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Posts Tagged ‘mobile and technology’

Ushahidi in Haiti: What’s Needed Now

Posted in disaster and emergencies, Haiti, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2010| 5 Comments »

www.haiti.ushahidi.com

My main experience with disasters comes from working at an international development organization in El Salvador and happening to be the only senior manager who wasn’t on annual vacation when a huge earthquake struck almost exactly 9 years ago, on January 13, 2001. The rush to act was immediate, and it was a lot of learning by doing.  I got handed the responsibility by fate I suppose and didn’t do such a bad job of it, if I do say so.  At that time we were pretty unprepared; something that has certainly changed since then in the organization where I work.  We now have country level disaster plans at hand and support a lot of disaster risk reduction and preparedness work with local communities and governments.

One of the main challenges for us in responding to the Salvadoran earthquakes in 2001 was information:  lack of information, wrong information, too much information to sort through, outdated information, etc.  We spent way too much time in staff meetings and meetings with other organizations/government sharing what we had done and what we were planning to do, only to find out that everything had changed while we were sitting there, and some decisions were no longer valid.  There was no effective way to manage all the information in the constantly moving and changing circumstances.

And in 2010…?

I’m sure things have changed quite a lot in disaster work since 2001, and since 2005 when I spent about 6 weeks in India and Thailand after the Tsunami, but I would bet that information management will still be a major challenge during the relief and recovery efforts in Haiti following the January 12, 2010 earthquake, especially given the scale of the crisis and the number of agencies who are already working there or are just now arriving to set up shop.

Today’s technology should allow us a better way to manage this information.  I hope that organizations working on the ground in Haiti will take advantage of the shared and open digital information systems available to them that can be updated in various ways by various people in various locations.  The convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as digital mapping, crowd sourcing and crowd feeding of information, GPS, mobile phones and SMS,  geo-visualization for rapid decision making and trend spotting will be put to a massive test as the disaster response in Haiti unfolds.

In comes Ushahidi

The place where these ICT tools are converging right now into one ready to use platform is at www.haiti.ushahidi.com.  (I confess that I’m unaware of other options that offer the same or similar crisis management capacity – feel free to post other examples in the comments section). [update: for regularly updated detailed info on Ushahidi and other digital tools being used in the Haiti Crisis, visit the Ushahidi Situation Room].

According to the Ushahidi blog, work on the Haiti crisis map began about 2 hours after the massive quake struck, thanks to a global effort of people linked to Ushahidi, Frontline SMS/Frontline SMS: Medic, UN OCHA Colombia, the International Network of Crisis Mappers, and the US State Department (and probably others behind the scenes that haven’t been mentioned yet).  The system is now operational.  The in-country short code 4636 went live on January 16th.

What is Ushahidi and how does it work?

Ushahidi could be described as a mapping tool and also as a platform I suppose.  Each Ushahidi ‘instance’ is created based on the information needs of whoever is setting up the instance, and a map of a particular geographical area.  Via email, SMS, Twitter, or by filling in an on-line form, anyone can send in information to populate the map with information.  This information falls into specific topic areas that have been decided beforehand by whoever is setting up the site. (Ushahidi instances have been used to track drug stock outs, to monitor elections and human rights abuses, and in crisis situations, for example.)  In the case of Haiti, it’s deaths, emergencies, threats, responses, missing persons, etc.

The “incident reports” that people send in are uploaded onto the map (using geo-location tags) to give a visual representation of what is happening and where.  They are labeled as “verified” or “unverified”.  As data is triaged, the unverified reports are eventually verified.  Different layers of information can be viewed, and you can see an overview or zoom in for more detail on the map.  [Update:  These reports are being channeled now into Sahana’s system (read about it here) system, developed in Sri Lanka for the Asian Tsunami in 2004.]

To really understand how this works, the best thing is to just visit the site.

Crowdsourcing and Crowdfeeding

Two of the basic concepts behind Ushahidi are “crowd sourcing” and “crowd feeding”. Crowd sourcing means information is obtained from the “crowd”.  Crowd feeding means that the collected information is consolidated and fed back to that same “crowd” so that they are better able to make decisions.  People standing right there on the ground usually know what is happening right there on the ground better than people visiting periodically from centralized headquarters, and via Ushahidi, that information is pulled in from the sources on the ground in almost real-time.  Giving consolidated information back and/or responding to those who provided it completes the circle.

