Frontline SMS: Medic

Frontline SMS has just launched FrontlineSMS:Medic — a team committed to supporting community health workers (CHWs) in the developing world using appropriate mobile technology.

http://medic.frontlinesms.com/

great social media overview here!

A friend of mine sent me this great link to a blog post by Steve Kayser.  It goes through several kinds of social media and possible uses, as well as examples of different large corporations and how they are using social media…. These could be some great examples for us to experiment with. Take a few minutes to check it out if you have time!

http://www.writingriffs.com/2009/02/10/the-end-of-marketing-and-pr/

An overview of social media – day 1 at SM4SC

An overview of Social Media was the main topic at for Day 1 of the Social Media for Social Change workshop.

Why the heck should you care about social media?

The title is a bit nicer version of the hilarious presentation by Martha Z.  Kagan, see here.  Anyhow, both versions asks the same questions: does social media (or mobile technology) have any relevance (to Plan’s work) or are they only fancy buzz words?  Based on presentations and discussions in the Social Media for Social Change Workshop, the quick answer would be yes – and yes.

Whether we are talking about blogs, wikis, SMS or youtube, they are all powerfull tools for telling everyone that you like your pets. But also that there are human rights violations happening in your country. Thus, as Hannah Beardon writes in the soon-to-be-published Mobile for Development: how mobile technologies can enhance Plan’s work in Africa:  …it is the information and communication, not the technology, which is at the heart of social change”.

Still, it’s ok to get excited about all the potential and possibilities of new technology. At their best, they can radically amplify the messages, information and communication between the “North” and the “South”, between rights-holders and duty-bearers, the state and the citizens, the communities and individuals – just to name a few.

Because I’m impressed by the incredible documentary called “Burma VJ – Reporting from a close country”, I’m quoting here what hand-held cameras and internet connections can do even in the most totalitarian country:

The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) consists of a group of about 30 Burmese reporters who secretly film the abuses in their country. The footage is then smuggled across the border and broadcast via satellite from the headquarters in Oslo. These are the images that could be seen across the globe when a revolution was about to erupt in the late summer of 2007. Led by Buddhist monks, more than 100,000 people took to the streets to march peacefully against the military dictatorship that has held the country in an iron grip for 40 years now. Burma VJ is almost exclusively compiled from footage shot by DVB reporters. One of them from his hiding place in Thailand,  uses the telephone or Internet to stay in touch with colleagues who report on the uprising: shaky hand-held images of emergency deliberations by protesters, of the dispersion of the crowd, of monks and civilians getting knocked down. Their cameras hidden in bags or clenched under their armpits, the DVB reporters risk their lives and take the viewer right into the heat of the turmoil.
(quote from here)

This probably an extreme case of using lastest technology for human rights and development, but therefore also shows the potential of ICT (whether in the form of social media, mobile technology or any other service/equipment) in in the most difficult circumstances.

Do you agree or disagree? What do you think?  Please feel welcome to comment this post!

Reporting from the Social Media for Social Change Workshop

 

Hello all! This is a blog called “global pICTure” and it is dedicated for sharing ideas, examples, thoughts and comments on social media, mobile technology and ICT for Development from Plan’s perspective. As you can see, there are already some posts from the MobileActive08  (esp. from Matthias Wevelsiep, the founder of this blog) and now we’ll continue with sharing the most interesting highlights of the Social Media for Social Change Workshop that took place in Nairobi, Kenya 8-12 December. 

The idea is that every week by Monday there will be a new post of one the main themes that were presented and discussed during the workshop (e.g. landscape/overview; mobiles, mapping, advocacy; citizen media and blogging/twitter/etc.; how young people use social media; modernizing plan/modernizing sponsorship.)

You are very welcome to comment any of the posts, discuss and fill in your views. So, instead of posting one big report to the participants, let’s do this in a participatory and interactive way. The comments you post will then influence the next blog report we (Linda Raftree and Mika Välitalo) write.

Data Gathering in MobileActive08

Yesteday I volunteered to do mobile surveys using the application from Mobile Researcher. The whole experience was very positive  as the survey application was easy to use, intuitive and well designed (not to mention all the interesting people I met while conducting the survey).

In addition to Mobile Researcher there are actually a wide variety of data gathering software show cased in the conference. RapidSMS, FrontlineSMS, OpenROSA, Nokia Data Gathering Software to name of few. Check out also SMS Reception Center. Freeware, open source, propietary, SMS based, 3G, for all devices, for high end devices… Just pick your choice depending on your needs, capacity and resources.   

During several workshops there has been interesting discussions on how to actually use the acquired data/information/results in development and research projects. One the topics has been advocacy where e.g. visualisation of data (see e.g. Ushahidi or Hans Rosling in TED.com) can be very useful.

HIV / AIDS messaging, privacy and social impact

There is lots of excitement about HIV / AIDS related messaging during MobileActive08, especially from South Africa. Great prevention and support work has been started, but as SMS messages go out, researcher found also unexpected effects. When SMS arrive late at night it migth cause suspicion with partners, husbands and wives. Language use and culturally sensitive translation is causing concern as messages contain sensitive content on doctor’s appointment and safer sex. 
Some recipients complain about messages simply being boring. However, many others do recognize that these messages are helpful and appropriate. As with the field as a whole, the discussion on monitoring and evaluation, effect, outcome and impact assessment has only started. So this anecdotal evidence can not yet be supported by medium-term success demonstration or even hard evidence.

Realtime conference survey

Well, no surprise that at MobileActive mobile phones are used to survey participants to improve communication and documentation. The team around http://www.mobileresearcher.com/ has done a great job, presenting the results in the second day of the conference and asking the audience for additonal questions. It improves the documentation of the conference and creates a rich information base for participants and “remote participants” to follow up on. Mika has the chance to “test drive” mobile researcher as an interviewer and will follow up in this blog on the usability and usefulness.

Will the “Mobile Web” be a reality in Africa?

In one session we discussed long on the issue of Mobile Internet. But what exactly do we mean? In the medium term, the question is about access to information via any device. The border of so-called Mobile Internet to access to the Internet through mobile devices, and further differentiated by browser access and widgets. Some people say that any kind of database access is considered “web access”, so then even SMS access qualifies. While it is important to be precise, future projects will probably be based on a variety of access points (and user might not know anymore when they use mobile network, WLAN, LAN etc.

Impressive pilots and the need to combine efforts

After the first plenary, it becomes more clearer what are the main challenges of the field of mobile phones for social change (which has a cross section of ICT, development and business people interested in it).

Sustainability
Many pilots come up with interesting findings; however, they often go along with high upfront investment, which in replication often raises questions about sustainability.

Costs in general
With mobile operators often having a powerful position within their markets, many participants felt that the costs of having and using a mobile phone is an issue. Also note the different between cost of SMS and costs of GPRS connection in Africa, with GPRS getting cheaper and likely effecting the use of mobile phones.

Open source versus software / service business model
For many specific projects you find approaches using open source and others using software / service as business model. While the business option has its own set of advantages (for example further product development and potentially high quality of service, usability), it comes with a costs and some participant voiced concern on this.

Collaboration
In summary, many pilots demonstrate great ideas, good models, and some progress. However, the field remains scattered and would need collaboration to be able to show as a group of people (together with their organizations) the usefulness of mobile phones for social change.