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It was a long Sunday night for the TechChange Selection Committee. After everybody else was long asleep, brackets printed, hours of analysis on ESPN consumed, and even the angry tweet of Nate Silver had lost its glimmer, the Selection Committee left the nerd attic with a bracket that will make March Madness look like child’s play.

There aren’t a billion dollars online for a perfect bracket. Nobody will emerge victorious with a ring. This won’t affect anybody’s lottery pick.

This is simply for glory.

Over the past year, we have amassed an incredible number of potential band names in our office. With every random utterance of an unexpectedly catchy phrase, somebody yells “Band name!” And the ingenious, or just lucky, speaker gets the enviable task of adding the new band name to the already cluttered wall–basking for a moment in the limelight.

In the spirit of March Madness, we selected the best of the best and placed them in a seeded* bracket. In the end, our highly scientific process created the bracket below.

Help us choose the winner of the Battle of the Band Names by casting your votes below! Each week, we will release a new set of matchups (and an updated bracket) until we find our winner. The winner will become the official band name of the Official TechChange Band.**

The stakes have never been higher.

Make your voice heard.

* We believe our Selection Committee is as qualified, if not more qualified, than the NCAA’s Selection Committee. We would have seeded Louisville much higher.
** We are currently looking for talented guitarists, bass guitarists, drummers, keyboardists, accordionists, singers, songwriters, and woodblock players for our band.

Mercy (pictured with Maeghan Ray Orton from Medic Mobile) at UMCom workshop in Malawi

Posted by TechChange alumnus, Neelley Hicks, ICT4D Director of United Methodist Communications.

Mobile phones seem to be everywhere in Africa, and they’re keeping people in touch with health, education, banking, and community empowerment.

“Email and Facebook are problems…but this text messaging – it’s no problem,” says Betty Kazadi Musau who lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In early August 2013, I spent the week with Mercy Chikhosi Nyirongo, who provides healthcare in communities in Malawi. Recently, she took an online course through TechChange called “Mobile Phones for Public Health.” She wondered what impact mobile phones could have on her health program in Madisi, so she conducted a test.

The problem: HIV+ men were not coming to the support group and health management classes.

The test: Separate into two control groups – one would receive text reminders about the next meeting and the other would not.

The results: Out of the 20 who did not receive text messages, five attended. Out of the 30 who did receive text messages, 25 attended and were standing in queue when she arrived.

One client said, “You reached me where I was.” This isn’t a small thing. Often community health workers walk miles to find someone only to learn they are away. But the mobile phones stay with the person – making them much easier to reach.

Mercy conducted this test directly through her mobile phone and it took her nearly all day. But with FrontlineSMS, she can enter mobile numbers easily for group messaging. She said, “After the online course, the UMCom workshop (in Blantyre), and these conversations, my eyes have become wide open.”

Join us in our next round of Mobiles for International Development and mHealth: Mobiles for Public Health online courses!

To read the original post on Neelley’s blog, “Stories in ICT4D”, please click here.

“By Failing To Prepare, You Are Preparing To Fail.” – Benjamin Franklin.

In the last several weeks, I’ve been learning a lot about emergency response from TC103 facilitator, Timo Luege, who will launch the latest round of the Tech Tools & Skills for Emergency Management online course starting today.

Since I met Timo, I’ve been struck by his calm demeanor and composure, which is a key and necessary trait to sustain a career in emergency management and humanitarian aid in the face of crisis situations. After he shared some good practices for disaster emergency response, I asked him:

“How does one remain so calm when working in a career in disaster response?”

His answer?

Training.

According to Timo, “Training, preparation and having protocols and processes in place for different scenarios are the best guarantee for remaining calm during a crisis. This is especially true for security. There are too many organisations that don’t prepare or support their staff properly and expose them to situations they don’t know how to handle.”

That said, is there enough training in place for emergency managers to have more success in disaster response and resilience for future unforeseen disasters? What have been some of the best emergency management trainings and preparation guides?

