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kenya

 
MobileActive08

A Global Summit about
Mobile Technology for Social Impact
October 13-15, 2008
Johannesburg, South Africa

 
 
Wireless Technology for Social Change
Read the new report on trends in mobile use by NGOs:
Wireless Technology for Social Change.

The report was commissioned by the UN Foundation/Vodafone Group Foundation Partnership and written by Katrin Verclas and Sheila Kinkade.
 

BBC on mobiles in Kenya: Revolutionizing the economy and local politics

January 9, 2007 | KatrinVerclas
file under:
bbc, economic development, kenya, mobile phones, mobileactive

An amazing article yet again on mobiles in Africa by the BBC.  Paul Mason in his two-part series writes about the economic impact of mobile phones, but more importantly, about how mobiles are transforming local politics.

"With one in three adults carrying a cellphone in Kenya, mobile telephony is having an economic and social impact whose is hard to grasp if you are used to living in a country with good roads, democracy and the internet. In five years the number of mobiles in Kenya has grown from one million to 6.5 million - while the number of landlines remains at about 300,000, mostly in government offices. I decided to make a journey through Kenya to gauge the impact on the ground: the plan was to go from Mombasa via Nairobi to Lake Victoria following the mobile network map - contrasting life on the network to life off it."

Read More >>



What is the M-PESA of Mobile Health?

July 29, 2008 | dsasaki
file under:
Bellagio, eHealth, kenya, M-PESA, mhealth, mobile health, Safaricom

Mobile banking has been touted as such a wild success story for one simple reason: mobile phones have penetrated the market in rural areas of developing countries in the last five years more successfully than traditional banks have been able to over the past 100 years. You can travel to any remote village just about anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa and it is rare that you will find a bank; far rarer that you will find an ATM. (I remember waiting three and a half hours to use an ATM once in Namibia.) But you are guaranteed to hear ringtones.

Read More >>



MobileActive.org Releases 'How to Use Mobile for Polling and Engagement'

June 23, 2008 | CorinneRamey
file under:
advocacy, kenya, mobile engagement, mobile polling, polling, sms

MobileActive releases the newest addition to our growing resource hub: Mobile Phones for Polling and Engagement.

Polling via SMS can be a unique way to engage current supporters and attract new audiences. Polls can ask any number of questions, from opinions about an organization to views on a controversial issue. However, perhaps the most valuable aspect of polling isn’t the feedback that organizations receive directly from a poll, but rather the relationships with constituents and growing mobile support base that polls can help build.

Organizations engage in mobile polling for two reasons:

  • to generate a list of mobile numbers to use for future communications and engagement
  • to get an informal sense of constituent views for use on an organization's web site, for generating media coverage, and learn more about a particular segment of its constituency.

Mobile Phones for Polling and Engagement includes a case study of polls conducted by Media Focus on Africa (MFAF) as part of their Election Assistance Campaign, which sought to promote civic participation and discussion of political issues prior to the December 2007 Kenyan elections. Through SMS polling, MFAF asked its constituents some tough questions.

Should politicians accused of corruption be prevented from vying for political seats? Is tribal identity more dominant than the identity of being a Kenyan? Can voting still deliver credible results after the chaotic party nominations and bribery?

The questions were advertised on television, radio shows, and newspaper advertisements. Thousands of Kenyans responded to the polls via SMS on their mobile phones, helping to bring issues of voting and civic participation into the national conversation.

Read More >>



BungeSMS

file under:
advocacy, fahamu, government, kenya, sms, Voting, Democracy, and Civic Engagement
operates in:
Kenya

contact:
http://www.bungesms.com/

From the BungeSMS website:

Bunge SMS is a mobile phone based service by Made in Kenya Network that combines the internet and mobile telephony with the aim of Empowering every Kenyan to influence Local Governance in their Constituencies.

You can report corruption and environmental degradation, influence constituency project choices and monitor development activities.

Send an SMS to 3454 and tell your Member of Parliamnet what he or she must do for YOU.

