FrontlineSMS is being used in Kenya to report breakages in fences caused by elephants, and is running an Overseas Filipino Workers emergency help line (they text in if anything bad happens) and has been integrated into the work of a major human rights organisation in the Philippines. In November this year it was deployed in the DRC as part of the Ushahidi platform to collect violence reports via SMS, and is being used by Grameen Technology Centre in Uganda to communicate with the Village Phone network.
Projects are also lined up in Cambodia and El Salvador (where it will be used to help create transparency in agricultural markets) and a network of journalists will be implementing FrontlineSMS to help report and monitor elections in Ghana, Guinea and the Ivory Coast in 2009.
More Downloads
"We're now around the 1,000 download mark since the new version of FrontlineSMS was released in late June this year" said Ken Banks. "Most of these downloads have come from users virally hearing about the software. We want to become more proactive and identify conferences, groups and partners who can help us spread word on its availability. There are significant numbers of NGOs out there who could benefit from using FrontlineSMS if they knew it existed".
Non-profit Messaging Aggregator
One of the other projects that the funding will support Banks says is the creation of a non-profit online text messaging aggregator. "The idea would be that we could drive increasing quantities of NGO text traffic through one central point, allowing us to leverage the aggregated value of all those messages, and then allow people to donate message credits to organisations who use it."
"Existing aggregators are not geared towards servicing the NGO sector" said Banks. "I think there's enough going on out there to justify the development of an NGO-focussed service. If we can bring together all the collective traffic, I think we could build something quite compelling, and bring down
the costs of messaging for non-profits."
"We'll be looking to work with existing aggregators " said Banks "and I've already identified a couple who have expressed interest in being involved."
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