What role can technology play in helping to manage disaster response? Looking to learn disaster response tips from professionals who have worked in disaster areas? Sign up now for this 4-week online course on Tech Tools and Skills for Emergency Management, which begins on November 24!

By Taylor Corbett – Data Lead SOS Venezuela, guest speaker of TC105: Mobiles for International Development

On February 12th, Haydee Izaguirre woke up to images of her home country of Venezuela in turmoil. Students, fed up with the country’s record number of homicides, crippling inflation, food shortages, and rampant corruption had taken to the streets in protest. The Venezuelan Government’s response was swift jailing opposition leaders, censoring media coverage, and beating protesters drawing rebukes from the international community. 2,600 miles away Haydee, a US resident and human rights specialist, turned to Facebook and Twitter for updates as government censors tightened their grip. As information became ever more scarce she knew other Venezuelans living abroad were facing similar hurdles. Two days later, fed up with the lack of real news, Haydee took action by starting a Facebook group and webpage dedicated to collecting and sharing updates on what was happening on the ground.

Not knowing what to expect, Haydee went to bed that night with two Facebook followers. The next morning she was surprised to see that number had jumped to 718 followers. Later that evening the number had grown to 10,000. For the remainder of that weekend SOS Venezuela’s Facebook group grew exponentially adding one follower nearly every second. By the weekend’s end Haydee and her sister Cassandra found themselves administering a group of over 73,000 followers. In the three weeks since these numbers have continued to grow to over 190,000 followers from 56 countries. In that time Haydee and her group of 7 volunteers have published thousands of pieces of content generating over 72 million impressions and 1.8 million interactions (likes, comments) with users from 100 countries.

As SOS Venezuela has grown it’s mission has shifted from being a platform for information sharing to activism. Today, SOS Venezuela’s primary function is to generate worldwide awareness about the student movement’s goals and grievances. As SOS has grown it has become a safe place for Venezuelans and the global community to voice their opinions through the sharing of photos, videos, media and op-ed pieces.

Asked to join the team early on as SOS Venezuela’s Data Lead I’ve had the opportunity to watch our viral growth through the lens of social media metrics. Three weeks in, there are many interesting lessons about SOS Venezuela’s success that can be gleaned from these numbers, but the most significant are the following:

Seeing the Demand – While we would like to attribute SOS Venezuela’s initial viral growth to our social media savvy the truth is more simple. Our success can first and foremost be attributed to Haydee’s ability to see where there was a strong demand for greater coordination and her willingness to fill that void. After starting the group Haydee put an emphasis on sharing relevant content giving SOS Venezuela legitimacy with key stakeholders in Venezuela and their supporters abroad. While SOS Venezuela has been made possible by the contributions and commitment of our team, truth is, nearly anyone with the foresight and willingness to act could have found themselves in our position.

Map of Followers by Country

Beyond “Like-tivism” – These metrics also show that SOS Venezuela’s success has been driven by promoting opportunities for action. Over the last three weeks SOS Venezuela has publicized over 355 rallies in 254 cities around the world that have drawn thousands, if not tens of thousands, of supporters. In addition, SOS Venezuela has set up processes through which followers can contact elected representatives in 17 countries to express their support for the protests. Finally, SOS Venezuela has requested and received hundreds of photos of support from individuals around the world (some pictured above) making it a source of moral support for protesters in the streets.

Content & Coordination – Finally, SOS Venezuela’s success has been driven by its content and team. As SOS Venezuela grew Haydee reached out to friends and volunteers to whom she delegated key tasks allowing SOS Venezuela to grow more quickly. Today our team has grown to be comprised of 7 volunteers, each managing one aspect of SOS Venezuela’s operations. Through the use of open source tools (Google Docs, Google Fusion Tables, Google Translate, etc) we’ve been able to remotely collaborate to collect, organize, and publish thousands of pieces of content gleaned from the media and SOS Venezuela’s followers. Without the support of these volunteers and platforms we would not be able to continuously engage our followers with new information and opportunities for action.

