Mobile Tactics for Participants in Peaceful Assemblies data sheet 11798 Views
Author:
Ramy Raoof
Abstract:
If you are participating in a peaceful assembly as a journalist, rights defender, or activist, your mobile phone is an invaluable asset to communicate with allies, to document the event, and bear witness to what is happening around you. At the same time, you should take certain precautions in your mobile use and communications.
The following guide can help you to utilize your mobile phone during peaceful assemblies effectively and, at the same time, better protect yourself.
If you are participating in a peaceful assembly as a journalist, rights defender, or activist, your mobile phone is an invaluable asset. It allows you to communicate with allies, to document the event, and bear witness to what is happening around you. At the same time, you should take certain precautions in your mobile use and communications. The following Guide can help you to utilize your mobile phone during peaceful assemblies effectively and, at the same time, better protect yourself.
In most public assemblies, you face risks from:
Loss and seizure of your mobile phone;
Disruptions to service from hardware or network failures;
Surveillance of your communications.
Each of these risks can be mitigated to some extent so long as you plan ahead, know your phone, and the basics of how mobile communications works. Remember though, that every situation is different and that mobile phones are inherently insecure communication devices. We urge you to review this Primer on Mobile Risks for more guidance in assessing your mobile risks.
Targeting women with mobile phones and mobile-based projects can bring great benefits and opportunities, as we outlined in Part 1 of our series on women and mobiles. But, there is a “darker side” to this world, which includes changes in gender relations and power dynamic, a potential increase in violence, substitution of money or a change in expenditures, invasion of privacy, and increased control by a male partner.
Changes in Gender Relations and Power Dynamics
When the traditional social dynamic of a household is patriarchal, introducing a mobile phone into the hands of the woman can challenge the existing gender structure. Trina DasGupta, mWomen Programme Director for the GSMA Development Fund, writes in an e-mail to MobileActive.org, “threats to the status quo have sometimes been viewed negatively by community leaders and we have seen examples of this gender discrimination manifesting itself when women gain greater access to empowering tools, such as the Internet or mobile phones.”
Women themselves may not agree. The GRACE project study in Kenya, for example, finds that women do not perceive mobiles at tools for males. “Unlike our literature review that suggested that the mobile phone is culturally construed as a male tool, the women entrepreneurs did not perceive the phone as such. However, the study does indicate that usage of the phone is culturally construed, with an increase in responsibilities and empowerment for one or other profession socially construed as women’s work.”
A paper by Aramanzan Madanda looks at gender relations and ICT adoption in Uganda (the work will soon be published in book format) and finds that “existing gender structures have been dented and that patriarchy is stressed by adoption of the technologies especially mobile phones leading to transformation of gender relations to an extent.”
Activists, rights defenders, and journalists use mobile devices for reporting, organizing, mobilizing, and documenting. We have written about many of these uses for years now, describing how mobile phones provide countless benefits to activists and rights defenders. Mobile tech is relatively low cost and allows for increased efficiencies and vast reach, for example. But, there is a darker side.
Mobile Phones present specific risks to rights defenders, journalists, and activists. We believe that is is critically important to know that mobile communication is inherently insecure and exposes rights defenders and those working in sensitive environment to risks that are not easy to detect or overcome.
To address mobile safety and security for rights defenders, we are introducing SaferMobile, to help activists, human rights defenders, and journalists assess the mobile communications risks that they are facing, and then use appropriate mitigation techniques to increase their ability to organize, report, and work more safely.
What is SaferMobile?
Online and offline educational and tactical resources (risk evaluation tools, case studies, how-to guides, security tool reviews);
Trainings and curricula for use in various countries and with different constituencies;
Specific mobile security software focused on the needs of rights defenders, activists, and journalists.
As will all that we do, we believe that there certain values and principles that are paramount in this work. For SaferMobile, we are following these principles:
We believe that skilled, trained, and knowledgeable activists, journalists, and rights defenders are key to democratic changes. We also believe that the smart and effective use of technology constitutes an integral piece of their skill set.
The better activists, journalists, and rights defender are able to work, the more safely they are able to organize and communicate, the more likely it is that their work is effective and heard.
We are committed to accessible, useful, actionable, and technically accurate and secure content, materials, and software.
We are also committed to describing technological vulnerabilities in terms that non-technical users can easily understand.