Trust the Public

With a large enough amount of information input, any bogus incident reports can be identified.  I won’t go into all the discussions around the validity of crowd-sourced information as it’s been a large debate, but seems to play out that yes, you can trust the information to the degree necessary to help make quick decisions in times of crisis or emergency — and this information is better than no information or information that comes too late.

In fact, in September, I participated in a meeting about geo-visualization at Google’s offices in Washington, DC (see my before lunch and after lunch posts) and heard presentations by both the American Red Cross (ARC) and the US Federal Environmental Management Association (FEMA). Both organizations talked about the need to trust citizens to report on what is happening right in front of them, and that these reports are every bit as reliable as reports by experts, and a whole lot quicker because people have mobile phones now.  Pulling in information from citizens and mapping out the situation visually can be a huge resource for those making decisions about response.

What’s needed now

What is needed now for Ushahidi in Haiti to work to its fullest potential is for people to share information about what is happening where they are.  The general public in Haiti can text a message into 4636 to submit a report giving their location and telling about their situation: missing persons, need for medical attention, supplies needed, help that has already arrived, changing priorities, etc. [Internationally use 44-76-280-2524, or report using the web form at the Ushahidi Haiti site].

Emergency Aid agencies too

Information sharing is not only something for the public.  In addition to input from the local population, it would be great if local organizations and international agencies would use Ushahidi to share information on what they are seeing as they work in and pass through different communities.  By being open and sharing this kind of information, maybe overall coordination can improve and precious time and resources won’t be wasted because of information challenges.  [Update:  Organizations on the ground can register at Sahana, and receive situation reports so that they can provide assistance.]

One aid agency can’t canvas the whole country alone, and Ushahidi offers a way to get real information from real people on the ground in near real-time. I think it would have much been easier in El Salvador in 2001 if we had the ICTs then that we have now.  I hope people and organizations take the best advantage of them in 2010, now that they are available.


UPDATE:  Here is a beautiful overview of the Ushahidi effort, posted on the Ushahidi blog on Feb 9.

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Related posts:
I saw the future of geovisualization… before lunch
I saw the future of geovisualization… after lunch





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“It’s All Part of the ICT Jigsaw” – Plan Mozambique ICT4D workshops

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, Mozambique, tagged , , , , , , on October 20, 2009| 7 Comments »

Plan Mozambique’s team has been discussing ICTs in their work using the distance learning packet that my colleague Mika (at Plan Finland) and I put together with lots of support from Hannah Beardon. This is part of our ICT4D research and training initiative in 8 countries (Senegal, Togo, Mali, Cameroon, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda) that will conclude near the end of the year.

This initiative is two-fold —

1) to consolidate some information/research on what’s currently happening in each country (in Plan programs, by other organizations, general ICT landscape, government policies) that staff and managers can use for making decisions around ICT in their programs and other work; and

2) to offer a methodology whereby local staff can identify existing information and communication needs, means, mechanisms and flows on the one hand, and learn about new technology on the other hand to see if any of the new tech is a fit (in its current state or in an adapted state) to meet the existing needs.  One really important aspect is offering ways for local staff to look at the context in which they work every day and see what tools would be useful or even usable (here I like to think of those 4 C’s of successful ICT deployment -connectivity, cost, capacity, and culture).

The end goal is to improve program impact on the ground by strengthening staff capacity to look at their programs with an ICT lens.

Our distance workshop materials (which are pretty amateur — power points with accompanying home-made videos, downloaded videos from other sources, skype calls to expand the discussions) got good feedback from staff.  (This is likely due to my colleague Mika’s great sense of humor more than anything!) We’re thinking of making a few new modules to cover new tech that we’ve heard is being used in Africa or elsewhere, or that we find out about (at workshops, via Twitter, via staff in other countries, from blogs and other sources) so that interested countries could program additional ICT4D days to continue discussions and learning about new tools.