As the protesters march on we continue to look for new ways to meaningfully engage with our users to raise awareness and promote action for a safe, prosperous, and just Venezuela.

If you would like to learn more about SOS Venezuela, you can connect with them via:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/sosVenezuela2014
Twitter – https://twitter.com/sosvenezuelain
Instagram – http://instagram.com/sosvenezuelainfo

Interested in this topic and Social Media for Social Change? Sign up now for our upcoming course on Social Media for Social Change.

The Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame is launching a pilot initiative with TechChange to experiment with blended learning online and offline on the topic of mHealth: Mobiles for Public Health. As part of Notre Dame’s continuing experiments of best practices in online and hybrid learning, this initiative of the Master of Science in Global Health program will be combining an on-campus class on mHealth taught by Professor Joseph Bock with TechChange’s mHealth online course. According to Dr. Bock, “This pilot course is an exciting initiative and we are eager to promote it.”

Notre Dame’s Master of Science in Global Health program is sponsoring 11 students and program directors to join TechChange’s mHealth online course in conjunction with Professor Joseph Bock’s face-to-face offline mHealth class, which aims to equip students with technical knowledge to apply mobile and Information Communications Technology (ICT) for global health challenges. The school will be receiving data on the students’ participation on the course platform from TechChange, which along with their written assignments for the Master of Science in Global Health class, will factor into determining the students’ grades. As the students will be logged in and participating in TechChange’s online learning platform, Professor Joseph Bock will be meeting in person with the students weekly to discuss the content on the TechChange mHealth course and the professor’s assignments.

In partnership with the mHealth Alliance, TechChange has offered this mHealth: Mobiles for International Development online course four times since 2012. The course, which has been mentioned in the New York Times, has welcomed over 450 doctors, nurses, community health workers, and global public health experts who regularly participate in this online course from over 75 countries. Participants have included representatives of organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Medicin Sans Frontieres (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Cleveland Clinic, Global Health Corps, officials from ministries of health of several countries, and many more.

Notre Dame’s MS in Global Health students have been enthusiastic about beginning the mHealth course, which will run March 31 to April 25, 2014 – just before final exams and before the students travel abroad to pursue summer global health field and research projects. Several students plan on tying in their mHealth online learnings into their planned field work after this semester, including Michael Clark, who believes this mHealth course will help focus his current project to track mosquito-borne disease in Belize using a mobile database platform by meeting other global mHealth practitioners in the online class.

“The mHealth course will help focus my efforts in Belize as it teaches best practices learned through collaboration with local partners across the world,” says Michael Clark. “Further, I look forward to the invaluable tips for implementing ICT4D in previously technology-deprived areas, like rural Belize, that the expert lecturers and current global health practitioners will be able to provide.”

Jingmeng Xie plans to build upon her past experience at a Nairobi maternal health clinic (a Ford Family Program) by applying the content she learned in the mHealth classes to explore the roles mobile technology can play in public health. The MS in Global Health students, through the mHealth initiative, are diving deeply into the role that mobile data collection, electronic health records, and Information and Communications Technologies can promote better health for populations even in the most remote areas in the world. Another student, Thomas Ulsby, is preparing for his summer research trip to India where he hopes to learn how electronic reporting of blood glucose levels via mobile phones has impacted treatment plans for type I and type II diabetes.

We’re very excited to welcome these students from the University of Notre Dame and can’t wait to see how they’ll be applying their experience in mHealth to their summer field projects in India, Belize, Kenya, and beyond!

Interested in learning about mHealth this spring as well? Register now for our mHealth: Mobiles for Public Health online course.

