Idea Lab

How FrontlineSMS Users Could Monitor Kenya's 2013 Elections

by Florence Scialom
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

The FrontlineSMS user community has seen a growing number of user meet-ups across the world in recent months. It's exciting to see community members come together and share opinions and experiences on our software. This is a guest column by FrontlineSMS user Joseph Owuondo, who attended a recent meet-up in Nairobi hosted at the FrontlineSMS offices. The FrontlineSMS meet-up held in Nairobi at the beginning of April brought together a number of organizations, individuals and experts who focus their work on elections and conflict resolution-related issues -- and who all have an interest in the potential use of FrontlineSMS for...

• May 10, 2012
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Minmini News Uses FrontlineSMS to Share Women's Social Knowledge in Sri Lanka

by Florence Scialom
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

This post is a guest column written by FrontlineSMS user Ananda Galappatti, editor of Minmini News, a women's news network in Sri Lanka. Minmini News is a local SMS news service for women in the Batticaloa District of Eastern Sri Lanka. Batticaloa is the poorest district of Sri Lanka, still slowly emerging from the destruction of a three decade-long civil war that ended in 2009. Throughout the war, and following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that struck Batticaloa's coastline, women played a crucial role in responding to the difficult circumstances that their families and communities had to endure. The same...

• April 16, 2012
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How Journalists Are Using FrontlineSMS to Innovate Around the World

by Florence Scialom
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

So much can be said in 160 characters. As we've started to look at tailoring FrontlineSMS software for journalists, we've realized just how much potential there is to use text messaging as a news source. As FrontlineSMS's community support coordinator, I interact every day with people and organizations that are using SMS in innovative ways. Increasingly, I've come across uses of FrontlineSMS as a journalistic tool, and this is particularly exciting for us as we embark on building new mobile tools to help increase media participation in hard-to-reach communities. FrontlineSMS is a free and open-source tool, so its most interesting...

• January 27, 2012
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