Category: News

Losing my religion

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It is with a little sadness – but great excitement – that I write this, my last-ever kiwanja.net blog post. As from today the site will no longer receive updates as I take on a new full-time role at Yoti, a London-based startup, as its Head of Social Purpose. It needed a special opportunity to take such a leap, and that’s exactly what I got. (Update: I left my role at Yoti in December 2022).

Fifteen years ago this January I hobbled my way to Cambridge, on crutches after breaking a leg in Nigeria three months earlier, and took on a piece of work I wasn’t sure I could deliver. My concerns were unfounded, and that nine month contract ended up launching kiwanja.net and a lengthy and rewarding career in mobiles-for-development.

Bushbuckridge, South Africa (2003). An early frontier of mobile exploration. Photo: Ken Banks

A guiding principle in everything I’ve done since has been to take on work only if I feel I can add value. This approach, although ethically sound, does come with its challenges and requires a steady stream of engaging work, with a clearly defined role. There’s plenty up for grabs out there but for the most part I can’t see where I can add value – or I disagree with the aims of the work.

Last year was a particularly hectic one but this year has been quite different. While there are plenty of opportunities out there, few make best use of my skills or approach, and many I have issues with (think top-down, inappropriate technology, huge budget, innovation-for-innovations sake, tech-first and people-last, and so on). I find it very hard to motivate myself to do anything when it goes against the very approaches I’ve championed over the last fifteen years or so.

I’d rather have no work than the wrong work, but crucially I now have a young family to support. Lean spells as a consultant don’t cut it any more. Just as in 2012 when I stepped back after building FrontlineSMS from nothing, this year it feels like the universe is telling me something. And when the universe speaks, I listen.

So, as from today I’ll be closing the kiwanja.net chapter of my personal and professional life (I’ve always struggled to separate the two) and will be moving on to a new and exciting role in the corporate sector.

I’m more excited than sad. Sometimes things just run their course and we need to know when to let go. In 2003 I helped launch an amazing conservation portal across the Vodafone network, and since then have consulted with many amazing organisations, worked in many wonderful places with even more wonderful people, developed a (what I still consider) best in class offline mobile tool in FrontlineSMS, lived in a van at Stanford University, published two very well received books, raised lots of philanthropic funds and private investment, spoken at events all over the world, sailed half way around it with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and flown all the way around it with National Geographic Expeditions. And on top of all of that, along the way I’ve won more awards and recognition than I ever imagined possible. Who can look back at all of this with anything other than pride and a sense of joy?

An exciting new journey in digital identity awaits

From Monday I begin the next chapter in my journey as I take on an amazing role at Yoti as their Head of Social Purpose. Yoti have developed a range of digital identity solutions which have enormous global development and social impact potential, and I’ll be working with them to help make sure we make the very best of the opportunity. So, although I’m moving into the corporate world I’ll still be making good use of my decades of experience, and my address book, but doing it from the perspective of a for-profit company with a product rather than an NGO with a grant.

The kiwanja.net website will remain so that my children will get to find out what their father did during the first few years of their lives – and a little bit before – and as testament to a very productive fifteen years of my own life.

As for highlights during those fifteen years, I’d have to say the collection of writing that captures most of my thinking over that time, a recent talk about social change in Munich which explains why development is so personal to me, and a project which turned out to be my last big effort to capture all that’s wrong in our sector, with suggestions on how we might put some of it right. Plus, of course, my talk at National Geographic – a massive privilege and career highlight – in which I shared the making of FrontlineSMS, a project which took up eight years of my life, and which probably saved me.

Collection of writing   |   Buy on Amazon ($1.99)   |   Download free PDF (8 Mb)

Munich talk on paying attention   |   Watch on YouTube   |   Watch on kiwanja.net

A manifesto for change in tech-for-development   |   Hacking Development

Talk at National Geographic   |   Watch on National Geographic   |   Watch on kiwanja.net

So, a very big thank you to everyone who has been a part of my journey, and to all the friends I’ve made along the way. Of course, this doesn’t have to be the end. If you’re interested in the challenges and opportunities for digital identity in global development and social innovation, you’re welcome to join me – check out the Yoti website and my Contact page for details. I’d love to work with some of you again.

See you on the other side.

In celebration of an approach less travelled

I’m in San Francisco this week on a surprise trip to collect an award for a product I designed and built over a decade ago. The fact the early work of FrontlineSMS is still being recognised twelve years on speaks volumes to the approach, and the impact it had – not only in the hands of users themselves, but also in the minds of others looking to apply technology for social good. It struck a chord with an emerging narrative that said we should build appropriate tools that genuinely empowered the people closest to the problem, and that our job was, if anything, to build those tools, hand them over and then get the hell out of the way. If you look at the tweets from the many ICT4D and social innovation conferences today, this remains an approach popular within our sector.