Today we got feedback from Plan Mozambique staff. The main learning/points that came out of the workshop were:

  • Demystifying ICT. “For some of us who are only NGO workers without formal training in ICT, we get scared, we think of megabytes, how info flies, all those things.  But we found that all of us use ICT – our cell phones, our gadgets, the things we use daily, internet, intranet — it’s all part of the ICT jigsaw.”
  • ICT is not stand-alone. “It was quite a useful exercise to see how we can incorporate ICTs in our programmatic interventions.  Again- we realized that all this is now linking up with the rights based approach, with our child centered development approach.  So today and yesterday we’ve seen how ICT can serve in this perspective. Especially today it was very directly apparent how ICT integrates into these approaches. ICT is not a straight alone aspect.”
  • Learning how to map communications networks, identify local communications needs, see what added value Plan can give by improving it directly, strategically or indirectly. “This was a good way for discussing ways to address information and communication needs and ways to bring about better impact in development programs using our current rights based approach,” as one staff put it.
  • Opening windows of opportunities and identifying existing challenges. “We need to map available ICT tools and see what is appropriate in our context to apply.  Some of the common ICT tools in the Africa context are still a challenge. We don’t have electricity in most of our rural communities.  During the mapping exercises on ICTs we need to take that into account. To find the means to identify the tools that are most appropriate. Mobile phones still need to be charged. We can solar charge, but I’ve yet to see this myself.  We can use other ICTs in our programs, but mostly things like radio, TV, particular videos. These tools are already available in the community, everyone in the community has a radio. TV is a challenge. Mobile phones are challenge still.  Mobile phone could add costs to the community leaders, and later would not be sustainable. This needs to be looked into to see what kind of solutions we can find to overcome it.”
  • Gaining insight into ICT4D, its dynamics and uses in communities. “It’s important to understand that we are still a very primitive country.  Different colleagues have raised the question of infrastructure. Yet there is a huge opportunity for us to create space for growth. It’s difficult for us see – we want to really engage community members but wonder if they would feel out of place due to their levels of understanding. We feel they can deal with technologies like mobile phones but when it comes to computers it would be much more difficult. But this workshop was an eye opener. Technology is not so mysterious.  We need to try our best to make technology something simple that can be used by anyone, just like mobile phones, small children can use them. If all other technologies could be that simple it would be great.”
  • Balancing possible/feasible and creative/innovative. “We’ve seen some tools that can help us with new ideas as well as with existing programs. One thing we need to address clearly is guidelines on social media to set up a basis for those who are trying things out. Also thoughts around content management and delivery.  How can countries capture information and communicate it out in a way that gets the message across best. We can also do more learning from others about ICT4D programs, especially about their context and what is the process leading into these projects, what conditions were in place.”
  • Greening our ICT4D.  “Another thing we need to really consider is equipment which with time becomes obsolete – how can we recycle equipment and put it to better use?  Green equipment – how to stop generating trash in communities. Renewable energy sources – solar was mentioned, tapping wind energy also – how can we look at that and enter into that as well.  And what about other appropriate technologies that are not IT.  There are innovative irrigation pumps that are very effective and cheap.  Magnetic torches that don’t use batteries which come in very handy.  There are many things we could adopt and incorporate.”

Related Posts:
I and C then T
ICT ideas from Plan Cameroon
ICT4D Kenya: ICT and community development is real
Modernizing birth registration with mobile technology
In Kenya brainstorming on mobiles
Chickens and eggs and ICTs

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I and C, then T

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, tagged , , , , , on September 13, 2009| 6 Comments »

Last week some Plan USA staff got together at Plan’s Washington, DC office as part of our ongoing discussions on how Plan globally could better use ICTs and social media as enablers in our work and to improve program outcomes.  We had the honor of some amazing minds to support us, including Josh Nesbit (@joshnesbit) from FrontlineSMS: Medic, Dave Isaak from SixBlue Data (@sixblue_data), Michael Downey from Indiana University (@downeym), and Wayan Vota from Inveneo (@wayan_vota).

Photo: Mwendar and Ali using mobiles during a meeting on modernizing the birth registration process in Kwale, Kenya, in June 2009.

We started with an overview of ICT4D, emphasizing the importance of not starting with the tools and devices, but rather a mapping of information and communications needs.

