kiwanja.net launches the new FrontlineSMS

ICTs in general 1 Minute

This is something I rarely do – plug a product. But my friend Ken Banks has something special with FrontlineSMS and I encourage you strongly to try it out. 

I’ve played with the beta and written about it (in sum, not a very positive experience) but Ken assures me that the feedback received from the beta testing stage has been incorporated into the final product. Importantly and excitingly, FrontlineSMS now runs natively on OS X and Linux, which means that I don’t have to use Bootcamp anymore to use this. 

For over a year now I’ve been following Ken’s work with FrontlineSMS and frankly, it’s been an inspiring story. In a conversation with Colin Rule in October last year, Ken Banks explains the raison d’etre of FrontlineSMS. Having already proven itself in Pakistan at the worst of times amongst many other places, the new avatar of FrontlineSMS with its multi-OS client will be a tool that drives SMS advocacy and strategic communications via mobiles, including that which I have written about earlier as the development of m-government services.

The Press Release of the new version of FrontlineSMS is here. Go to the FrontlineSMS website here. 

I’m looking forward to using the new version and will put a post in the coming months with my experiences of using it for my work in Sri Lanka. 

Published by Sanjana

An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, I have since 2002 used, studied and advocated Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, human rights & democratic governance. I founded in 2006 and till June 2020 edited the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first civic media website. From 2002-2020 I was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. I pioneered both the use of social media for activism and online citizen journalism/civic media in Sri Lanka, including setting up South Asia's first Twitter and Facebook accounts for civic media, in 2007. Having started digital security training for human rights activists in 2010, I continue to advise civil society on digital hygiene, mass and personal surveillance, privacy and secure communications to date. I also curate a comprehensive digital archive of material linked to peace and conflict in Sri Lanka, since 2002. I specialise in, advise and train on social media communications strategy, countering-violence extremism online, web-based activism, online advocacy and grounded, context-based, platform-specific social media research. My work experience over two-decades spans five continents. Through the ICT4Peace Foundation and since 2006, I help strengthen information management during crises and work on countering violent extremism online. For over a decade, this included leading the Foundation's work on these lines with the United Nations and other multi-lateral organisations involved in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. Since 2008, I have worked in South Asia, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Balkans to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts. I completed doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, looking at the symbiotic relationship between offline unrest and online instigation of hate and harm in Sri Lanka and, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, facilitated by leading research based on New Zealand's first ever Data for Good grant by Twitter.

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8 thoughts on “kiwanja.net launches the new FrontlineSMS”

  1. Thanks for picking up and posting this, Sanjana

    As you rightly mentioned, the early Beta you reviewed was a VERY early Beta, and we’ve come a long way since then. It’s been a long and in some cases challenging process, but the new version is already out there and already creating positive change. See a post from my Blog this morning:

    http://www.blogspot.kiwanja.net/2008/06/frontlinesms-takes-on-rural-healthcare.html

    There will be further work needed on this, and the growing user base will become increasingly important in helping us identify issues and future enhancements. There are plenty of places this can go, and we already have a small but growing community on the FrontlineSMS website.

    Looking forward to seeing how you can make use of it in your work. I’ll be in touch re: the Mac build!

    Cheers for now.

    Ken

  2. Sanjana – can you try the newly released version and do a write-up for MobileActive? We are getting flak for the beta review, though my trials with Frontline (the new release) mirror yours from your beta trials. Would love an update, when you have a chance.

    And on another note — are you coming to South Africa, mobileactive08? I have not seen a session submission from you yet but I hope you will? We have travel support available. Looking forward to finally meeting, I hope!

    Katrin

  3. Hi Sanjana

    From some of the comments in the FrontlineSMS Community, we’ve clearly made considerable strides over the past couple of months or so with the software. Naturally the Forums are dominated by people who have needed help of some kind, but we’ve managed to very quickly get almost everyone up and running.

    I don’t know what experiences Katrin has had since she hasn’t made any comments or sought help in the Forums, where everyone else is going. There are also comprehensive help files included in the software, which have helped many people around some initial challenges, and I don’t know if she is consulting them. The idea of the Forum is that problems can be shared, and other users can benefit from seeing the solutions.

    Many people don’t have problems, and just get up and running straight away. Sadly we don’t always get to hear from them.

    It’s just worth making the point that FrontlineSMS will never be finished, but will be work in progress for many years to come. This second release is a major step from the first, but we still have a long way to go.

    Take it easy.

    Ken

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  7. Ken Banks will be presenting at the Mobile Monday event “Mobile for Development” in Geneva June 8, 2009. If you want to find out more about frontlineSMS and other Mobile applications for helping developing countries please feel free to come along to our event. for details see http://www.mobilemonday.ch.

  8. Ken Banks will be presenting at the Mobile Monday event “Mobile for Development” in Geneva June 8, 2009. If you want to find out more about frontlineSMS and other Mobile applications for helping developing countries please feel free to come along to our event. for details see http://www.mobilemonday.ch.

    John

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