We work with activists on the ground to ensure that the content we produce addresses real uses and risks.
We also seek responsive connections between activists and security professionals so that both are more able to assess and respond to changing risks.
Lastly, we are maintaining information that reflects current security risks and technological vulnerabilities and is vetted for security and technological accuracy by knowledgeable experts.
Roadmap and Process
The SaferMobile project is just beginning its second Phase. Phase 1 included needs assessment with users and peers – activists, rights defenders, journalists, technologists, security experts, and mobile developers. Through this research, we outlined plans for web content, training curriculum and tools (software) and are now creating these pieces in Phase 2 of the project (May-August 2011).
Our approach is iterative and open – we work as a team to develop ideas and welcome review and comments from peers.
Animation without Borders: Mobile Cartoons as a Teaching Tool data sheet 5965 Views
A team of scientists, animators, and educators are working together to create animated videos that can be sent and downloaded to mobile phones around the world. The animations can be done in any language, are targeted toward low-level literate learners, and convey methods to obtain safe water in Haiti or techniques to farm effectively in Africa, and concepts such as value in a marketplace exchange.
This University of Illinois project is called "Scientific Animation Without Borders", or SAWBO, for short. The project started about a year ago. As the team delivers the animations via mobile phone and other mechanisms, they also hope to deliver a more collaborative and bottom-up approach toward effective educational materials.
MobileActive.org spoke with university faculty and graduate students to hear more about animation, education, and mobile technology.
A village in India last year banned unmarried women from using mobile phones for fear they would arrange forbidden marriages. The village council suspected young men and women were secretly calling one another to arrange to elope. Meanwhile, unmarried men could use mobile phones under parental supervision.
As mobile penetration increases across the developing world, the entry of mobile phones in the hands of women causes reactions. In many cases, mobile phone ownership empowers women in myriad ways: economic gains, increased access to information, greater autonomy and social empowerment, and a greater sense of security and safety.
But, there is a darker side. Targeting women with mobile phones can cause changes in gender dynamics and family expenditures and may relate to increases in domestic violence, invasion of privacy, or control by a male partner.
Mobile Security Risks: A Primer for Activists, Journalists and Rights Defenders data sheet 28764 Views
Author:
SaferMobile
Abstract:
A primer on mobile security risks for activists, rights defenders, and journalists. includes tips on how to protect yourself.
Activists, rights defenders, and journalists use mobile devices and communications for reporting, organizing, mobilizing, and documenting. Mobiles provide countless benefits -- relatively low cost, increased efficiencies, vast reach -- but they also present specific risks to rights defenders and activists.
Additionally, information about other mobile uses, such as your photos or video, your data, the Internet sites you visit from your phone, and your physical location, are stored on your device and often logged by your mobile network. (The above graphic shows a schematic overview of the layers of the mobile networks to give you sense of the different elements that make up communications between two phones.)How much is this putting you at risk? This Overview will help you evaluate your level of risk in regard to your mobile communications.
Apple’s release of version 4.3.3 of its iOS operating system “..kills iPhone tracking”, according to a recent article. After nearly three weeks of public attention on this issue, this news will perhaps appease some iPhone fans but is not likely to end the debate over what users should know and control about their smartphones’ location tracking abilities. Like Apple, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone systems have also recently come under fire, though important differences exist in the way each company collects and uses location-based information.
We have reviewed recent articles and research on each of these mobile operating systems’ location tracking capabilities and will describe the various claims made and the research undertaken to test these claims.
Demand Dignity: Amplifying Voices Across Multiple Platforms data sheet 4167 Views
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to amplify the voices of poor people around the world. Demand Dignity is an economic, cultural, and social rights campaign for the organization and the online platform, DemandDignity.org, was launched in May 2009. Since then, the site has collected 57,384 comments, or “voices,” from people around the world, via SMS, Twitter, and on the Demand Dignity website.
The campaign attempts to give a voice to people who are living in poverty or who have had their human rights violated, said Sarah Pyke, communications coordinator of the campaign. It enables people to be able to access their rights, hold their governments to account, and to be able to make their voices heard. These aims led to the creation of the DemandDignity.org platform, an interactive website where people can submit audio, video, or text reports and answer prompted questions such as What does living in dignity mean to you?