The presentation was based on Plan’s “Mobiles for Development Guide” by Hannah Beardon.  (See the presentation here). For me, a key aspect was the 3 ways that organizations can incorporate ICTs in their work:

1) Directly:  Addressing the digital divide through improved connectivity, capacity, access

2) Strategically:  Applying ICTs to enhance the impact of development projects and programs

3) Indirectly: improving their efficiency and effectiveness

The Mobiles for Development Guide also proposes a three-step process for arriving at decisions on how ICTs can be incorporated:

Stage 1: Assess the need/potential for ICTs/mobile technology

Stage 2: Analyze the socio-technological context

Stage 3: Choose the technology and content

For me, this is kind of obvious but we seem to often forget it.  Most sound organizations wouldn’t decide that building a clinic or a school is the solution without looking at the broader situation together with community members, and analyzing together what the desired outcomes actually are, what the local resources are, what the barriers are, how sustainability will be achieved, issues of upkeep, local ownership, power and control, usability, etc.  In the same way, we clearly shouldn’t slap on 100 mobile phones and some computers and call it an ICT4D or m-Something initiative.

But sometimes technology seems like such an obvious solution that organizations start with the technology tools rather than looking at the desired outcomes:  let’s do a radio project, a video project, an m-Health project – when rather we should be stepping back and seeing what the larger goals are, how we plan to reach them, what kind of information and communication needs to happen to reach project goals, how is information and communication currently happening in the local situation and who has control over it, and lastly what types of tools might work best for relaying that information and communicating.

As an action item from the workshop, we will begin work on a more concrete methodological guide for Plan staff to use at the local level.  The concept is in place, but how to actually do this concretely when we are developing programs with communities is perhaps not so clear.  The idea is to develop a detailed and participatory methodology that could be used locally (by staff, community members, district officials, etc.) to identify information and map out communication needs in existing (or developing) initiatives, to better understand the local ‘socio-technological’ context, and to have some sort of ‘decision tree’ that could help suggest the most appropriate ICT enablers for the local context. We hope to gather input from others who have done similar work (in and outside of Plan) and to field test it in Cameroon in a Child Survival project early next year.

Related Posts:

11 concerns about ICTs and ‘social media for social good’

It’s all part of the ICT jigsaw: Plan Mozambique ICT4D workshops

ICT ideas from Plan Cameroon

ICT4D Kenya: ICT and community development is real

Modernizing birth registration with mobile technology

In Kenya brainstorming on mobiles

Chickens and eggs and ICTs

On Girls and ICTs

7 (or more) questions to ask before adding ICTs

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@MambeNanje and company

Posted in Cameroon, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I wrote last week about Mambe Churchill Nanje and his work with Village Diary in Cameroon. But Village Diary is not Churchill’s whole story. The other part is his company Afrovisiongroup.com and the company he was keeping when we met up for a Malta and some Castels. Photo: Churchill and Steveslil.

AfroVisioN is Churchill’s IT firm, based out of Buea, Cameroon. AfroVisioN helps local businesses build their on-line presence, and aims to help Cameroon in general realize the potential of the web. “I was in the process of trying to get a nice paying job in IT, and someone told me: ‘Don’t get a job, create jobs instead!’ so that’s what I set out to do. I wanted to show people in Cameroon that there is more online than email.”

AfroVisioN invests in research and development to cut down costs of technology to serve the local markets. They provide affordable websites and web solutions, building software packages and automated operations to facilitate management and efficiency.

Although he can’t be more than 24 years old, this is not Churchill’s first venture. In 2006, at age 20 he invested all his time and money in building up a portal to allow students to see their GCE scores online. He purchased the GCE scores from the GCE board and published them for free on a site called passgce.com. The site was promptly shut down by the GCE board. Churchill recognized that there are potential disadvantages to having the scores on the internet (an error in programming logic could show the wrong results or someone could hack into the system and change the results), but that these are easily overcome with standard security measures. He’s sure the site was closed for other reasons. “Imagine building all your hopes on something and it gets shut down….”

Not one to give up, Churchill moved on to doing small IT projects that led him to his current business model at AfroVisioN. “Our market and its people don’t have huge financial backings, but they need technology in order to make their businesses more profitable,” so the business model builds on making a web presence affordable.

But Churchill’s goal doesn’t end there. “I kept wondering, why am I exporting software and my schoolmates and family are exporting cocoa… and not earning any money through their hard work.” So Churchill’s broader goal is to make a name for himself, to earn trust and credibility so that he can attract investment to help others to progress. In addition, he’s looking for ways that IT, especially internet, can be used to gain access to information to improve farms and local businesses so that they can earn more.

As we sipped our drinks and then rode in a crowded taxi from one side of town to the other, Churchill’s friends Steveslil and Peter also talked about their aspirations. Photo: Steveslil, Peter and Churchill.

