[MobileActive] FrontlineSMS Update

Hi all

It's been just over a month since we launched the new version of FrontlineSMS, and the past couple of weeks has seen considerable progress in software development terms and its growing adoption in the field. Since we announced the launch here, we thought some of you might be interested in an update.

The latest build – 1.4.7 – was released late last week after a period of independent evaluation and testing (thanks to Bobby from OFW SOS). The results have been posted on the FrontlineSMS Community pages.

While the majority of smaller users haven't yet started using FrontlineSMS to any extent, a few larger and better resourced projects have started to make good progress with the software.

· FrontlineSMS is being lined up by the Cambodia Crop Production and Marketing Project (CCPMP), a project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. Their aim is to improve agricultural value chains as a key to sustainable growth and poverty reduction in Western Cambodia. (FrontlineSMS is already being used by UNDP in Aceh to provide coffee prices to smallholder farmers).

· In one of the first microfinance-related applications of the new version, FrontlineSMS is being used by Grameen in Uganda to open up text-based communications with their Village Phone Operator (VPO) network.

· Josh Nesbit in Malawi is using FrontlineSMS to drive field communications between a local hospital and its six hundred roaming community health workers (CHWs) covering 250,000 people.

· Ushahidi have just completed their own period of FrontlineSMS evaluation, and are now putting together plans to integrate the platform into their web-based "crisis alert system". Ushahidi was recently listed as one of "Ten Web Startups to Watch" by MIT's Technology Review.

A final project planning FrontlineSMS implementation is a text-based SOS/distress facility for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). This programme attempts to maximize the widespread ownership and use of mobile phones by Filipinos at home and abroad, and provide a 24/7 service in case of emergency.

I recently blogged about these case studies, and the latest version of the software. if you'd like further information. We're also working with a number of large donor organisations and academic researchers to help them understand the FrontlineSMS user base. Expect some very interesting independent field-based research in the coming months.

If you need any further information either visit the FrontlineSMS website or drop me an email

Thanks.

Ken Banks

Founder, kiwanja.net

"Where technology meets anthropology, conservation and development"

Email: ken.banks@kiwanja.net

Web: www.kiwanja.net