One response to this question, from Kenya, was, "living somewhere comfortably in terms of shelter, good health care and having sustainable education."
MobileActive.org spoke with Pyke and with Shehzaad Shams, Project Coordinator for onnline communities and e-activism, to hear more about the platform and how it leverages mobile tech.
How It Works
Shams and Pyke said that Amnesty International wanted to make use of the latest technologies in terms of social media, specifically in how technology could be used to amplify voices. The DemandDignity.org platform itself is available in four languages -- English, Arabic, French and Spanish -- and “voices” can be submitted in any language.
In today's Mobile Minute, we look at CGAP's coverage on branchless banking and micro-insurance, report on Nielsen and mobile privacy concerns, look at how the New York Times investigates Google's mobile approach and how smartphones are collecting data about cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots. Lastly, a meetup for those interested in mHealth and ICT4D.
Interested in how branchless banking and micro-insurance can work together? GCAP has a roundup of three different organizations (from Ghana, the Philippines, and Kenya) that have paired mobile banking and micro-insurance in order to reach the unbanked and uninsured.
NOTE: This article was updated with an addendum and additional data.
Inspired by Michael Benedict's original blog post on monitoring SMS delivery reliability in Tanzania and recent reports of SMS keyword blocking in Uganda, MobileActive.org set out to replicate Michael's work - and add to it. SMS is such a crucial part of many mobile projects and just day-to-day life across the developing world, yet there’s a lack of public knowledge of mobile network operator interdependency, latency, and reliability (how mobile network operators work together to transmit SMS, the lag time between sending and receiving a message, and the guarantee that a message will reach its recipient).
Michael's post got us thinking: Can this type of experiment be replicated without extra hardware required (GPRS modems, etc.)? After a few quick brainstorming sessions at the OpenMobile Lab in New York, we created an alpha version of a mobile application that recreates a number of latency tests. It’s far from perfect - and there is still plenty of work to be done - but we’re confident that this project will lead us to extremely valuable data about the transparency and reliability of SMS on mobile networks.
SMSTester - The App
SMSTester is a simple Android app that allows a user create a set of keywords to be sent as SMS messages. This allows the user to explore differences in latency for any type of message - from basic, everyday text like ‘milk’ or ‘newspaper’ to politically inflammatory text such as ‘revolution.’ We then set up a logging mechanism to timestamp and record each SMS as it is sent (from the sender side) or received (on the receipt side). By comparing the sent and received timestamps, we’re very easily able to calculate message latency from one SIM to another.
Initial Deployment
We deployed SMSTester in a test in Egypt a few weeks ago. As this was the initial trial for a fully untested application, we were careful. While we did run our tests across a number of local mobile operator networks, we kept the test volume small enough to keep us under the radar (for now!). Our test methodology included:
Testing across all three major mobile operator networks in Egypt: Etisalat, Mobinil, and Vodafone
Consistent keyword test bed containing both ‘safe’ and ‘political’ terms, where ‘safe’ refers to everyday vocabulary and ‘political’ refers to politically sensitive words
Language coverage across both English and Arabic
Roughly 270 messages successfully sent, received and analyzed
What We Looked For And Why
The main focus of our analysis was SMS delivery latency, delay, or more generally, delivery failures. There are plenty of anecdotal stories of seemingly random delays lasting multiple hours or even days in many countries where we work. While network congestion and growing infrastructure are often to blame for SMS unreliability, there are also legitimate concern that delays may be an indication of deliberate message filtering and monitoring. What has emerged is an environment in which activists and human rights defenders are unable to clearly understand what networks - and what behavior - is safe or hazardous for themselves or their contacts. The end goal of this research, put simply, is to change this paradigm. Rumors of keyword filtering are not helpful; what is helpful is any evidence of surveillance.
This small experiment is just a start, of course. Our hypothesis is that keyword filtering and other malicious behavior on the part of mobile network operators may manifest in the form of increased message latency or overt message blockage. If we could detect any sign of a correlation between message content and delivery with just some initial testing in-country, this would be a great first step towards our overall goal. However it’s very important to note that while message latency or failure may be indicative of bad behavior on the part of the carries, it could be due to any number of contributing factors and is by no means an implication of foul play. For now we’re merely hypothesizing.
