MobileActive.org

This report tackles ICT4D under three key headings: information, communication and participation. While not ignoring negatives, the report primarily explores, through the lens of Cambridge activities in ICT4D, the positive impacts and ongoing challenges of ICT4D: its ability to provide access to valuable information, to create meaningful two-way dialogues, to reach remote and excluded communities, and to empower the excluded to participate in their own development and societies.

There are still significant barriers preventing people in the Global South from accessing ICTs. But with the ongoing, rapid growth in mobile phone use and network connectivity across the world, the parameters are changing. We need to keep adapting to this environment in order to succeed. We must also ensure that the poorest and most disadvantaged are not left behind.

We have also seen challenges and progress that still need to be made in harnessing ICTs to achieve positive and lasting development outcomes. Technology can only ever be one ingredient in this process, but it can be a potent one. A key strength of ICT4D lies in the potential for participation, especially as technologies become more and more interactive.

New media platforms are changing how people communicate with each  other around the world. However, there is great variation in both the kind of 

communication platforms people make use of as well as in how they access these  platforms. Computer ownership and internet access are still the prerogative of  the wealthy few in wide swathes of the African continent. All the same, mobile internet access is on the rise and if current growth rates continue, African mobile phone penetration will reach 100 per cent by 2014. Mobile phone penetration rates, in particular, have resulted in a plethora of ideas for new media platforms aimed at bridging the information divide between the well-connected and the disconnected. Topic areas range from agriculture and conservation to health and human rights. In addition to mobile phone-based platforms, there is also a number of promising internet-based ones.

FrontlineSMS is a software platform that enables structured communication via text messaging, using only a computer and a mobile phone or GSM (Global System for Mobile) modem. The platform enables two-way messaging between users and groups of people via mobile networks without the need for an Internet connection.

The purpose of this guide is to provide users with a framework to understand, analyze, and address the vulnerabilities, risks and threats that can affect the integrity of the information communicated through the FrontlineSMS platform. That said, mobile networks are inherently insecure and end users are only able to mitigate, as opposed to prevent, a significant number of the possible threats to data integrity. While there are a large number of ways that user information can be lost, altered, stolen, changed, or read by third parties, this guide focuses on the ways that users experience information corruption and steps that they can take to mitigate individual threats. This guide is intended to be a useful resource and framework, but is not intended to be comprehensive or prescriptive.

Users and potential users have different needs for protecting sensitive information. The goal of this guide is to outline the actions that can be taken to mitigate the risks posed by information being lost, changed or read by unauthorized third parties. However, it is important to recognize that FrontlineSMS may not be an appropriate tool to use in some environments where data integrity needs go beyond the capabilities of the platform and SMS itself, and that incautious use may put the organization, program and users at risk.

FrontlineSMS does not define the exact details of how users should deploy the software or address issues of data integrity. Users should evaluate their individual program goals, standards, and operating context to decide on the steps that should be taken to protect the integrity of their information

This guide provides an inexpensive way to create an SMS communications network to enable healthcare field workers as they serve communities and their patients. The steps are purposefully simple – the system is easy to set up, use and maintain.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Who might benefit from a text-based communications network?
2. What are the benefits for my hospital, clinic or organization and the people it serves?
3. What technology do I need?
4. Do I need an internet connection?
5. How expensive is an SMS network?
6. How do I distribute communication credit?
7. How much staff training is required?
8. How much time does it take, per day, to manage the SMS network?
9. How do I conduct SMS training?
10. What is the best power source for the cell phones?
11. Do the CHWs communicate with each other?
12. Where can I find more information on FrontlineSMS?