By Timo Luege, TC103: Tech Tools and Skills for Emergency Management facilitator

Working in humanitarian aid and disaster relief across several countries, I first joined the TechChange community as a student in the Tech Tools and Skills for Emergency Management online course in January 2012, and will soon be guiding discussions as a facilitator for the next round of the course that begins March 17, 2014. Since TechChange has offered this emergency management course six times since 2011, I’ve enjoyed stepping up my participation from student, to guest speaker, tech simulation demonstrator, to now a facilitator.

In my opinion, disaster management is a field where nobody is really an expert in that different people have varied areas of expertise. A facilitated TechChange course like TC103 is an opportunity to get people of different backgrounds together, which is especially valuable in a field like disaster management, which evolves so quickly and can be tough to keep track of.

Here are five lessons I have learned over the course of seven years of working in disaster response across Haiti, Liberia, Myanmar, Mali, and most recently the Philippines:

During radio programmes like this in the Philippines, disaster responders explained what assistance the survivors could expect in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. Listeners submitted questions by SMS and via Facebook. Photo credit: Timo Luege

1. Build relationships early

Emergencies are not the right time for experiments. In the first phase of an emergency, disaster responders easily work 16 hours per day, seven days a week. This is not the right time to introduce new tools, unless they are an immediate time saver. If you are a technology firm, try to build relations with organizations before the next big disaster. Three months after the onset of a disaster can also be a good time to make contact, because at that stage, people have a little time to breathe but the needs are still huge.

Typhoon Haiyan was deadly in two ways: what the wind couldn’t destroy, the storm surge would flatten. Along the coast houses many houses were completely pulverized and cars thrown around like toys. Photo credit: Timo Luege

2. Buy smartphones for your staff

Smartphones are amazing mobile tools that can do everything from taking photos to replacing paper forms to saving GPS information; however, many organizations still shy away from putting them into the hands of their staff. A basic, but functional, unlocked Android smartphone costs less than $80 USD in some of the more disaster prone parts of the world, and will save you many times that amount of money in gained productivity. Just think of all the paperforms you don’t have to manually enter.

Survivors tried to salvage as many building materials as possible, including wood, corrugated iron sheeting and even nails so that they could repair their homes as quickly as possible. Photo credit: Timo Luege

3. Use tools that the affected population is familiar with

Information is critical for disaster affected people and they are eager to hear what is going on – even if it is bad news. Don’t try to impose your technology of choice on the affected people – find out what works for them. In one country it might be SMS, in another Facebook and in a third it will be old fashioned radio broadcasts or a combination of the above. As an organization, when designing your programmes, don’t focus on the tools but on what you want to achieve.

Even concrete houses like this could not withstand the force of the storm surge and were completely annihilated. Typhoon Haiyan damaged or destroyed close to 1.1 million homes. Photo credit: Timo Luege

4. Make sure the tools you use work offline

Even in a country like the Philippines, where the infrastructure is comparatively good, access to the web will be spotty, particularly after a big disaster like the recent Typhoon Haiyan. Apps and browser-based tools that require you to save information online will only frustrate you. Make sure that whatever tool you are planning to use allows you to save information offline and synchronize later.

In Tacloban, a number of large ships were washed ashore by the typhoon. The survivors used the generators on some of these boats to supply them with electricity. Photo credit: Timo Luege

5. Learn Excel

While many new technologies are more sexy and exciting, Excel is the universal language of data during an emergency. Everybody is using it. The more you know about Excel and the better you are able to import data coming from Excel files, the more information you will be able to access, process and analyze and the better your understanding of the situation will be.

Have you worked in emergency management? What are tech tools that you found useful during that disaster?

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Interested in learning more? Enroll now in the Tech Tools & Skills for Emergency Management online course, which runs November 24 – December 19, 2014.