Results
Despite the minor bugs discovered, we gathered very valuable information about message latency in Egypt during this trial. The most valuable data was on the Etisalat network (also known as the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation), based in the UAE. The majority of the data we recovered from this trial was between an Etisalat SIM and other Egyptian networks. (Note: This was the result of inadvertent data loss for other test scenarios and we did not specifically target Etisalat).
Main Conclusions
Big Caveat (READ THIS!):Given the small sample size of this test, it should be noted that none of these conclusions are definitive. In fact, the very nature of such a small sample size warrants much further investigation.
(1) Delivery between Etisalat & Mobinil networks warrants further investigation. As shown below, the delivery time for English language text messages from Etisalat to Mobinil is significantly greater than delivery time to any other network, for both English and Arabic texts. This may be due to any number of network delays, and it may also be indicative of English language filtering by one or both of the mobile network operators.
(2) Delivery time of politically sensitive English messages on Etisalat warrants further investigation. The chart below shows that politically sensitive English messages sent across the Etisalat network were delivered with significantly more latency than others, with the possible exception of politically sensitive Arabic messages. In addition, each of the three messages that were delivered out of order fell into this category. Similar to the above conclusion, this may be indicative of specific filtering on behalf of Etisalat.
We are looking for a rock star Summer design intern (April-September) to come to our office in New York for three days or more per week. You will be tasked with developing creative and designing collateral for innovative mobile projects for social change around the world, including presentations, screen casts, print materials, and online graphics. You will have an opportunity to put a significant 'stamp' on our projects and build your portfolio.
To be considered, you will be extraordinarily creative, design cleanly and persuasively, are comfortable in most media forms, and have deep knowledge of all industry standard design applications. A passion for social change a must, as is being technology-savvy. Experienced in data visualization/infographics, motion and/or interactive graphics, publishing to web, and to print. UX and UI experience a strong plus.
Bonus points if you have traveled widely and understand cultures and realities of other countries. If you have previously designed training and educational materials (from comics to how-to guides) you will be especially considered.
To apply, please send your resume, availability (daily/weekly schedule), portfolio samples (or a link to your portfolio), and the reason why we should choose you to work with us to contact@mobileactive.org.
Apply by 4/20/2011.
Internship involves a small stipend, and we will help you with earning school credit if needed. No phone calls please.
Image via Vectorstock.com (until we have you, our new designer!)
Please join us on Friday, April 1 in NYC! To celebrate April Fools Day and to highlight mobile phone & digital network insecurities, the Guardian Project and MobileActive.org are hosting "Don't be Fooled", part of the new SaferMobile initiative. This hackday will showcase mobile tools to enhance security, profile GP's open-source tools and feature a room for face-to-face conversations about mobile security.
Do to the intimate size of the venue, we are caping RSVPs at 30: 20 "developers / hackers" who want to learn about developing secure mobile phone services and 10 practitioners who want to root their phones / learn about mobile security. Please put your name here!
Location: Open Mobile Lab, 127 W 27 St, Suite 702, NYC Time: Friday, 1 April 2011 from 9:30 till 5:00. Beer O'Clock from 5:00 till 7:00. Hashtag: #safermobile
The Guardian Project (@guardianproject) aims to create easy to use apps, open-source firmware MODs, and customized, commercial mobile phones that can be used and deployed around the world, by any person looking to protect their communications and personal data from unjust intrusion and monitoring.
MobileActive.org (@MobileActive) connects people, organizations, and resources using mobile technology for social change. Our global network of practitioners and technologists are working
SMSall is a service in Pakistan that enables mailing-list style interaction over SMS. It serves over 2.1 million people, and an average of 300 million SMS messages are sent every month (follow the total SMS count on the website). It is Pakistan’s largest SMS social network.
The founder of the service, Umar Saif, refers to it as “Twitter for SMS,” or as “Twitter for the 4 billion,” referring to the 4 billion people in the world who have access to mobile phones but not the Internet.
SMSall formed in response to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan. Like most Pakistani’s, Saif said, he tried to help during the aftermath but realized that although there were many rescue workers, there was no way to coordinate activities. “You would travel to a remote region with medicine, only to realize that there is plenty of medicine and all they needed were tents and warm clothing,' he said.
So Saif took action. On his laptop, he hacked together a basic response service, connected a mobile phone, and set up a broadcast group for all the rescue workers in the area. Those who subscribed to the “rescue group” would then receive SMS messages and information from the entire group.