Steveslil is an up and coming R&B singer – check out his website (powered by AfroVisioN) athttp://www.steveslil.com/flashsite.swf. He was appointed CEO of CoreSouth Records in 2005 and put out his debut album “Play my Tambourine,” fostered by Churchill, who also directed 2 of Steveslil’s videos. Steveslil is now on the BEI (Bebum Entertainment Industry) label out of Washington DC, founded in 2002 by Cameroonian-American businessman Esapa Sebastien.

Peter (@foch4T) studied at university with Churchill and they currently call on each other when there is work to be done on websites or other IT projects. Peter’s dream is to start a tour company to bring people to Cameroon. “Cameroon is the center of the world. It’s the heart of Africa. Here you have every climate, every type of thing that can be found in Africa, but all in one place.” Peter wants to bring people to Cameroon to experience the country’s beauty and culture in the most real way possible, giving them custom made tours.

Some impressive guys, to say the least. And to me, it was most heartening that not one of them talked about wanting to leave Cameroon to try to succeed elsewhere, but rather building up their country’s own potential and their own people.

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ICT4D Ideas from Plan Cameroon

Posted in Cameroon, development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2009| 1 Comment »

I had a chance to meet with Plan Cameroon’s Program Technical Team today (including those that look at Monitoring and Evaluation, Health, Education, Sponsorship, Child Protection, Water and Sanitation, Gender and the overall Program Support Manager) to give a quick brief on the ICT4D research and training that Plan Finland is supporting with Plan offices in 8 countries in Africa (Mali, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Togo, Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda).

We are working with Hannah Beardon, who wrote Plan’s Mobiles for Development guide (available in both English and French) and building on that towards some more focused and concrete ideas for ICT use in these 8 countries. We’ll share the research with staff during 2-day workshops to brainstorm and gather ideas on information and communications needs, as well as available tools that could be used or adapted to local situations.

The 2-day workshops are planned for Aug and Sept. Hannah, Mika (Plan Finland) and I are developing the methodology and will make a training DVD to send ahead of time to each country (apparently complete with our selves doing presentations!) since we don’t have funding to do face-to-face training. We’ll have a staff person in each country as the main facilitator, and 10-12 key staff, from management to frontline, will attend. Mika or I will beam in by skype to support if needed. We’ll use the Frontline SMS demo video that Mika and crew did also, (see my earlier post about this from a few months ago), show how Nokia Data Gathering Software works, share the Common Craft Social Media videos, among other things. Hannah’s methodology will also come in for thinking about how ICTs could enhance existing efforts.

The idea is to both learn about new tools as well as look at current programs and see if there are ways to use ICTs to improve impact, and how to begin tailoring them to the programs and local settings. We’re also doing research on government policies and how Plan’s work links there. I hope that we can also look at partnering with local developers and ICT4D innovators in each country….

The idea of ICT4D was a bit new to some of the Plan Cameroon staff and not at all new to others. One interesting idea they shared was using SMS in anti-malaria programs to periodically remind people to retreat their bednets. There was some concern about literacy rates if one relies on SMS, and interest in using voice response, but given the number of languages in Cameroon, voice could also be a bit of a challenge. I’ll have to try to find out if/how that’s overcome in other places. Another concern was ‘scamming’ and how to avoid that happening. But it seemed that the issue of scamming is not something that Plan alone would face, but something in general that is faced with mobile phones.

The program support manager was really keen on using mobiles for program monitoring as that is something that can always improve and be more efficient with ICT, he said, and wants to test some ideas. The ICT manager also said he wanted to write something up. The sponsorship manager suggested trying out some data collection or quicker communications tools for linking with community volunteers. And as mentioned earlier, child media and child protection are areas that can be greatly enhanced and supported via ICTs (help lines, SMS incident reporting, social media and mobile reporting).

After the 2-day workshop, we should have something really nice to go forward with.

