Welcoming back the Mobile Database

Between 2003 and 2010, kiwanja.net tracked hundreds of early experiments in mobile technology for international development – many before ICT4D was a familiar term – and years before most NGOs had given mobile phones a second thought. Despite its popularity the Mobile Database was ‘lost’ after a website migration, but thanks to advances in AI we’ve now rebuilt it and it is now available once again.

The Mobile Database is a record of an incredibly exciting era – 741 projects, articles and reports gathered from the field spanning health, agriculture, governance, conservation, human rights and more, across more than 90 countries. Crucially, records were stored as PDFs in the knowledge that websites and pages would disappear over time. So, unlike other historical resources, the database remains complete. Some of the tools listed are still household names in the sector. Most were quietly influential and then forgotten. A handful never got past the pilot stage. Together they tell the story of how a whole field of practice got started, one text message, one pilot project and one stubborn idea at a time.

We’re still a little way off recovering the full archive, but as of now the database contains:

• 741 entries drawn from project reports, articles and case studies collected between 2003 and 2010
• 90 countries represented with the heaviest concentration in Africa (293 entries) and Asia-Pacific (162)
• Entry types: 456 articles, 190 reports, 95 standalone projects
• Leading themes including economic development (234), governance and political participation (121), health (126), human rights (49), conservation (42), agriculture (43) and education (34)
• Most represented countries – South Africa (58), India (54), Kenya (36), Uganda (21), the USA and UK (20 each) and Nigeria and Ghana (15 each)

The archive also naturally sorts itself into a handful of recurring subject areas, including:

• Health: From HIV/AIDS treatment support (Cell-Life) to medication adherence (SIMpill) and counterfeit-drug detection (mPedigree)
• Agriculture and markets: Market-information and farmer-to-buyer platforms such as DrumNet, KACE and B2Bpricenow.com
• Governance, rights and crisis response: Election monitoring, human-rights reporting and crisis mapping, including Ushahidi
• Livelihoods and microfinance: Mobile-enabled income and access models such as the Grameen Village Phone programme
• Conservation. Early mobile tools supporting wildlife and environmental monitoring
• Communication infrastructure: SMS gateways and messaging platforms, including FrontlineSMS, that underpinned many of the projects mentioned here

It’s worth remembering that the Mobile Database is a historical archive, not a current directory, so many of the organisations, tools and links are 15 to 20 years old, and some no longer exist in their original form. As a result, please be aware that many of the ‘original source’ links may no longer work.

If you’d like a look then the Mobile Database is available in the menu along the top of the screen, or by clicking here. Remember that we also collected a wide range of early mobile-related photographs. If you’d like a look then you can view the Mobile Gallery on this page.