Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from kiwanja.net featuring the many ways mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. This article was curated by Gabrielle Lepore, our Media and Research Assistant.

By Chloe Lew

Yesterday I googled “safer sex.”

You’ve possibly done it too. Most people have. Perhaps you wanted to double check something that your friends were talking about or maybe you were simply curious about an aspect of your own health and didn’t want to navigate a face-to-face discussion.

While sex permeates many aspects of our lives, including health, relationships, self-esteem and gender dynamics, it is still a sensitive and often uncomfortable subject. For topics such as sex, the Internet is particularly useful. One of its unappreciated beauties is that you don’t need to endure the discomfort of an in-person conversation. Instead, you can investigate your concerns and questions in private. After all, your search engine can’t judge you.

But how do you get the answers you need when you don’t have Internet access?

In January 2012 I moved to Nicaragua to serve as a reproductive health educator with Peace Corps. During my training a fellow volunteer suggested that one of our roles as volunteers was to serve as Google for our communities. At first I found this idea slightly condescending – I don’t have all of the answers. But then I understood his point. In more-developed countries people are used to finding answers to intimate questions independently. However, in a country like Nicaragua, where only 10.6% of the population have Internet access most people do not have the luxury of finding immediate answers to more embarrassing inquiries in an anonymous manner.

In smaller communities the reality is that the public health system is not easily accessible. This is due to a number of barriers, including geography, socioeconomics and culture.  Additionally, generations of cultural beliefs have led to the perpetuation of false information. Getting correct answers to sensitive questions generally requires a face-to-face conversation, and in small communities this usually involves friends, family, or both – even in the medical center. Anonymity is rare and pena, meaning embarrassment, shame, or shyness, is abundant.

Pena is particularly extreme in Nicaragua where machismo, or macho culture, is rampant. Machismo helps to propagate the perception that a woman who inquires about her sexual reproductive health (SRH) or asks for condoms is promiscuous or unchaste. As such, pena, along with other barriers, is one of the greatest impediments to the dissemination of and access to scientifically correct SRH information, and the consequences are quite evident.

Nicaragua has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Central America. Approximately 1 out of 4 adolescent girls will become pregnant before they reach the age of 19. Another frightful statistic is that nearly 48% of women who are married or in a union are affected by gender-based violence, which, according to World Health Organization, is 57 times higher than what is considered an epidemic (Nicaraguan Dispatch, 17 Oct. 2012).  Although historically Nicaragua has had the lowest rate of HIV infections in Central America, the annual incidence of registered cases of HIV has tripled in the past six years.

Like everyone, Nicaraguans have questions about their SRH and want to make informed decisions. While Google is not an accessible or familiar resource to those living without the Internet, Peace Corps volunteers have identified a different tool that can help Nicaraguans bypass the “pena barrier” that needs no cultural adoption – the cell phone.

A young boy gets cell phone service out in the mountainous municipality of Rancho Grande, Matagalpa, Nicaragua. Photo: ChatSalud

Cell phones are one of the most ubiquitous and transformative agents of social change ever. The reality is that, in Nicaragua, more people have access to cell phones than to indoor plumbing or electricity. According to the International Telecommunications Union, in 2011 82% of the Nicaraguan population had a cell phone, with coverage in 151 out of the 153 municipalities – and these numbers have only been increasing. Nicaraguans rich and poor, from city centers and rural mountains, with and without access to running water, all have cell phones and use them daily.

If people can text “amor” to 3766 to discover who the love of their life will be, why can’t we also harness the power of cell phones to disseminate vital SRH information and resources to those who need and want it most? After months of discussing various strategies for using cell phones to deliver health messages, Peace Corps volunteers and their Nicaraguan colleagues settled on a platform: ChatSalud.

ChatSalud, an SMS-based sexual and reproductive health hotline, is the first of its kind in Nicaragua. The goal is to empower Nicaraguans to lead healthier, safer, and more productive lives by providing correct SRH information and connecting them to local resources in a free, confidential, reliable, and accessible manner, directly to their cell phones.

The Peace Corps members of the ChatSalud team from left to right: Talia Langman (Peace Corps Volunteer 2012-2014), Danny Murphy (2007-2010), Jessica Bixby (2012-2014), Lauren Spigel (2011-2013), Gabe Goffman (2011 -2013), Nishant Kishore (2011-2014) and Chloe Lew (2012-2014) . Photo: ChatSalud

Using FrontlineSMS, a free, open-source software, we have been able to leverage its auto-response function to create a platform that will deliver culturally sensitive and contextually correct information on five central themes – reproductive health, safer sex, HIV/AIDS, STIs and domestic violence. The system is entirely demand-driven and interactive, with users able to select which theme to explore and from there select the information he or she wants to receive.

