MobileActive.org

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.

By using local numbers and relaying them through VOIP Rebtel can offer people low-cost international calls. The only cost for the user will be for calling a local number. Rebtel is busy launching SMS functions for free or low cost also.

Our solution is simple, and designed so that field workers and community members can manage the software directly:

Aidlink Alerts - Send Messages in 4 Easy Steps:

1) From any mobile phone (or a secure web panel), create SMS “mailing lists” of community member/field staff phone numbers.
2) Segment your phone number “mailing lists” according to specific criteria: location, age, gender, or more. Give each mailing list its own numeric code.
3) On your phone (or online), create an alert message (eg. “Reminder: Training today at 3 pm”).
4) Send SMS alert to thousands of community members at once, or just to specific
groups, by entering the codes of the "mailing lists" you'd like to reach.

Aidlink Surveys - Gather Basic Data in 4 Easy Steps

1) On a secure web panel, create your SMS survey: a sequence of short questions that can be sent out via text-message.
2) Send an SMS “alert” (see above) to thousands of registered users—or a small group of people—inviting them to answer the survey questions.
3) Users “text” their answers to the questions, one at a time.
4) Survey results appear directly in a secure online database, for quick analysis and response. Easily exportable to Excel/SAS/SPSS.

Enabling access to the HIV-911 referral network of HIV/AIDS-related service providers across South Africa, via USSD and LBS.

Betavine Social Exchange brings together NGOs and other community organisations with mobile phone developers and support partners.

Framework and libraries for building SMS services rapidly

EMIT is a mobile and web data collection system, allowing you to collect, analyse and report using live data from the field. Features include: online form creation; online or mobile interface for data entry; built-in logic, error checking and decision support; generated reports.

Ways that EMIT can be used include: organisational monitoring & evaluation; on-site decision support; home-based care; field surveys; custom surveys; and subject follow-up.

Organisations in South Africa are currently using EMIT to get trainers to send in M&E data from the field (eg number of people trained), and to record counseling registrations at VCT clinics.

EMIT is as open source application and so is free to download and customise.

Open Data Kit (ODK) is suite of tools that enables users to collect their own rich data. ODK is designed to let users own, visualize, and share data without the difficulties of setting up and maintaining servers. The tools are easy to use, deploy, and scale. They also go beyond open source — they’re based on open standards and supported by a larger community.

ODK’s goals are to make tools modular and customizable so that they can be easily composed into appropriate arrangements for each deployment; exploit open interfaces and standards so that solutions are not "siloed" into monolithic enterprise-level packages tha tare difficult to understand and maintain; and establish data collection tools at the cutting edge of technology so as to avoid early obsolescence and make it easier to attract talented developers.

mobiSiteGalore is a free mobile website builder that allows a user to easily build, publish & share a full-fledged mobile website that is guaranteed to work fine on any mobile phone.

Data collected by multiple field workers can be submitted by phone, together with GPS data, to a common web database and can be displayed and analysed, along with previously collected data, using Google Maps (or Google Earth). Similarly, data from the web database can be requested and displayed on the mobile phone, again using Google Maps.