About the TC103 facilitator: Timo Luege

After nearly ten years of working as a journalist (online, print and radio), Timo worked four years as a Senior Communications Officer for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva and Haiti. During this time he also launched the IFRC’s social media activities and wrote the IFRC social media staff guidelines. He then worked as Protection Delegate for International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Liberia before starting to work as a consultant. His clients include UN agencies and NGOs. Among other things, he wrote the UNICEF “Social Media in Emergency Guidelines” and contributed to UNOCHA’s “Humanitarianism in the Network Age”. Over the last year, Timo advised UNHCR- and IFRC-led Shelter Clusters in Myanmar, Mali and most recently the Philippines on Communication and Advocacy. He blogs at Social Media for Good.

Last week, the Mobile World Congress 2014 welcomed the most influential mobile carriers across the world that are shaping the future of mobile, especially for populations who are new mobile consumers. Looking back at some of the news coming from the mobile phone industry’s largest annual event, we examine the key takeaways from this year’s MWC that will impact not just emerging markets, but also developing countries.

1. Facebook wants to bring low-cost or free internet access to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. According to the New York Times, “For Facebook, poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America represent the biggest opportunity to reach new customers, though it must figure out how to get people there online at a low cost.”

Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp is linked to the social media company’s larger Internet.org initiative to partner with tech companies to have more people across the world, especially in developing countries, to be able to access the internet with a smartphone. Facebook has announced that it wants to partner with five more companies across emerging markets in 2014 to continue this Internet.org initiative.

2. Mozilla’s $25 smartphone will make mobile internet access more affordable. The Mozilla Foundation has joined forces with a Chinese chipmaker, Spreadtrum Communications, to introduce a mobile device that will be sold for only $25 later in 2014. By offering this smartphone at a price point significantly lower than other major players in the smartphone market, Mozilla is aiming to cut into the smartphone dominance of Android and Apple iOS, and looking to take smartphone market share in Latin America and Africa.

3. Mobile money is growing rapidly. In a report launched this week at the Mobile World Congress, GSMA announced that mobile money reached 61 million consumers in 2013. According to the report, “At the end of 2013, nine markets, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, already had more mobile money accounts than bank accounts, compared to just four markets last year.” Mobile money is resulting in more financial inclusion across the developing world. Looking for an intro to mobile money? Check out our free self-paced online course on mobile money here.

4. mHealth innovations for developing nations will continue to be mostly SMS-focused in the short-term. Samsung demonstrated it is moving deeper into the mHealth and wearable technology industries with last week’s launches of the Galaxy S5, which can monitor heart rate, and the Gear Fit. As we’ve seen with our earlier post with Text to Change on using mobiles for social change in developing countries, mHealth still has a long way to go in developing countries with simple SMS campaigns. Until these cheaper smartphones become more accessible to more consumers along with reliable internet connectivity as Facebook and Mozilla at MWC 2014 may promise, mHealth in developing countries will continue to focus more on text messaging.

3G Doctor shared this helpful mHealth Guide to the MWC2014. If anyone was able to attend any of these events, please share with us any insights you learned!

Interested in Mobiles for International Development and mHealth? Join our upcoming mHealth online course, which runs March 31 – April 25, 2014.

As Syria’s civil war draws close to its third anniversary, actionable data for foreign aid workers remains scarce. Although the conflict has seen the birth of civilian reporting agencies (warning, graphic content) which have uploaded more YouTube videos than CBS News, CNN, Fox News, ABC News and the Associated Press combined, basic questions about where humanitarian aid is most needed and which delivery routes are safest remain unanswered.

It was this lack of information that drew Caerus Associates to partner with First Mile Geo to research opinions about living conditions, safety, and resource access from residents in Aleppo, Syria. Formerly the source of 35% of Syria’s manufactured goods, Aleppo has become a major conduit for humanitarian aid crossing the border to Syria from Turkey. Working with teams based on the ground in Syria, Caerus Associates and First Mile Geo were able to obtain essential data from each of Aleppo’s 56 neighborhoods. The study represents the single most detailed project conducted on the Syrian conflict, showing time-series data with neighborhood-by-neighborhood results over a period of four months.