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ICT4D Kenya: “ICT and Community Development Is Real”

Posted in ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2009| 3 Comments »

Jonathan Mativo, whom I first met in Kenya in December at our Social Media for Social Change workshop was one of our core FrontlineSMS trainers last month. In January, Mativo left Plan to found his own organization called ICT4D Kenya which operates in the Kilifi and Machakos districts in the Southern Coast of Kenya. He was motivated to move beyond the commercial ICT sector to ICT4 community development by his 4 years of work at Plan. “Previously I didn’t have any background on ICT4D. I only looked at ICT from the operational point of view but Plan really inspired me to work with children to see them realize their full potential.” ICT4D Kenya envisions young children confident in participatory media, children that see ICTs as enablers for development rather than just tools to perform work. “We also foresee a changed community – people who are socially together.”
Photo: Mativo is the founder of ICT4D.

ICT4D Kenya targets communities and schools, with the aim of building the capacity of youth, men and women through community ICT resource centers to introduce them to new ways of learning. ICT4D Kenya is also experimenting with interactive learning. “Normally students learn by rote. They basically take notes extracted from text books.” In their free time children expected to study, but “they are just revising materials from textbooks that have been copied into their notebooks…. They are hardly concentrating on what they are doing.” Mativo wants to introduce interactive learning materials in schools so children will be more attentive in class. He’s also planning some school linking projects where students in different districts can communicate to share culture and motive each other to improve school performance. Photo: Wajuhi and Mativo at Plan’s training on mobile data gathering in Kwale, Kenya

We’re not talking old, slow computers though. “One thing about Africa is that we are used to free things. That’s why we are congesting our country with refurbished things.” Mativo believes that to take ICT ahead in Africa, schools need access to the technology that they would get in the real market. “Often we get old computers, slow, hard to maintain and without proper e-waste solutions. We should be looking at affordable technology and ways to get ICTs to Africa rather than just dumping refurbished equipment.” So what about refurbished/donated phones? “Small gadgets are a different story. If you look at the features of a mobile, as long as it can send an SMS, it’s fine. SMS is one thing we are really looking at for social change.”

Mativo has worked with one school to install FrontlineSMS (http://www.frontlinesms.com/) in order to communicate with parents. This year there was a teachers strike. Most schools sent their children home. But this school got all the parent/caretaker contact information. “Within 2 days we had all the mobile numbers.” They keyed them into FrontlineSMS and the head teacher used the software to send an SMS to all the parents and asked if they should send the children home or not. “We got 237 out of around 400 messages back from parents on the first day saying ‘don’t send our children home’ and the rest said to send them home.’” So the head teacher kept the children at school, and when a parent questioned the decision at a parents’ meeting later in the year, he used the SMS he had saved to explain the reasons.

Now the school is using the software for all kinds of things. On annual Prize Day instead of the normal low turn-out, they had 75% turnout for the first time this year. “Parents said you communicated with us in due time by SMS and kept communicating with us over time to remind us.” Normally students are given newsletters during holiday times and parents don’t remember key dates when they finally roll around.

Mativo sees his role as demystifying ICTs and finding the best way possible to ensure people understand ICTs from a non technical point of view. “When I have to explain what a computer is, I always refer it as ‘that box there’ so that people don’t look at it as too delicate. In most cases I open the CPU for people to understand that it’s just an empty box that they shouldn’t be too afraid of.” Mativo says that many people believe it’s not possible to change their communities’ way of thinking, especially people who are working in commercial ICTs. “They need to internalize what community development is all about and that ICT can be downgraded to reach out to people in communities regardless of their skills, their background and their exposure. ICT and community development is real.”

Photo: Simplifying ICTs for people.

Related posts on Wait… What?

7 (or more) questions to ask before adding ICTs

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In Kenya, Brainstorming on Mobiles

Posted in ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, Kenya, m4D, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2009| 5 Comments »

I spent last week in Kwale, Kenya in the company of several colleagues learning about and discussing the use of mobiles in community development, both for outreach and communications and for mobile data gathering. There was a variety of people — from frontline staff to members of Community Based Organizations (CBO) in Kwale, to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) staff from Plan Kenya’s districts and central offices and Plan’s West Africa Regional office, to IT staff, to youth and those working with youth media, to partner organizations working on child help lines and social media outreach.

Photo: Anthony from Plan along with Mativo, a former Plan colleague, trained us on FLSMS

We looked closely at Frontline SMS (FLSMS) and Nokia’s new Data Gathering Software (NDGS) and brainstormed on ways that this type of tool might support the work that people are already doing. Really an interesting week!

