Comments on: Dial H for Humanitarian

By: Ken Banks

Ken Banks — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:27:45 +0000

Hi again Paul

Of course, as Sanjana will also no doubt agree, a lot of the real cutting edge human rights work is being done in the kinds of places where practitioners wouldn’t really want to be heard shouting about it. Maybe human rights, more than any other discipline, finds itself in this situation. When, for example, the Nigerian NGO contacted me about their monitoring efforts in the elections there, my first reaction was to hold back any news since I had no idea what danger, if any, they would put themselves into if the authorities got wind of it. As it turns out there were keen for me to push it out wherever I could, and fortunately the BBC decided to bite and it all went well for them (not the actual election, but their monitoring).

Over the past year or so, more and more human rights organisations have been in touch with me to ask for input, advice, help, access to FrontlineSMS etc. I would love to have pushed these stories out, but haven’t been able to for obvious reasons. It’s a shame, but it’s not me putting my neck on the line and we obviously need to be careful what we say in public.

Ken

By: Paul Currion

Paul Currion — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:55:03 +0000

Ken, Sanjana – thanks for the pointers, they were very useful. I came up with a few more, but hopefully Katrin’s report will catalogue them a bit more clearly than I have here!

By: Sanjana Hattotuwa

Sanjana Hattotuwa — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:20:26 +0000

Lirneasia in Sri Lanka has also done some really innovative work with mobiles in HA / DR – see http://www.lirneasia.net/2007/11/dialogu-of-moratuwamicroimage-early-warning-innovations-used-in-hazinfo-presented-at-wwrf/

Sanjana

By: Ken Banks

Ken Banks — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:14:49 +0000

Hi Paul!

Interesting to read your comments… I work with a number of grassroots NGOs, mostly in Africa but all in developing countries, and spend the better part of my work with kiwanja.net helping many of them understand the possibilities. I’m also fortunate in my work to have developed an SMS system – FrontlineSMS – will allows many of these NGOs to engage mobile in their work for little cost (the software is free) and with the minimum of learning.

I am regularly contacted by organisations – from the Googles and GSMAs of this world, along with radio and TV companies and, of course, NGOs – looking for good examples of mobile use in the developing world. There are plenty, but they are sometimes hard to find. I’ve been building a Mobile Database of examples at http://www.kiwanja.net if you want to take a look (there are about 420 entries so far). There have been, and continue to be, some cool uses for FrontlineSMS, and I plan on building a website for users in the coming months.

I’m always up for a chat about this kind of stuff, so feel free to get in touch if you like!

All the best.

Ken
http://www.kiwanja.net