txts 4 africa

or

how I learned, metaphorically speaking, to three-point turn an eighteen wheeler inside a two car garage

Open Everything NYC 18 April 2009

humanitarian aid

disaster relief

economic development

think of the children

goods

services

education

economic opportunities

information and communication technology

ICT

UNICEF Innovation Unit

unicefinnovation.org

= Internet ICT

emergency response

supply chain management

health care coordination

election monitoring

market price reports

community forums

educational programs

weather reports

public surveys

data collection of all kinds

et cetera

so-called dark continent

fiber optic cables

source: xkcd.com

source: xkcd.com

< 1% Source: New York Times, 2007

30% Source: African Telecom News, 2007

Source: African Telecom News, 2007

= Internet ICT

smart phones

not so smart

$$$$$$$$

f r a g m e n t e d

GPRS

GPRS

worth a try

what's left?

SMS

$

supported

ubiquitous

160

160

3 stages

1 scripting

2 content management

3 framework

scripting

granny's apple pie

from scratch

every time

content management

consistent workflow

1 size fits all

framework

heavy lifting

application logic

scripting

skip ahead

content management

web interface

SMS broadcast

structured data collection

form design

delimited fields

sundae choc 23.4 17 N Y 6 brown E

tabular data

voice recording

2008

Columbia School of International and Public Policy

Uganda

hepatitis outbreak

latrine coverage

drinking water quality

food supply tracking

Ethiopia

2 hours of training

printed documentation

~1,000 reports in 3 months

Malawi

malnutrition prevention

less paperwork

no separate data entry

illegible handwriting

instantaneous

instantaneous

winner of the NetSquared/USAID Development 2.0 Mobile Challenge Award

lessons?

lesson #1: send people with the code

(Artist's impression of a vacuum)

can't know unless you go

lesson #2: plan failure modes

adaptive parsing

confirmation messages

resubmission

manual correction via admin interface

lesson #3: build frameworks, not systems

3 deployments

3 divergent code bases!

1 size fits all

1 size fits all

no single work flow

2009

Open Source framework

for building mobile apps

LGPL

Python

pluggable apps

pluggable messaging backends

flexible message routing

integrated with Django

heavy lifting

application logic

new deployments

Nigeria

malaria prevention

63 million bed nets

Kenya

malnutrition monitoring and prevention

RapidAndroid

active development community

rapidsms.org

Dimagi

Entropy Free LLC

4 continents (and counting)

Open Mobile Consortium

votereport.in

core refinement

more lessons learned

built-in apps

more reusable components

JavaRosa forms integration

further community growth

sustainable governance

further deployments

local developers

economic opportunities?

please get involved

rapidsms.org

Schuyler Erle [email_address]

thanks!