Demand your share of funds - such as:

Read More >>

References / Past Projects

Bunge SMS is a mobile phone based campaign by Made in Kenya Network that combines the internet and mobile telephony with the aim of Empowering every Kenyan to influence Local Governance in their Constituencies.

The Bunge SMS campaign is also part of the testing of the Mobile Advocacy Toolkit developed by Tactical Technology collective in collaboration with Fahamu. The Toolkit was developed based on input members of the PanAfrican Mobile Activists Network (PAMONet).

The testing of the Mobile Advocacy Toolkit is conducted courtesy of financial support from Hivos and Fahamu.



SMS as Information Channel in Post-Election Kenya

January 21, 2008 | CorinneRamey
file under:
africa, citizen journalism, citizen media, citizen reporting, kenya, m-payments, m-reporting, mobile, sms election

Post-election violence has exploded in Kenya in the wake of the December 27 presidential elections. Ethnic killings -- which today's New York Times suggests may have been carefully planned -- have increased, and estimates of the death toll range from 650 to over 1000. In the midst of this, people both in and outside the country are using mobile phones in innovative ways to communicate political knowledge and circumvent the media blackout.

Read More >>



At Election Time It's Mobile Phone Journalism in Kenya

December 22, 2007 | CorinneRamey
file under:
citizen journalism, citizen media, kenya, mobile media

When most mainstream media report on Kenya's upcoming elections, they focus on the perspectives of people in cities or urban areas. However, since this October citizen journalists using cell phones have reported on news and political perspectives from rural Kenyan communities. A new collaboration between Media Focus on Africa and the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) gives mobile phones to "Community Information Volunteers" to use as a reporting tool.

Read More >>



BloodBank SMS

file under:
health, Health and Medicine, kenya, sms
operates in:
Kenya

contact:
http://eprom.mit.edu/bloodbank/index.php

In Kenya, blood allocated for transfusions is stored in several centralized blood banks throughout the country. The job of a central blood repository is to ensure the dozens of neighboring local district hospitals are always stocked with an adequate amount of blood to meet the transfusion needs in the event of an emergency. However, most of these local district hospitals lack reliable electricity and phone lines.

Without a consistent method of communicating with the local district hospitals, the central repositories are unable to stay updated about where blood is most needed.

Read More >>

References / Past Projects

Bloodbank SMS is a project of EPROM, part of the Program for Developmental Entrepreneurship within the MIT Design Laboratory, which aims to foster mobile phone-related research and entrepreneurship.



M-PESA

file under:
kenya, m-banking
operates in:
Kenya

contact:
www.mpesa.com

M-PESA is a new Safaricom service allowing
you to transfer money using a mobile phone.
Kenya is the first country in the world to use this service, which is offered in partnership between Safaricom and Vodafone.

M-PESA is available to all members of the public, even if you do not have a bank account or a bankcard.

References / Past Projects

M-PESA provides an affordable, fast, convenient and safe way to transfer money by SMS anywhere in Kenya. Through M-PESA you can:
• Deposit money
• Withdraw money
• Transfer money (send) to another M-PESA customer
• Transfer money (send) to someone who is not an M-PESA
customer; in fact they need not even be a Safaricom customer
• Buy Safaricom prepaid airtime
• Manage your M-PESA account (i.e. show balance, call support, change PIN and change language).



Mobile for Good

file under:
Economic Development, helpline, kenya, Multi-Service Community Agency, sms
operates in:
Kenya

contact:
www.mobile4good.com

Mobile for Good (M4G) is a social franchise project designed to use mobile phone technology to help alleviate poverty and improve the lives of people in the developing world. It delivers vital health, employment and community content via SMS on mobile phones in order to inform and empower disadvantaged individuals and help bridge the ‘digital divide’ – the widening technology gulf which exists between rich and poor countries.

References / Past Projects

The Mobile for Good project has already been implemented in Kenya, where it has been instrumental in helping more than a hundred people to find jobs every week. The success of this pilot has driven plans to replicate the franchise in further countries across Africa and the rest of the developing world including Cameroon, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria and Nepal. The team are currently looking for potential franchisees and investors. Please see the Get Involved section for further details.