But while tweeting and speaking are one thing, doing is another. Sure, for me this week should be about celebration, but I remain frustrated with a sector which claims to be hungry for learning, and hungry to scale ‘ what works’, yet very little of what made FrontlineSMS successful has been made use of in any meaningful way. This is not just disappointing on a professional level, but a personal one, too.

Nothing quite matches the energy and excitement of grassroots organisations building out their own ideas and solutions off the back of a platform you’ve created. The idea that you might stop what you’re doing and others will continue the work is something we should all aspire to. In the global development sector we call this ‘sustainability’. Yet, how often do we see it?

Nothing quite matches the organic growth that becomes possible when you build genuinely open, empowering platforms. I’m immensely proud of the way our users embraced it, and equally proud of the smart, young innovators such as Josh Nesbit and Ben Lyon who were drawn to our work, and whose early efforts with FrontlineSMS:Medic and FrontlineSMS:Credit lead to the creation of two incredibly exciting and innovative organisations in Medic Mobile and Kopo Kopo. Kevin Starr once told me that he was fascinated by how FrontlineSMS had become an incubator for so many other ideas and initiatives. Sadly I’m not sure what I can point to today that does anywhere near the same thing.

While we were clearly doing something right, funding remained a constant struggle, and the lessons we were learning and sharing were falling on deaf ears. Only two studies of note examined the impact and approach of FrontlineSMS – a paper by Medic Mobile, and a brilliant chapter in Bits and Atoms written by Sharath Srinivasan. For a project which had such a high profile, and one that powered grassroots interventions in over 170 countries, the lack of interest in trying to understand what truly made it succeed is a huge disappointment. After all, as a sector we’re hardly blessed with success stories of initiatives that scale. From what I can tell, the sector is just too busy chasing the next big thing at the expense of existing opportunities right under its nose.

When I look around today, I still see tools being built far away from the problem with little understanding of the users or their context (except for the odd trip some projects take so they can tick the ‘HCD’ box). Challenges and competitions are the new big thing, with entries voted up or down like a beauty competition by others with little idea of the problem or those effected by it. You don’t stop someone on the street and ask for medical advice, so why do the same with an idea to solve a medical problem in a developing country? I recently wrote about the madness of innovation challenges here.

So, as I attend the awards ceremony this coming weekend I’ll quietly thank all those unsung heroes who helped turn FrontlineSMS into the breakthrough story that it first became all those years ago. And I’ll continue to hope that we can be brave enough as a community to work through many of the problems hindering our ability to build yet more tools that genuinely put the power to change in the hands of those who need it most. Unfortunately, experience tells me to not hold out too much hope. 

Eugene L. Lawler Award for our work in mobile

A couple of weeks ago I received the surprising (and wonderful) news that I had been selected as the latest recipient of the Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science. The Award is given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) every two years to a group or individual who has made a significant contribution through the use of computing technology.

The ACM is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. As it does each year, the ACM honours the dedication, talent and achievements of luminaries of the international computing community. Working in diverse areas, the 2016 award recipients were selected by their peers for longstanding efforts that have had far-reaching impact. This year’s ACM award recipients made contributions in areas including computer science education, technology in the developing world, preserving and sharing computing history, and supporting women in the computing field. According to the ACM:

Ken Banks has received the 2016 ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for developing FrontlineSMS, using mobile technology and text messaging to empower people to share information, organize aid, and reconnect communities during crises. Banks saw an opportunity to harness the world’s most-used communication platform – mobile messaging – to help people in the developing world.

The Awards will be presented at a special ceremony in San Francisco in June. You can read more about each of the Award winners on the ACM website, or via the official Press Release [PDF].

Turning point.

I remember that morning well. A week or so earlier I’d been informed via a random phone call that a group of Nigerians would be monitoring their forthcoming Presidential elections using FrontlineSMS. There had been frantic activity ever since, culminating in press releases and text messages with Bill Thompson, emails with Jon Fildes, and a Skype call with Gareth Mitchell – all journalists connected with the BBC. With the election only a couple of days away, the story had to break now else we’d miss the chance and it would no longer be news.

I woke up early, around 5:30am, and headed straight to my office. I was on a Fellowship at Stanford University at the time, and was living in what I jokingly called my ‘Global HQ’. It was, in fact, a 1973 VW camper van which I parked up on the edge of campus. As a result, it was a very short walk to my desk.

Once I got there I went straight to the BBC website and immediately saw the headline. I remember reading the article over and over, excited, nervous and proud and not yet aware of the implications this breaking story was to have on my future, and that of my work.

As far as turning points go, this was a big one. Almost everything that has happened to me and my work since can be traced back to that 5:30am start. I hate to think where I’d be now without it.

You can grab a PDF of the citizen monitoring report that came out of the process here.