Field teams conducted bi-weekly data collections on the locations of roughly 180 security checkpoints, as well as the conditions of bakeries throughout the city. Field teams also collected data about political perceptions, service access, and the presence of key groups on a monthly basis. The result is a collection of highly detailed maps that show everything from the price of bread in a neighborhood to the presence of armed groups. Of course, maps and data need to be accompanied by analysis and context, which are provided in an accompanying report that shares just a few of the following key findings:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Al-Qaeda affiliated group is taking over Aleppo. While ISIS was a marginal player, controlling only one neighborhood in September of 2013, it now controls 10 neighborhoods – more than any other than any other armed opposition group in Aleppo. ISIS’ reputation for kidnapping aid workers and disrupting humanitarian operations make the neighborhoods it occupies in the east of Aleppo particularly dangerous to access.

The Syrian Government may be actively restricting basic services to opposition-held neighborhoods in Aleppo. Residents who participated in surveys conducted with First Mile Geo reported an average of 6 hours per day of electricity in opposition-held neighborhoods, while those living in government-held areas reported an average of 12 hours per day. Additionally, more than 40% of bakeries – a key source of food in opposition-held Aleppo are closed compared to just 10% of bakeries in government-held areas. The study confirms what many in the humanitarian-aid communities have feared since the beginning of the conflict: the most inaccessible areas of Aleppo are also the ones most in need of humanitarian assistance.

First Mile Geo worked with organizers on the ground in Aleppo to survey which bakeries (bread that bakeries produces is a staple food in Aleppo) were still functional.

Lastly, there is little consensus among Aleppines regarding who is the legitimate representative of Syrians. While the just 12% of Syrians felt that the Assad regime was legitimate, less than 2% of the participants said that the Syrian opposition (the “Etilaf”) represented the Syrian people. The majority of Syrians felt that “No One” represented them. Most importantly, these opinions were held evenly across all neighborhoods and did not correlate with whether whether or not a resident lived in a government or opposition-held area. Without a strong mandate from the Syrian people, it’s unclear what (if any) influence is wielded by parties negotiating for peace in Geneva.

Beyond providing key insights about realities on the ground in Aleppo, this study also highlights the importance of geographically oriented information. Even within the geography of one city, the disparities between basic services and safety can vary dramatically between neighborhoods and even city blocks. As developing countries continue to urbanize at a rapid pace, geographic methods such as those used by First Mile Geo will continue to grow in importance for humanitarian organizations looking vulnerable populations.

Interested in digital mapping of Syria or other challenging contexts in international development? Sign up now for our upcoming Mapping for International Development online course which runs May 26 – June 20, 2014. Would you like to access First Mile Geo’s data for your own use? Read their blog post to learn more.

Earlier this week, Georgetown University announced the launch of its brand new Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation.

This 10-million dollar center funded by Georgetown alumni, Alberto and Olga María Beeck, aims to inspire and prepare students, faculty, and global leaders with the necessary skills to generate and innovate solution-based world change. The Beeck Center actively promotes a policy-relevant, cross-disciplinary approach to research, ideas, and action. The Center’s approach hopes to challenge common assumptions and lead to ideas and actions that are creative, adaptive, and morally grounded. Planned initiatives include: workshops, speaker event series, social innovation fund, fellows program, social impact lab, and research and policy initiatives.

At the center’s opening event on February 11, the Beeck Center welcomed leading experts in the Social Innovation space such as Pam Omidyar (Co-Founder, Omidyar Network and Founder, HopeLab), Jean Case (Co-Founder and CEO, Case Foundation), and other leading experts on design and storytelling for advocacy. The reception’s closing remarks were by the Center’s Executive Director, Sonal Shah, whose brings leadership from her wealth of experiences at the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, Google.org, Goldman Sachs, the Center for Global Development, the U.S. Department of Treasury, and other organizations.

We had the chance to talk to some of the students already involved with the Beeck Center from across Georgetown University who shared their work in social innovation across the world, from the GU Impacts Fellowship program to the SIPS Fund.

