They recognise the huge influence of community radio in peace building and they are interested in increasing two-way communication with audiences using SMS based interventions such as FrontlineSMS.  In Burundi, Sierra Leone and Liberia, they have linked radio stations to a central editorial office, with an online portal, which has increased their independence and resulted in more accurate, consistent and less biased news stories.  They have also developed a website (radiopeacebuildingafrica.org) to provide resources to community radio including examples of radio programmes on issues surrounding peace-building, podcasts which can be broadcast directly on the radio and a variety of other resources.

They also run a mobile radio programme for University youth in Rwanda, Burundi and DRC, which is streamed through existing radios and focuses on issues including cross border trade, election violence, uniting youth regardless of their political allegiance, good governance and strengthening service delivery.  People can interact with the radio via SMS, email and Facebook, where more in-depth discussions are initiated.

They are also working on a video game which will be used by teachers to explore conflict resolution for primary 4 and primary 5 children in Rwanda and use films to initiate discussions with the military in the DRC around issues relating to human rights, conflict resolution and prevention of gender based violence. In Burundi, they have developed a soap opera aimed at youth which tackles issues such as domestic violence and getting involved in the democratic process.  It is one of the few programmes on TV which stimulates discussion through a hotline and SMS polls and discussion.

Another project involves video clips with famous football teams which tackle corruption issues which is shown on the TV before the news with the aim of influencing decision makers.

They have used the Ushahidi platform (a well-established Kenyan platform which enables citizens to make reports on SMS which are mapped onto Google Maps-a technique known as ‘crowd sourcing’) to report on violence in Liberia and land grabbing throughout East Africa and they are considering using it for issues around oil conflict in Uganda.

I met with Eliachim Ishimwe, Country Manager at Voxiva is an International for-profit with its head office in Washington DC.  They have developed TRACnet which helps government to collect and analyse data related to HIV at the clinic and individual patient level for policy making, monitoring and early warning purposes.  They have also developed systems which enable the national laboratory to send Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) results to health centres by SMS or internet and for surveillance of a wide variety of diseases, which has been implemented in approximately 500 health centres.  Their systems support multiple platforms including Interactive Voice Response (IVR), web and SMS.

They are also working on a more grassroots project, m-Umubima which has trained 60, 000 community health workers to collect data and receive education messages through mobile phones.

Voxiva also developed Esoko, which provides mobile access to agricultural market information and stock counts.  They have launched Text2Quit, which provides mobile support for those trying to quit smoking and Text4babies which provides mobile advice to new mothers.

I’m looking forward to watching the tech4social change space evolve in Rwanda as the local tech community grows and the government implements their well devised ICT strategy.

• Mobile Consortium Ghana hosted one of the country’s first ever events dedicated to mobile app development. Despite some challenges with regard to internet connectivity and the reliability of electricity access, the interest and enthusiasm stoked by Mobile Consortium Ghana has led some large mobile operators and manufacturers to look at the possibility of hosting their own events in Ghana. The increased awareness of and interest in mobile app development has been the biggest success of this project, according to MCG’s Kwesi Eyison:

‘[Our biggest success is] the fact the we were the first to host an event in Ghana primarily aimed at promoting mobile technology and its impact on the community. We managed to get the dialogue of local development into place and now more people are interested in knowing more about the impact of mobile technology.’

• In September, we announced that we were funding Map Kibera Trust to carry out outreach work and create a directory of organisations working in Kibera. One of the things that impressed us then and continues to impress us now is the simplicity of their outreach work. Aware that for many in Kibera internet access is a luxury, Map Kibera Trust have designed a series of offline outreach activities to bridge the digital divide. As well as video screenings and presentations at community meetings, the team will also be handing out paper copies of the maps and creating murals throughout Kibera. For more on how the Trust is reaching out to the people of Kibera, why not take a look at their blog post here?
• Although Project Kopano is yet to start, SHM Foundation are already giving serious thought to documenting its (potential) impact. The project, which seeks to provide young HIV+ pregnant women with an SMS support group made up of their peers, is due to launch in the next few months. On the issue of impact and value-for-money, SHM’s director, Anna Kydd comments:

‘If we can show that the model can have a considerable impact on PMTCT [Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission] rates then we believe that it would be cost effective for government agencies to provide this model to all pregnant women diganosed with HIV/AIDS in South Africa.’

This evidence-based approach to development is one that we wholeheartedly endorse and in times of economic difficulties it’s an approach that has clear and obvious benefits. Only by building up a robust evidence base can organisations and individuals interested in the power of technology for development create a compelling argument for investment in such approaches.

Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) was established in 1997 and is the leading educational institution in Rwanda, training students in computer science.  MIT runs an annual 6 week course in App development and entrepreneurship (approximately 90 students), which students claim transformed their belief in their potential to initiative start-ups and practically apply their ICT skills.  The course culminated in an App contest and some of the most successful concepts were pitched at a conference in Switzerland.

Applications developed include an application helping people position themselves and identify useful services in Kigali, a job search app, an app that maps water availability in the Northern Province and feeds into the water authority and an application helping to connect families and friends separated during the genocide.  There is clearly enthusiasm among the students to develop technology-driven solutions to local issues.

I met with Nic Pottier, CEO and Founder of Nyaruka, a for-profit software company which has helped to build a maternity health system (data collection and analysis, community health worker support). They also built Technoserve’s transparency platform for the coffee sector and have successfully lobbied MTN to open up in order to enable local applications to host on their networks.

Nic is working closely with recent computer science graduates and young entrepreneurs and runs weekly events which provide training, mentorship and business advice.   They have currently brought together all major technology players in the private, not-for profit and government sectors (e.g. Jaiko, Youth ICT Association, The Private Sector Foundation for ICT, Rwanda Software Foundation) and have initiated a working group which is focusing on setting up an innovation hub in Rwanda, called K-Lab.  They have been offered a free space in Telecom House by the government, though the contract is still being finalised.  Its main aim is to strengthen the technology community and stimulate local entrepreneurship in the tech field.  They aim to use a social enterprise model.  I have put them in communication with innovation hub managers across Africa and they have already initiated discussions.  We hope to see Rwanda’s first hacker space in operation soon.

Clarisse Iribagiza is a hugely knowledgeable and passionate KIST graduate who participated in MIT training in software development and entrepreneurship.  She is widely recognised by government for her contribution towards strengthening the tech community in Rwanda.  She was a Pivot 25 finalist and has showcased her work in Geneva.  She runs HeHe Ltd, a private sector mobile application development company, established in August 2010 which has developed a variety of applications including an SMS feedback and content management system for Nike Foundation’s girl hub project, a mobile directory for local businesses and an application which supports people who have lost passports and other crucial identification documents in Rwanda.

She has recently (November 2011) set up an ICT Youth Entrepreneurs Network known as ihills (not for-profit), which aims to strengthen the youth tech community through networking, training, mentorship, access to finance and markets, which has weekly meetings and attracts international mentors.  They hope to empower young technologists to develop predominantly socially focused applications for the local context. Whilst this initiative is new, things are happening fast and the government has been hugely supportive to date.

Lucy Mbazi is a Harvard graduate who has taken a lead in guiding Rwanda’s ICT strategy, working closely with Patrick Nyirishema-Head of ICT at Rwanda Development Board.  Her key contributions were shortening the length of government projects (from 5 to 1-2 years) and evaluating and altering the strategy at the end of projects, ensuring the policy was written entirely by Rwandans for the first time, developing specific indicators, outcomes and implementation plans, setting up continuous monitoring, making the strategy more concise and realistic and setting up a new governance structure.

She has also engaged government with the World Wide Web Foundation, who are trying to develop a three year mobile application training programme (approximately $1 million budget) in Rwanda.  They hope to set up an mLab (incubation lab) and provide support with content development and business support.

She has huge faith in the government and the country’s ICT leadership and praised their commitment to interacting with citizens through ICT.  She believes that local app development is currently limited but has huge potential to improve government dialogue.  One example is an application which has enabled citizens to send questions to government Ministers by SMS, which are channelled to Twitter without the need for citizens to access the internet.  Government has been hugely responsive to the needs of citizens.

Other locally developed applications she highlighted include an application which enables citizens to make appointments at hospitals and for other government services through their mobile phones (a huge time saver), business directories, an application enabling parents to monitor student’s school progress on mobile and an application which gives nutritional advice to those with chronic health conditions.

The technology for social change civil society sector is small in Rwanda, but there is a hugely enthusiastic community, which have excellent ideas about how to move forward and who are really keen to build their capacity, particularly around business development. I hope you enjoy the slideshow above, which shows some of the people who generously gave their time to meet with me as well as the potential space for Rwanda’s first tech innovation hub in Telecom House, K-Lab and the beautiful views from its balcony.

To read more about this story, why not take a look at the Wikimedia press release?

I met with David Kanimugire, ICT advisor to the Minister of Science, Technology and Science Research, who is exploring ways to open up government, in line with the  Open Government Partnership, which supports governments across the world that are interested in the principles of openness, transparency and citizen empowerment and engagement.  David expressed the government’s commitment to these principles, though currently they are still at the conceptual stage of engagement.

