A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact.
On Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to attend the first ever "Failfaire", organized by MobileActive.org where several brave souls agreed to present their failed "Information Technology for Development" projects, explaining why they failed and what they learned from them.
I work on knowledge management in UNICEF, and have a strong interest in improving how we learn from our experience. This event (which was certainly not a failure!) was interesting to our work from at least two points of view:
1. The lessons learned from the projects themselves
2. The idea for the event itself and whether this might be something we could try ourselves.
There were four presentations during the meeting:
Bradford Frost presented on Mobileimpact.org a project to recycle old cellphones and donate them to Africa.
Ths manual give an overview for how to implement and use RapidSMS in a mobile data collection project. RapidSMS is a SMS framework for data collection, group coordination, and complex SMS workflows. The tutorial outlines when and when not to use RapidSMS, guides the user through project steps and milestones, outlines factors for a successful implementation, and provides worksheets for project planning. Example training materials are included.
In Tanzania, a non-profit organization is using airtime as an incentive for increased condom sales. “Ongeo Zaidi na Salama,” or “Talk More with Salama,” offers mobile airtime incentives to shopkeepers who stock and sell condoms (Salama, which means 'safe', is the largely PSI-distributed Tanzanian condom brand), bringing greater visibility to safe sex practices.
The program, run by Population Services International, an organization widely known for pioneering condom social marketing since the 1970s and 1980s, was developed in reaction to the lack of condoms in Tanzanian stores.
85 million condoms at 100,000 retail outlets were sold in 2009, with the vast majority distributed by PSI. Because the PSI-distributed condoms are subsidized, they are considered lower-value by the shopkeepers than other products as they have low profit margins. Retailers were also reliant on the PSI agents to push and deliver the product and were not incentivised to proactively requests re-supplies when their condom stocks ran low. As a result, promotion and requisition (and sales) of these Salama condoms is not a priority for shopkeepers.
Managing News originated as a news aggregation and republishing platform heavily integrated with RSS/Atom. Users can track a diverse set of RSS/Atom feeds, visualize them, and republish selected reports on a platform that allows for mapping and pluggable visualizations. Managing News has subsequently added SMS functionality to the system. The system is based on Drupal, and integrates several open source projects including OpenLayers, SimplePie, and many Drupal plug-ins.
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phlebotomistd37
Macmillan South Africa
SMS Media