From this grew the current-day SMSall service, the largest SMS social network in Pakistan. MobileActive.org spoke with Saif to hear more about the growth and next steps for the SMS service.
How does it work?
With the Kashmir earthquake, people could send an SMS to the service and ask to subscribe to the rescue group. Subsequently, they would receive SMS messages from everyone who posted to the rescue channel. This way, rescuers could keep in contact, in real-time, with only a basic mobile phone.
Now, SMSall users can create a group, join a group, follow a group, and broadcast to a group. The service has been used to spur blood donations, to communicate emergency responses, and to mobilize citizens in political protests. The service is used both by NGOs and more informally by people to keep in touch with friends and build communities around common interests.
SMSall became a popular platform for communication during media bans at the end of Musharraf’s rule. Political activists and members of civil society used SMSall to coordinate protests and activities. “One of the biggest groups on SMSall was run by an NGO setup by families of “missing persons” -- people who disappeared without trace during the political upheaval that gripped Pakistan in 2007 and 2008,” Saif said.
When a disaster or breaking news event occurs, specific groups form almost organically. An SMSall user will first notify an established group of friends and family, and from these many simultaneous chats, specific disaster or emergency groups are often formed, Saif said. The service resembles Twitter in that messages are being “pushed” out and viewed by any number of followers. Currently, there are over over 150,000 established groups on SMSall in Pakistan.
During the early days of SMSall, it was used to coordinate class quizzes and exams and communicate course schedules at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Saif worked with several students to tweak the system and used it in a course he taught. Other professors followed his lead, students started using it, and “before we knew it, the system went viral, very quickly,” Saif said. SMSall is currently used by over 180 colleges and universities in Pakistan. And from this grew the “SMS mailing list” in Pakistan.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on Cameroon's ban on mobile Twitter access, NielsenWire's new smartphone statistics, a $650 million loan to Etisalat Nigeria to grow its mobile network coverage, the possible expansion of BlackBerry Messenger to non-RIM operating systems, and an investment in the company that makes the Angry Birds mobile app. (Disclosure: We are partial to Angry Birds)
This is a guest post by our colleague Michael Benedict who is currently working in Tanzania and Uganda. It was originally posted on his blog and is published here with permission.
While working with SMS-based applications I’ve noticed an air of mystery around the issue of reliability. I hear colleagues say ambiguous things like “carriers consider SMS to be lower priority than voice”, or “SMS delivery isn’t guaranteed”. My personal experience has been that messages are almost always delivered quickly and correctly, but I’ve heard stories of hours-long delays, corruption of data, and occasionally messages that never arrive. Since I am working on two projects that depend on reliable SMS service — one involves field-based data collection and another employs SMS as a transport layer between computers — I am interested in learning about how factors such as network, location, and time of day impact message transmission. I found myself in Mwanza, Tanzania last week with two GPRS modems and a local partner who was distinctly unenthusiastic about the work I was there to do, so I decided to try an experiment. I bought SIM cards and airtime for three of the major TZ networks, put two at a time in the models, and wrote a simple python script using Adam Mckaig’s excellent pygsm
Today's Mobile Minute features mobile app revenue, context around ICTs and revolutions in the Middle East, an infographic of the top mobile operating systems around the world, new funds for telecommunications in Iraq, and malware in the Android app store.
A new report from Forrester Research estimates that revenue from mobile apps will reach $38 billion by 2015. The New York Times looks at the data from the report and examines what it means for the future growth of the app market.
2-3 March, Mobile Banking Southern Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa) This conference focuses on the potential of mobile banking for Southern Africa. Panelists will lead discussions on everything from mobile banking security to exploring ways to bring m-payments to the unbanked. If you want to learn more about how mobile banking is affecting Southern Africa, this is the event for you. 7-9 March, AnDevCon (San Francisco, USA) If you're interested in building and monetizing Android apps, check out AnDevCon for workshops, classes and presentations about ways to build for the Android OS.
This guest post was written by Nithya Sambasivan, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. A link to the complete paper (PDF) is here.