I showcased some of our grantees and David was hugely enthusiastic about the concepts presented to him and hopes to pilot several tech for social change projects in due course.

I was also introduced to Patrick Nyirishema, head of ICT at Rwanda Development Board, who is interested in establishing an innovation hub and incubator in Rwanda.  They have already started exploring their role in contributing to this.  He also expressed interest in harnessing the power of technology to stimulate entrepreneurship, particularly targeting women and young people and in using ICTs in education.

I also met with the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) team in Rwanda, who are funded by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation.  The AGI team are working across governmental departments to build strategic and staff capacity and strengthen service delivery.  They take their lead from the government and trust the people they work with.  Their main areas of focus are investment, agriculture, electricity and mining.  They were keen to explore the ways in which technology can contribute towards their aims and other development outcomes, taking The Minister in the Office of the President in charge of ICT, Dr. Ignace Gatare’s lead on which concepts to take forward.

I also met with Paul Kaiser, head of the Democracy and Governance team at USAID in Rwanda which aims to strengthen governance in a number of ways with a particular focus on citizen participation.  They are currently concentrating on land tenure, government capacity building, the private sector and civil society. In addition, they are supporting community radio platforms and access to information.  He believes that government is hugely committed to ending corruption and interventions in this space could be hugely impactful.

I was delighted to take part in such animated conversations with government officials interested in ensuring that Rwanda takes a lead in the field of technology on the continent.

• iCow, one of our most popular grants, has gone from strength to strength over the last 12 months. Not only was it profiled on the BBC back in 2010, it was also voted one of the Best African Mobile Apps by Forbes. It’s not bad going for a small, young start-up. The iCow team have also recently conducted their own survey that shows 40% of farmers using the system have seen an increase in milk yields of 2-4 litres per cow.  Here is just one farmer’s story to come out of the recent survey:

David, a farmer from Bomet County  has six mature cows and four calves. When the iCow team initially spoke to him in August, his cows were producing an average of 14 litres of milk per day. As of January this year, his yield has increased by at least 4 litres, which he sells for 23 shillings per litre. He says iCow has really helped him especially in the area of feeding his dairy cows well and he now has fodder crops.

• During the recent Nigerian fuel subsidy protests, Zubair Abubakar’s Nigerian Constitution App received an estimated 40,000 downloads, causing him to exceed his server’s bandwidth. At present, Zubair is developing the app to work on even more phones and even has plans to develop future versions of the app in multiple languages, thereby making it accessible to those who don’t read English. On a continent with more than 2,000 languages, ensuring equal accessibility for all is a very real challenge and will require some innovative solutions in the years ahead.
• TEDx Dzorwulu, meanwhile, tackled gender stereotypes by hosting their event with a majority female audience. It’s a clear and welcome demonstration that technology, innovation and entrepreneurship are not male-only domains.

This is just a snapshot of responses we’ve received so far and hopefully we’ll have plenty more anecdotes and insights to share over the coming weeks. If you are one of our grantees and haven’t yet filled in the survey, we look forward to hearing from you shortly and finding out how you’ve been getting on.

• Ugatuzi: A budget tracking tool designed by SODNET to enable citizens to engage in public finance management. It provides constituency-level information on projects funded by devolved funds: project timelines, description, project status and multi-year disbursement schedules. It allows organized groups in communities to input comments and identify incidences of corruption and malpractice.
• Huduma: A platform that enables citizens to amplify their voices in the demand for services directly to authorities and service providers. It’s a web and mobile-based platform that aggregates and channels concerns and observations of citizens (SMS, voice, video etc) directly to authorities for redress.
• Uchaguzi: A platform that enables citizens to report any issues surrounding elections and related service delivery concerns directly to election officials, the authorities and the media. Uchaguzi aims to increase electoral transparency and thereby strengthen the democratic process.
• Nanionline: A platform and portal for social movements that will allow them to connect and interact with one another.

It’s with pleasure that we have awarded them a grant of £30,750 to go towards the salary costs of employing an Infonet Development Programme Lead and a Programmer. Both of these posts will allow SODNET to develop the Infonet programme – to expand its reach and improve its efficiency.

Philip Thigo was recently a keynote speaker at Indigo’s Power of Information conference. This is his talk on the importance of democratic transparency and accountability:

£3,000 of the grant will go towards supporting the first of Africa Gathering’s 2012 events, which has already been scheduled for later this month. The event, which will be hosted in the offices of fellow Indigo grantee, HiveColab, ‘will bring together Ugandans who are embracing technology to put their country on the map’. Aimed at a diverse community of people who care about Africa and want to share ideas for positive change in the areas such as sustainable development, new technology, social entrepreneurship, health, education and good governance, this one-day event will be of interest to all those with a passion for grassroots progress, emerging technologies, and development solutions that are relevant to Africa. Having attended previous Africa Gathering conferences, we know that they provide a stimulating and sometimes challenging atmosphere for debate and exchange of ideas. Indigo’s Executive, Loren Treisman, will be moderating the event.

