Category: FrontlineSMS

FrontlineSMS goes MMS!

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It’s been three long years since the idea of supporting multimedia messaging (MMS) within FrontlineSMS was first raised by a handful of users. About a year later, the Hewlett Foundation stepped in and funded its development, excited by its potential in health, agriculture and governance, among others. Today, we’re excited to finally announce MMS support in FrontlineSMS. And it’s something of a game-changer for us and our users.

To quote from today’s Press Release:

The open-source SMS communications platform FrontlineSMS has delivered major new features as part of a new software release today. With this upgrade, FrontlineSMS allows organisations to receive multimedia messages via a standard email account. More complex than SMS messages, MMS can include text, images, video and audio. This is a huge step forward for FrontlineSMS: it opens the door for social and environmental organisations to incorporate photo, audio and video documentation in their work, and it paves the way for innovations like the FrontlineSMS:Medic partnership with Cellophone that will provide medical diagnostics via MMS. With MMS, FrontlineSMS extends its efforts to empower large groups of people to gather and share information of any kind, anywhere there is a mobile signal

For further details, or for tweets, re-tweets and comments on this story, check out the FrontlineSMS Blog.

Please note: From today onwards, all official FrontlineSMS posts and Guest Posts will be posted on the official FrontlineSMS website. Older entries are still available here by clicking on the relevant category to the right.

FrontlineSMS @ Thinking Digital 2010

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“Thinking Digital is an annual conference where the world’s greatest thinkers and innovators gather to inspire, to entertain, and to discuss the latest ideas and technologies”.

FrontlineSMS was invited to give the closing address at the end of the second day of the conference. In this 30 minute video, we talk about innovation more broadly, and our work developing mobile tools specifically for NGOs around the world.

This video is also available on the Thinking Digital website, and the FrontlineSMS Community site. Other videos from the event are available here. Thanks again to Herb and the rest of the Thinking Digital team for the opportunity to present.

Celebrating the “enabling environment”

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“From the palm streets of Sierra Leone to the fireworks of Boulder, we bring you an episode throbbing with life and contemplation. This time our exceptional production team highlight the work of 2010 Unreasonable Fellow Ben Lyon. Ben talks about his company FrontlineSMS:Credit which provides an effective technological bridge between mobile money providers and microfinance banking solutions to deliver state of the art financial services to the bottom of the pyramid consumers”.

This is a great video for a number of reasons. It captures Ben’s vision, ambition and spirit perfectly, and gives him an ideal platform to tell his own story in his own words.

Stories are increasingly important, and this was reinforced recently during my week with National Geographic (who always need more than just solid science to justify a magazine article or TV slot). The best way to resonate with others, and inspire, is to have a story and a passion which resonates and inspires. As Fried and Hansson put it in their recent book, “Inject what’s unique about the way you think into what you sell. Decommoditise your product. Make it something no-one else can offer”.

I met Ben through Josh Nesbit – Executive Director of FrontlineSMS:Medic – last June. That’s a little over a year ago. It’s incredible – and by no means unreasonable! – to see how far he’s got in such a short space of time, and with so little funding and resources (although that is rapidly changing). An early PC World article we pushed out was intended to generate some interest in his idea, but I think what’s happened since has surprised even Ben.

It’s also great to see the kind of support available to budding innovators and entrepreneurs today. When I started out in mobile in 2003 there was little by way of any genuine support network, and it was more a matter of everyone feeling their own way. Organisations such as the unreasonable institute now play an invaluable role identifying and nurturing young talent, and there’s very little doubt that many of the 2010 Fellows have got a great future ahead of them.

The term “enabling environment” may be ambiguous and over-used, but there’s little doubt it could be applied here better than anywhere else.

Related posts:
Mechanics vs. motivation: The two faces of social innovation
Enabling the inspiration generation

Become a FrontlineSMS icon!

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One of the more fun things about sharing our work at conferences, workshops and ICT4D gatherings is witnessing the reaction to our FrontlineSMS “\o/” logo. There’s something of a story behind this, and the badges that we take on the road with us have been enthusiastically gobbled up in their thousands. I will never again doubt the brilliance of the talented people at Wieden+Kennedy.

We’ve also been getting reactions from users in the field, and among our supporters, in the shape of photographs. We’ve got a growing collection, and we’ll soon be updating our Flickr page with the latest additions, and plan to make a short video of the best of them.

If you want to join in the fun, send us photos of you, your family or friends doing the \o/ and you could be a star in the first genuine FrontlineSMS video! Just email them to videopics [at] frontlinesms.com and we’ll do the rest. And if you want to take it a little further, how about trying some fun photos with the FrontlineSMS:Medic and FrontlineSMS:Credit logos? \+/ and \$/?