FrontlineSMS and Technological Responsibility

FrontlineSMS team members Amy O’Donnell and Flo Scialom are currently helping moderate TechChange’s online learning course on Mobiles for International Development (m4d). In addition, FrontlineSMS’s Sean McDonald will be a guest speaker on this course in the coming weeks. Our involvement in the course is providing us with a great opportunity to engage with a new group of people who are either working in, or are strongly interested in the m4d sector. The 40 course participants are based over 15 countries and have a rich variety of experience, so there is an exciting range of perspectives to be shared. Whilst helping with this TechChange course it seems like ideal timing to share the below TechChange post on a FrontlineSMS training course held earlier this year.....

In early 2011 TechChange organized a training with FrontlineSMS that not only taught people how to use the software, but forced them to confront the issue of priorities. Against our tendency to think of ways to use the technology to benefit ourselves, we designed our own projects that used FrontlineSMS to enable social change. There was a spark of awareness that lying dormant in our creativity and innovative thinking is the capacity to use technology in a more responsible way.