If you are interested in attending the Ugandan event, further information and tickets are available here.

The Harris Family Foundation is currently being formed in South Africa and is managed by Martine Schaffer.  They will be focusing on the ways that digital technologies can be harnessed to improve educational outcomes in South Africa (including early child development).  They are currently piloting a project piloting the use of the Reading Eggs literacy programme.

The Vodacom Foundation in South Africa is head up by Mthobeli Tengimfene.  As well as running a small grant’s programme, which has an online application, they have three flagship programmes:

1)    Using technology as a teacher development tool

2)    Using mobile technology to manage HIV/AIDS

3)    Using mobile based technology to manage gender based violence

They are particularly interested in scalable, self-sustaining projects which have a national focus or concentrate in less well served regions of the country such as the Northern Cape.

The inspiring team at the Praekelt Foundation build open source, scalable mobile technologies aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of people living in poverty.  They’ve developed a wide range of influential products including Young Africa Live, where young people can talk about love, sex, relationships and HIV/AIDs, Ummeli that helps communities create employment opportunities, Vumi (watch this space for more information on this soon), which is a super-scalable conversation engine, Jmbo, which enables you to create, discover and share mobile content through your mobile and txtalert, designed to improve adherence to Anti-Retroviral Treatment.

The team at Praekelt are extremely keen to support organisations interested in developing mobile based projects and can offer advice, support and access to their VUMI platform, which can help projects achieve scalability and reduce the cost of mobile communication by SMS, USSD, star menu and chat.  If you’re interested in getting in touch with them, let me know and I can easily coordinate this.

Mxit is an extremely popular mobile instant messenger and social network that evolves and innovates to enhance the lifestyle of its global community and allows them to chat for free anywhere in the world.  It has a global base of over 43 million users and over 750 000 messages are sent and received per day.  Mxit Reach is their social arm, which aims to create free mobile apps in the fields of basic education, agriculture, healthcare and community initiative.  Applications include a mobile version of Wikipedia, maths applications, counselling platforms, the Fundza literacy platform, BSmrt and the national youth parliament campaign Bokamoso Ba Rona.

Mxit Reach would like to hear from organisations which use mobile applications to make a social impact and are keen to adapt their applications for use on their platform.  It’s simple to do and we will be writing a blog post shortly to tell you how.  Hosting your App on their site is free and I’m happy to put you in touch with them, just ask.

The Shuttleworth Foundation provide fellowships to support innovators focusing on technological innovation, knowledge and learning and who share their value of openness.  They are looking for social innovators who are helping to change the world for the better and provide support through an innovative social investment model.  Current fellows include Gavin Weale who helped to develop Live Magazine, Rufus Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation and Arthur Attwell, who developed a web-based rights market place.  Technology innovators with a groundbreaking concept should consider applying for a fellowship.

I was also fortunate enough to meet with academics at UCT including Ana Deumert.  Ana’s research focuses around language and literacy and she was involved in the evaluation of the Yoza project, which created a series of mobile novels available on Mxit which incorporate social messaging.

I’m happy to make introductions to any of the above organisations or to advice you on how best to approach them.

The site, which is in its early stages and is being supported by the great team at Co-Creation Hub, collects together budget data from various ministries in Nigeria, as well as specific government promises, such as a pledge to build a new factory, overhaul the education system or renovate run-down hospitals. Using the plans, projects, programmes, and promises made by the government as milestones, iWatchLive will measure and highlight how effective government has been in each sector of the economy in terms of achieving the promised growth and development. Citizens will be able to use the site to report back on how much progress has been made towards achieving these goals in their local areas. Using this data, activists will be able to build up a comprehensive picture of the state of service delivery and inefficiency across Nigeria and to hold government to account.

As well as holding government to account, the site’s creator hopes that it will  be used to engage ordinary citizens in politics, stimulate debate and lead to long-lasting change in Nigeria. Clearly, the scale of the problem is immense and it will take a great deal of effort on both the part of government and civil society to change not only the perception of corruption, but also the grim, everyday reality. iWatchLive is certainly a step in the right direction and, we hope, just the first in a series of projects that use technology to hold those in power to account.

iWatch was one of the tech tools showcased at the African Civil Society and Governance Assessment Conference which held in Dakar from Nov 10-12 2011. To read more, click here.