FrontlineSMS: Mass Communication Where the Internet Ends

From human trafficking to organising scarce medical resources to mapping government shortfalls of essential drugs in Africa, FrontlineSMS is enabling activists, aid workers and NGOs to communicate effectively en masse. And all it takes is a computer, a mobile phone and a sliver of network presence.

St Gabriel is a rural hospital some 60km west of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The medical facility is based in a rural area and cares for about a quarter of a million people.

Needless to say resources are precious at St Gabriel and the more astutely they are managed, the greater the benefit the hospital can deliver to the community. The hero in this story is a very basic piece of technology, but one that works wonders for anything from clinics to activists based in far flung places struggling to communicate with large groups of people.

Called FrontlineSMS all the system needs to operate as an effective communicator is a computer, a mobile phone and the text message-based software. The boon of this system is that it works where the Internet cannot reach and is a major benefit to marginalised NGOs and other rural organisations. “At St Gabriel the software is used to coordinate community healthcare workers running over a huge area to check if people are going to be available, when they are due to take their medication, and to mobilise communities when the mobile clinic is on its way,” says Ken Banks of Kiwanja who invented FrontlineSMS.