For example, a 16-year-old girl living in a rural community thinks she is ready to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time.  She is too scared to ask her parents for advice and is uncomfortable broaching the subject with the doctor at the health center since he also lives in her community. She decides to text ChatSalud for information on safer sex and condom negotiation. She begins by texting “info” to ChatSalud and automatically receives a text in response that contains a menu of informational categories. The menu says “Text 1 for HIV”, “2 for STIs”, “3 for safer sex” and so on. She texts “3″ and educates herself about how to protect her health and avoid an unwanted pregnancy. After receiving the interactive automated messages, she feels more confident about negotiating condom use with her boyfriend and about protecting herself from an unhealthy relationship.

From teenage girls approaching their first sexual relationships to men wanting more information on STIs after noticing a potential symptom, to women concerned about the cycle of violence who are looking for domestic violence resources in their communities, ChatSalud is a resource for all Nicaraguans.

Since its inception, ChatSalud has grown substantially both in scope and in support. The project has received tremendous interest from the public and private sectors in Nicaragua. Almost entirely funded by local in-kind contributions, the project is low-cost and will be free to Nicaraguan users. The Nicaraguan Red Cross serves as the main project partner with Peace Corps, keeping the focus on sustainability and cultural application. With chapters in every department across Nicaragua, the Red Cross will be particularly vital in the promotion and marketing of the hotline.

At the World Bank sponsored Central America Domestic Violence Hackathon, Nishant Kishore, Lauren Spigel, Gabe Goffman and Chloe Lew pose with our Nicaraguan IT-counterparts, who worked 48 hours without sleep on the ChatSalud project (Photo: ChatSalud)

However, much of the success depends on the strength and relevance of the content. The World Bank in Nicaragua has connected the ChatSalud team to NGOs and local actors across the country to develop the content and organisational structure, and to ensure the program’s longevity. In addition, a local technology company is working to strengthen the back-end functionality and to provide the user with a seamless experience. We are extremely grateful for the advice and dedication from all of our project partners who are committed to ChatSalud, a service developed by Nicaraguans for Nicaraguans.

ChatSalud is still in development. The Peace Corps and Nicaraguan partners are currently finalizing content, system and evaluation tools, but hope to begin the first phase of the project in the coming months. Stay tuned for more updates as we perfect and launch the service. For more information, please email us at chatsalud@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter.

Chloe Lew is a current Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua and ChatSalud´s public relations advisor. She has been living and working in a small community in Nueva Segovia since 2012. There, her service has been largely focused on girls empowerment and teen pregnancy prevention. Prior to joining Peace Corps she worked in Program Innovation and Policy at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and Anthropology from George Washington University. Lauren Spigel and Nishant Kishore – both co-founders of ChatSalud – helped with the editing of this article.

Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net, FrontlineSMS and Means of Exchange. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. You can follow him on Twitter @kiwanja

How do we really change the world? Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Tori Hogan and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Ken Banks share their thoughts (Photo: Evan Swinehart)

I’ve been home for about three weeks since leaving the Unreasonable at Sea ship in India. I spent just over a month helping mentor eleven technology start-ups as they sail the world taking their big ideas to new markets. That alone made it a memorable experience, but what really stood out for me was the interaction they had with the hundreds of students aboard. This left me with a stronger sense than ever of how important it is that we encourage, engage, support and mentor the next generation of planetary problem solvers (something I’ve written about before).

If that wasn’t enough, the trip also gave me the chance to re-immerse myself in the kinds of environments that were responsible for starting me on my own journey back in 1993. Witnessing suffering and hardship, and countless young children denied a childhood in India, Myanmar and Vietnam, reminds me that there’s still much work to be done.

Spirituality plays a large part in what drives me, and I’ve tried to capture some of this before. It’s not just a subject I find incredibly interesting, but one which puts humanity and purpose back at the centre of development (something which has become increasingly cold and institutionalised of late). I’ve never thought that helping people was a ‘career’. For me it was a way of life, a deeper purpose. So it was a huge honour to be invited to sit on a panel with Archbishop Desmond Tutu to talk about “how we change the world” aboard the MV Explorer. A big thanks to Tori Hogan (who was also on the panel) for inviting me to take part.

I’ve had something of a crazy time over the past few years, finding myself in all sorts of places I felt I had no right to be. Having the chance to chat with the Archbishop on a number of occasions during my time aboard the ship was both enlightening and humbling. This one hour discussion in front of a packed auditorium is probably the highlight of my career.

Whatever drives you, here’s to making the world a better place. For everyone.