In addition to the more common ideas of using mobiles for health campaigns, disaster/crisis situations and general communications and monitoring, people mentioned:

For youth media programs:

-Organizing weekly radio contests via Frontline SMS and allowing many more youth to participate in the radio program that way. Now for contests, they have to write a letter with their answer and bring it to radio station by foot. Using SMS many more could participate, increasing listeners and engagement.

-Assessing the radio show right after the recording. The youth and children could go in the audience and gather the data they normally do by hand using mobile data gathering software, thus easing the processing time and analysis of the information.

-Monitoring progress and changes made in relation to the show at a broader level — the participating youth could use mobile data gathering to monitor change related to the issues they are targeting in the radio shows and to see if youth organization and awareness building is impacting on the community over time.

Photo: people got really excited when their first forms appeared on their phones to be filled in!

For Child/Human Rights work and Global Child Rights Campaigns:

-Assessing the knowledge/awareness of the communities about rights issues and/or our global campaigns

-Receiving reports and sharing information about violations of rights (gathering info on whether children are being registered at birth, the incidence of school violence, girl’s or women’s rights violations, cases of child abuse) and offer short information on where to go for help.

-Monitoring child abuse cases, e.g. community members could text in key words such as ABUSE or MARRIAGE to report and track child abuse cases and early marriages happening in the community:

Birth Registration (UBR) implementation

-Tracking birth registration certificates and sharing information on the steps of the registration process. With auto SMS replies we could enhance information accessibility 24/7. We could provide instant feedback to people on the status of their birth registration. It would be a very quick way of sending information to many.

-Using mobile data gathering software, the birth registration process could be made paperless and computerized, thus saving time and effort for the population and increasing the number of children who are registered at birth.

Photo: Jackson and 3 other colleagues from Brazil trained us on the NDGS.

Monitor services

-Running a mobile survey or a rapid assessment to find out whether a service like Childline is reaching people and whether the service is known and being utilized in the field.

Communicating among Plan staff, CBOs, Communities

-Passing along information such as training dates, schedules, meetings, etc., to avoid making a trip out to the community to get information

-Surveying on health, school attendance, and school enrollment through a network of teachers

Communities communicating amongst themselves

-Communities have a lot of information they want to share among themselves, among the Community Health Workers (CHWs), with the other communities and other leaders – they could do this with FLSMS.

Managing Meetings and Decisions

-Inviting participants, confirming attendance, updating on the absentees when you’ve reached a decision they could be contacted this way. You could even involve those who are absent in voting by SMS if you don’t have quorum; eg., text in 1 for this candidate, 2 for this other one, or vote yes/no on something.

Photo: SMS was seen as a great way for communities and CBOs to communicate and organize.

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Chickens and Eggs and ICTs

Posted in ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

We’ve been thinking and discussing the best way to follow up on the Social Media for Social Change workshop that we had in December in Kenya. Ideas have been going back and forth about the best way to really find out what the Information and Communication needs are in the countries where we are working, and then how to support the different offices and staff to find the best and most appropriate Technology solutions.

We ended up with a chicken and egg situation in a way…. if ICT4D is not your top priority, and you don’t spend your life trying to figure out what is happening with ICT4D, you may not know what all is out there. (Ha, even if you do spend your life doing it, you don’t know what all is out there). So it can be hard to imagine tools and solutions if you’ve not seen them in action, used them yourself, or heard about how others are using them. At the same time, each local situation is different, so one size doesn’t fit all, so in order to find a tool or a solution, the situation analysis must come from those who would use that ‘solution.’ So what do you do first — learn about different tools and potential solutions so that the lightbulb goes off on ways to incorporate/adapt the existing tools to your needs, or discuss your ‘needs’ and design something that works — sometimes re-inventing the wheel. We thought that the best way we could manage the situation was to try to do both at once.

What we want to do is to activate our knowledge and study more about the concrete information and communications needs at the community level as well as in Plan’s program work that could be supported by ICTs. So we are hoping that we can produce a document which offers specific recommendations about utilizing ICTs in our work in the participating countries in Africa. And we then hope that we can identify areas to be developed further including successful initiatives currently being implemented by Plan itself and also those areas where we can build on existing synergy with governmental strategies. We are also hoping to better understand the capacity building needs among Plan and its partners.

It should be interesting research/training and hopefully will take us one step further towards incorporating appropriate technology to improve our communications and management of information so that we can have greater impact in our existing programs or even develop new programs that we didn’t think were possible before….

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