A Georgetown student shares her stories from her GU Impacts program field experience in South Africa.

Georgetown sophomore, Naman Trivedi, discusses projects that have been funded through the student-run Social Innovation Public Service (SIPS) Fund; the Fund has given out grants ranging from $300 to $13,000 for projects here in DC and as far away as Nepal.

If you missed the Beeck Center’s launch event, you can check out the recorded webcast here.

Social innovation can come from anywhere, whether it is from individuals dedicated to public service, social entrepreneurs, or social intrapreneurs working at companies, multilateral organizations, non-profits, or government agencies. We can’t wait the see the impact on the world coming from institutions such as the Beeck Center and are very excited for this welcome addition to the social innovation community.

According to Mark Hanis, Director of the Beeck Center,

“We’re delighted to be working with TechChange, who is a prime example of the type of B Corps social enterprises that we want to foster at the Beeck Center. Like TechChange, Georgetown has always leveraged technology for social change, and Georgetown students are eager to pursue careers that involve a double bottom line business model like TechChange’s. Part of Beeck’s unconventional approach will be grounded in social intrapreneurship as an important component of the social change ecosystem because we often work with larger entities like government, NGOs, and multinational corporations. Ultimately, intrapreneurship is about teaching people how to be more effective in inspiring positive change.”

To help welcome members of Beeck Center community, we’re offering a $100 discount to Beeck affiliated organizations and individuals to join our upcoming Social Intrapreneurship course, which begins in on February 24! Use coupon code: DriveImpact before February 21 to get $100 off the course!

Posted by Arjen Swank from Text to Change, guest speaker for TC105: Mobiles for International Development

Since 2008, Text to Change (TTC) has been working to provide and collect real-time and accurate information using mobile devices in relevant and meaningful ways to people in developing countries all over the world. As the mobile phone has reached even the most remote places across the world, we have seen how mobiles can empower citizens of developing nations.

Through our experience in partnering with development bodies, NGOs, private companies, governments and other global organizations, there are several key lessons we’ve learned in using mobile phone technology to achieve social change and work to limit continuous dependence on foreign aid.

Here are some of the key insights TTC has learned for best practices for Mobiles for International Development:

1. Keep it simple

One of our Text to Change’s guiding principles is to maintain simplicity in the services we develop and the technologies we use. Our campaigns can reach everyone who has access to a mobile phone, approximately 80% of the developing world. We provide profiled databases, call centers with research capability, and text message platforms that are interactive, easy to use, scalable, and cost-effective – all supported with measurable results.

2. SMS campaigns can reach more people

When TTC worked with the Tanzanian Ministry of Health, they wanted to provide pregnant women, even in the most isolated areas, with important information regarding their health. The goal was to empower them to take the necessary steps for a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. However, they weren’t able to reach them. TTC launched a large-scale nationwide mHealth SMS campaign targeting these women. Within three months we had 100,000 unique participants. Now the total amount of participants is almost half a million and as we speak there are 260.000 unique participants.

TTC programs create opportunities for people to improve their lives and have reached millions of people across 17 countries in Africa and South America. We help organizations to connect with their, often hard to reach, target groups and create meaningful dialogues.

3. Personalized interaction matters

Because this maternal health campaign was interactive, we were able to determine in what phase of their pregnancy these women were. This way, we could provide them with the right personalized message at the right time. For instance mothers are reminded that they need to visit the clinic for their third ANC visit, when and what medicine to take, or receive information on hygiene and nutrition in a specific week after the delivery. The information can be updated based on inputs from the users or clinic staff, but users can also opt-out or re-opt-in when they (no longer) want to receive the messages.

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Want to learn more about Text to Change and how they’ve implemented SMS programs successfully throughout developing countries? Enroll now in mHealth: Mobiles for Public Health and the next round of Mobiles for International Development an online course that will discuss how mobile phones are being used to improve the health of new mothers, share farming best practices, and teach within and outside the classroom across the world.