Ken Banks
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Connecting People, Improving Lives: The Global Launch of FrontlineSMS Version 2.0
Here is the latest FrontlineSMS newsletter, updating our community on recent activities and upcoming events. Read More »
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Early Bird Registration Now Open For ICT4D Conference
Registration is open for the Game Changers Summit, a technology conference designed to help churches, universities and organizations connect their global mission agendas with technology solutions for the developing world. Read More »
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FrontlineSMS V2.0: A Powerful Tool for Achieving Positive Social Change and Health Improvement in Developing Countries
Good news from the software sector: FrontlineSMS Version 2 is here at last! Two years in the making, the updated version is simpler, more intuitive, and easier to utilize. It also adapts more easily to individual needs and systems, and has already met an enthusiastic response from the SMS community. And with all it has to offer, the new software should prove a valuable contribution in the effort to achieve positive social change in developing countries around the world. Read More »
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FrontlineSMS, Human Usability, and the Missing Middle Mile
FrontlineSMS started in 2005 with what seemed like a simple, clear ambition: make a tool that makes it easy for offline communities to communicate. The goal wasn’t innovation or profit, it was simply to get a useful tool into the hands of as many people as possible...Looking back, it feels naive to think that it could ever be simple—that delivering usable, open source, multi-channel tools that drive measurable, positive outcomes through text messaging could have ever felt inevitable. Nine years and many iterations (and tens of thousands of users) later, though, we’re more successful than ever—and mostly for unexpected reasons...
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How Technology Democratised Development
Over the coming weeks, A Matter of Life and Tech will feature a range of voices from people helping to build Africa’s tech future. This week, mobile innovator Ken Banks argues that technology has become a vital tool in the fight against poverty. Read More »
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Kathryn Cave (Kenya) Interview: Laura Walker Hudson CEO, Foundation At FrontlineSMS – The Power Of Text
The Text message is the most basic form of technological communication, possible on even the oldest mobile phone. This makes it open to virtually anyone, anywhere in the world. FrontlineSMS is the Open Source software which enables users to turn any laptop into a hub for sending, receiving and managing SMS over a mobile network. Read More »
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Ken Banks and FrontlineSMS: How 'Reluctant Innovators' Offer Hope to the World
Ken Banks might, in some respects, be described as a reluctant innovator. In 2005, he created FrontlineSMS, a simple piece of software that enables a cheap laptop to use a mobile phone to send, receive and collate group text messages, effectively creating a communication network. It’s an idea that has helped many NGOs connect with isolated populations.
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Ken Banks Receives ACM Award for FrontlineSMS Work
Ken Banks, recipient of the Eugene L. Lawier Award for developing Frontline SMS, using mobile technology and text messaging to empower people to share information, organize aid, and reconnect communities during crises. A self-descrived "moble anthropologist," Banks has a gift for building technology that benefits humanity. As someone who was writing code and tinkering with computers since he was 13, Banks instinctively saw an opportunity to harness the world's most-used communications platform--mobile messaging--to help people in the developing world. In 2005, he designed, coded and launched FrontlineSMS, a mobile messaging platform that allows people to subscribe to groups, receive alerts, and establish communication hubs.
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Long May the SMS Reign
THE greatest communication mechanism in the world is arguably still SMS - the short message service sent over cellphones.
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Making the Most of the Possibilities: Design to Engage and Inspire
I’m going to be honest: when I first joined FrontlineSMS I had no idea how much goes into the design of software. Every screen, every button and every function has principled thought behind it. In 2011, we worked alongside Gabriel White, a User Experience Designer from Small Surfaces, to help translate FrontlineSMS users’ needs into the new design of Version 2. Read More »
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Spotlight On: Ken Banks
It has been a great pleasure to have Ken Banks as April's Fellow of the Month. Ken is a true super-star in the social enterprise scene, using his vast experience with mobile technology to create new projects, consult companies and mentor the next generation of Social Entrepreneurs. Read More »
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Tech & The Cheetah
Some regions of Kenya have better cell phone reception than the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. This is no exaggeration. One can easily make a call or text from the Maasai Mara National Reserve. It’s changed the country’s economy, society in both rural and urban areas, and launched millions of voices onto Twitter and Facebook. Read More »
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Uganda Speaks: Technology and the Right to Reply
The developing world often gets poor representation in the western media. From well-meaning but simplistic representations by charities and advocates to enduring stereotypes of dark continents and poverty, developing countries are frequently denied the right to be seen as the complex, varied and human places they are. Read More »
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Using Innovation And Technology To Stimulate Your Local Economy
A pre-G8 day of dialogue is inviting social entrepreneurs to share ideas on addressing global challenges Read More »
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