SMS

See the following -

Low tech adaptations for a community communications System

Helena Puig Larrauri | FrontlineSMS | November 23, 2012

FrontlineSMS was recently featured on the ‘Lets Them Talk‘ blog. In the post, Helena Puig Larrauri (@helenapuigl) highlights how the SUDIA community are using technology to bridge the information gap for communities living along the Blue Nile in Sudan. They are using FrontlineSMS to disseminate information about livelihoods and sustainability directly to communities. Read More »

Making the Most of the Possibilities: Design to Engage and Inspire

Amy O’Donnell | FrontlineSMS | August 2, 2012

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 »

Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH) Suite

Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH) Suite is an open source enterprise software package designed by the Grameen Foundation to connect popular mHealth technologies to strengthen healthcare systems by streamlining patient data collection and improving patient engagement. MOTECH has the capacity to reach illiterate patient populations as well as patient populations in rural areas and works by connecting frontline worker systems such as CommCareHQ, eHealth systems such as OpenMRS and DHIS2, and communication systems such as IVR, SMS, and email to improve healthcare delivery. The MOTECH platform is designed to work effectively in low-resource settings, apply to a broad range of health domains, and meet the needs of large patient populations.

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MOTECH: How An Open Source SMS Medical Platform Is Improving Patient Engagement and Reaching Underserved Populations in Developing Nations

Implementation of the MOTECH Suite is spreading rapidly among government health services and humanitarian organizations that address the health of potentially vulnerable or at-risk populations across the globe. As an open source solution, MOTECH affords a number of advantages for health services, particularly in low resource areas of the world. Organizations or individuals who work with software solutions to healthcare-related humanitarian issues will need to know what MOTECH is, how it works, and how it might be used to improve the health of various populations...

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News Participation Starts At ‘Home’

Trevor Knoblich | FrontlineSMS | November 16, 2012

Seemingly every major news event worldwide is heightening participation in news. People are eager to share updates and photos of an unfolding news event, ask questions of media outlets, and share important information. But there are two important aspects to this type of participation [...]. In other words, people write about their immediate world using their ‘home’ or go-to platform. Read More »

OKFest in Finland to Study Benefits of Open Knowledge and Open Development

The Open Knowledge Festival (OKFest) happens this September 17-22 in Helsinki, Finland with the theme Open Knowledge in Action. OKFest will explore the benefits of opening up knowledge and information, look at the ecosystems of organisations that can benefit from openness, and discuss the impact that more transparency can have in our societies. OKFest will run 13 key Topic Streams, one of which will focus on the topic of ‘Open Development’.

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Planning and Assessment of Mobile Phone Use: Effective SMS in Cambodia from World Vision UK

Joshua Pepall | FrontlineSMS | July 19, 2012

Assessing whether to use SMS is even more important than figuring out how to do it, as Joshua Pepall, World Vision’s United Kingdom Senior Accountability Advisor in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, reports in a special guest blog post. Read More »

Smartphones, Apps, Students Hackers and Startups Making Revolutionary Technology to Help the Poor at Low Cost

Brian Wang | Nextbigfuture | February 21, 2011

Technology Review - Last year College Senior Njenga and three classmates developed a program that will let thousands of Kenyan health workers use mobile phones to report and track the spread of diseases in real time—and they'd done it for a tiny fraction of what the government had been on the verge of paying for such an application. Read More »

SMS System Reduces Disease Spread

Thabani Dube | The Zimbabwean | February 20, 2013

The Weekly Diseases Surveillance Programme designed to minimise the spread of disease outbreaks has improved since the adoption of a new system. The programme is now using the Frontline SMS Disease Surveillance System, that makes use of mobile telephony to send information through short messages. Read More »

SMS to Map – Using FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi to Tell Your Story

Patrick Munyi | iHub | February 11, 2012

Want to know more about using mobiles for social change, crowd sourced mapping, and how the two can combine? Keen to learn more about FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi, and how these software tools can be used together to enable positive social change?

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Social Change And New Media In Africa

Cathal Gilbert | International Business Times | November 2, 2012

Cathal Gilbert looks at technologies being used by activists and discovers that many of most innovative ideas have come out of Africa. Read More »

Systematic Review Shows Text Messaging May Help Prevent Disease in Developing Countries

Carole Déglise, L. Suzanne Suggs, Peter Odermatt | iMedicalApps | February 6, 2012

There has been an unprecedented growth in the number of mobile phones being used in the developing world over the past decade.  As a result, millions of people are now connected in ways they have never been before.  This brings new opportunities for disease prevention efforts, through means such as short message service (SMS), also known as texting. Read More »

Take Back Your Log-In: It’s Time To Move Away From Facebook Connect And Toward OpenID

Paul Fremantle | GIGAOM | September 20, 2014

It might seem easier to outsource your website’s log-in to Facebook. But do you really want to hand over all your user data to another company?...

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Tech & The Cheetah

Marcy Mendelson | National Geographic | November 26, 2013

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 »

Text Messages To Help Centuries-Old Choco Mining Tradition

Jim Glade | FrontlineSMS | June 2, 2011

Artisanal mining traditions and culture dating back to when the Spanish first brought African slaves to mine the region known today as Choco, are being reintroduced into the 21st century marketplace with the help of a text message. Read More »