I spent a total of three months last summer conducting an ethnographically-inspired study of urban sex workers (USWs), where we designed, implemented and evaluated a phone-based broadcasting system for urban sex workers. I "hung out" at the solicitation locations and the drop-in shelters of Pragati, called Swati Manne. These Swati Mannes were not only places to rest for the USWs, with beds and TVs, but they also included a medical clinic and a payment area for MFI loans. The internship project was with Microsoft Research India. None of the interviews were audio-recorded. Only hand-written notes were taken.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on how the Egyptian government shut down the country's Internet and mobile services, work-arounds for communicating during a government-ordered Internet blackout, problems with keeping customers engaged in mobile banking and payment services, Android's new place as the top-selling mobile operating system in the world, and a prediction for huge increases in mobile data traffic by 2015.
In the aftermath of the Egyptian telecommunications blackout, ArsTechnica looked at both how the Egyptian government managed to limit the country's communications so effectively (mainly through ordering major ISPs and Telcos to shut off service) and if a government-mandated Internet/mobile lockdown could be recreated in other countries. In related news, Wired.com has created a wiki on how to communicate if the government limits/shuts down Internet access.
Vodafone announced that the Egyptian government invoked emergency powers and forced it and the other telcom providers in Egypt to send pro-government text messages to Egyptian subscribers. In a press release, Vodafone claims that the messages were not scripted by Vodafone, and that although they protested the government's involvement, they "do not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content." Since then, a much-nedeed debate has begun on the responsibility of telcoms to resist this interference.
February is here and it's a big month for mobile technology and social development events! Read on for a roundup of what's happening this month, and please feel free to add your own events in the comments.
7-11 February, Social Media Week (worldwide) Nokia is sponsoring Social Media Week, a worldwide series of events that focuses on technology and social media. While not all the events are mobile-related, check out the website for details about events in New York City, San Francisco, Rome, Paris, Toronto, Sao Paulo, London, Hong Kong and Istanbul.
10 February, Open UN - Engagement in the Age of Real-Time(New York City) Global Pulse is participating in Social Media Week, hosting a series of panels and presentations. This event focuses on using innovative technology during crises, creating open governments, and using technology to gather and disseminate real-time information.
It's a new year, and the Mobile Minute is back to bring you the latest. We've got coverage on doctors using mobile money for bus fares for fistula patient, Britain's minister of civil society questioning Apple's no-donation apps policy, the BBC's coverage on how hackers can eavesdrop on GSM calls, the California Supreme Court's ruling that police can search the cell phones of arrested people without a warrant, and CGAP's look at current, non-mobile money transfer systems in Haiti.
Happy New Year from MobileActive.org! In 2010 we saw mobiles go mainstream as non-tech organizations the world over learned about the power of reaching users right through their phones.
From SMS donations in the wake of disasters to mobile health care, from mobile money transfers to mobile organizing, this has been a time of enormous innovation. Read on for a few of the highlights of 2010 and some thoughts on what's to come in 2011. Mobiles in the Wake of Disaster
There are plenty of events happening this December to keep you up to date on all your mobile needs. Developer looking for a project? Researcher wanting to meet others in your field? No problem, there are plenty of mobile events for everyone!
MobileActive.org Event:
9 December, Tech Salon: Mobiles + Art + Activism(New York City, U.S.A.) For our last tech salon of the year, we'll be hosting an event that brings together art, mobiles and activism. Featuring artists and activists who use mobile phones in innovative and creative ways, our December tech salon will have installations and discussions with the artists (and, as always, food, wine, and great conversations). Sign up here!
Mobile applications gets a lot of attention today. The market is growing every day. Cellular-News recently reported that this quarter’s worldwide smartphone sales increased 96% compared to a similar period last year, and that smartphones now account for nearly 20 percent of worldwide phone sales. Apps are admittedly a great way to reach out to new audiences.
But for non-profits, developing mobile apps can be a tricky undertaking. There’s a lot of hype around apps, and it’s hard to know how to approach the smartphone market. Planning for a mobile app that fits into a non-profit’s mobile communications strategy can make the difference between a great app and an app that doesn’t meet expectations. For non-profits wanting to develop apps, it’s important to make sure that they are meeting a real need – both for the organization and for users. Before launching an app, there are four questions non-profits should ask themselves:
Now, SMSall users can create a group, join a group, follow a group, and broadcast to a group. The service has been used to spur blood donations, to communicate emergency responses, and to mobilize citizens in political protests. The service is used both by NGOs and more informally by people to keep in touch with friends and build communities around common interests. 
