Mobile Database: An ICT4D Archive

809

entries drawn from project reports, articles and case studies collected between 2003 and 2010

100

countries represented with the heaviest concentration in Africa (329 entries) and Asia-Pacific (175)

Entry types

Leading themes

Economic development (268), governance and political participation (127), health (135), human rights (52), conservation (49), agriculture (53) and education (42)

Most represented countries

South Africa (67), India (57), Kenya (46), the UK (28), Uganda (27), the USA (26) and Nigeria (18)

225

entries tagged as global in scope rather than tied to a single region

Ushahidi

The crowdsourced crisis-mapping platform born out of the 2007–2008 Kenyan post-election violence, later used around the world from Haiti to Libya.

FrontlineSMS

Free, offline text-messaging software designed to run from a laptop and a basic GSM phone, giving grassroots organisations SMS capability without the internet.

Cell-Life

A South African mHealth service using mobile phones to support HIV/AIDS patients on antiretroviral treatment, tracked here across three separate database entries as the project evolved.

Grameen Village Phone

The microfinance-and-mobile model that let women borrowers in Bangladesh become their village’s shared phone operator.

SIMpill

A pill bottle that texted a central server every time it was opened, one of the earliest mobile medication-adherence tools.

mPedigree

A Ghana-based service letting patients text a code to verify whether their medicine was genuine or counterfeit.

DrumNet

A Kenyan initiative connecting smallholder farmers to markets, financing and information.

Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE)

A market-information service linking agricultural buyers and sellers on price and supply.

Academic and historical value

For students, historians and international development researchers, the database is an indispensable repository. It aggregates academic articles, field reports and anecdotal data from an era when solid impact metrics for mobile health (mHealth) and mobile banking were difficult to find

Centralised project tracking

It serves as a ‘one-stop shop’ that compiles hundreds of early tech-for-good case studies. These include legendary grassroots innovations such as crowdsourced crisis platform Ushahidi, the microfinance-driven Grameen Village Phone, and our own offline text-messaging software, FrontlineSMS

Cross-sector insights

The database makes it easy to study the foundational architecture of mobile solutions across diverse fields like healthcare (e.g. SIMpill for medication adherence), agriculture (e.g. DrumNet connecting farmers to markets) and product verification (e.g. mPedigree fighting counterfeit medicine)

Journalists and curious citizens

A ready source of background and context for anyone writing about technology and development, or simply wondering how the mobile revolution began in places the headlines rarely reached. Browse by country or theme, then follow each entry to the original source – if it still exists.

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