Why not SMS in Africa?

I read an interesting post from Steve Song earlier entitled “Why SMS in Africa” which outlines why SMS will remain relevant in the African context for some time to come. I agree with Steve that both IP and non-IP technologies should be considered but want to elaborate on the challenges SMS-based service face.

Naturally, through our work on Mobile Researcher and Mobenzi, we’ve had a lot of technology decisions to make along the way. It goes without saying (although I’ll say it anyway) that I do not believe in a “one technology fits all approach”. SMS is obviously great for ad hoc, instant communication and a range of other communication-oriented tasks. But it falls down in a lot of other, more complex (and sometimes more valuable) scenarios.

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Looking back at 2009

Being the first day of 2010 and with the prospect of returning to work (full time) on Monday, I thought it was a good opportunity to jot down a quick post to reflect on the ups, downs, successes and challenges of the year that has been. (more)

Announcing Mobenzi

For some time, we’ve had an ambition to leverage the platform provided by Mobile Researcher to do more than simply collect data. We felt that the ability for ordinary mobile phone users to download and use the mobile application provided a great opportunity to involve them in something significant. (more)

The origins of Mobile Researcher

Back in 2006, we began work on a solution for conducting surveys using low end mobile phones to assist a South African NGO – the Health Systems Trust – with a rural research project. The solution could not rely on stable network connectivity and needed to support surveys of significant length and complexity. (more)