Ken Banks is an innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS. He writes about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies can be used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. You can read all his posts, visit his website, or follow him on Twitter.

The murky Yangon. Civilisation ahead (photo: Ken Banks)

There were rumours that we’d be docking outside Yangon within walking distance of the city centre. The rumours were false, but where we did end up – in an industrial area an hour from the city – proved just as interesting. We’d arrived too late to head out that night so we took a stroll outside the ship in time to catch our first Burmese sunset.

Cranes aboard the Deshbandu-1 await their cargo of logs (photo: Ken Banks)

The dockside was noticeable for the dozens of second-hand Korean buses and coaches that lined it, most waiting their turn to join the hustle and bustle of Yangon’s creaking public transport system. Behind lay row upon row of logs. According to the Indian and Bangladeshi crew, the Deshbandu-1 would be in port for one month as it loaded its cargo. Final destination: Chittagong, Bangladesh. Burma is a major exporter of teak, with 75% of the world market worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the country. As one of the only countries to harvest high-quality teak from natural forests, Burma faces a deforestation crisis.

The thermometer doesn’t lie (photo: Ken Banks)

As we left port on the second morning, I spotted the thermometer on the front of the bus. 117 degrees Fahrenheit is well into the forties, and it felt it. Burma’s tropical climate is high in humidity, making it feel particularly uncomfortable. Temperatures are supposed to average around 20 to 25 degrees Celsius at this time of year, but with climate change wreaking havoc around the globe that probably doesn’t mean too much these days.

Home delivery system, Burmese-style (photo: Ken Banks)

As you walk the back streets of Yangon it’s hard not to notice the countless ropes hanging down from high up the front of the buildings, with bags or bulldog clips attached. For a while we couldn’t figure out what these were for until we bumped into one in action. We watched with a fascination that only a traveller seeing this for the very first time would have, as a shop owner attached a bag of coffee to the clip, and shook the rope until a bell rang high up on the customer’s balcony. And then, zip – up it went. We were witnessing a clever home delivery system in action, saving business people long and arduous trips up flights of stairs in the heat. With crime so low in the country, if the customer wasn’t in then there’s an extremely high chance that their goods would still be dangling there when they return.

Elephants are a big draw for tourists in Asia (photo: Ken Banks)

Elephant smuggling for the tourist trade in neighboring Thailand is a major problem in Burma, with up to a hundred reportedly removed from their forest homes and taken over the border each year. Many die in the process. We passed this elephant chained to a tree on our way into Yangon.

Car imports are heavily regulated in Burma (photo: Ken Banks)

Strict control of new vehicles even applies to the police (photo: Ken Banks)

Many of the roads in Burma are in bad shape, and this doesn’t bode well as demand for cars and public transport increases. Even if you could afford a car – they’re well out of the price range of the majority of Burma’s population – the government only allows a few thousand to be imported each year. The result is something a little like I’d imagine Cuba to be – roads peppered with old cars which have no right to still be running. This blue Mazda, and the two police vehicles, are typical of what you see.

Despite the many signs to the contrary, health and safety is an issue (photo: Ken Banks)

On my travels throughout Africa I’ve seen my fair share of electrical cabling horror stories. This shot, taken in one of the backstreets in Yangon, is actually one of the better ones. Power cuts are frequent in the capital, but none of them lasted more than a few minutes while we were there.

Temples compete with mobile phone masts for the skies above Yangon (photo: Ken Banks)

Mobile phone ownership remains low, resulting in a booming trade for phone ‘kiosks’ like these (photo: Ken Banks)

A young monk makes a dash across the road with his new purchase (photo: Ken Banks)

Anyone who knows my work will know my fascination for mobile, particularly how it impacts communities. I’ve already got a gallery of over 150 images taken on my travels over the past ten years, mostly in Africa. This was my first time in Burma, and it was incredible to see how mobile phone shops have already taken hold. Ownership is still incredibly low, but that’s changing. HTC launched a new phone earlier this year aimed specifically at the Burmese market. According to the World Bank, less than 3% of people here own a phone.

A monk takes some down time to make a call (photo: Ken Banks)

When I set out yesterday, everyone with me knew my single objective for the day was to get a photo of a monk using a mobile phone. Okay, it may be a bit cheesy but for me it was the ideal photo to highlight the blending of old and new in a rapidly changing country.

I didn’t stop to ask the score (photo: Ken Banks)

A sneaky shot taken through the gates of a Monastic School, monks play football with friends in the late afternoon. More often you’ll see people playing kick-volleyball, or chin lone, with the same small dried-reed ball.

A young monk watches tourists at Yangon’s biggest temple complex, Shwedagon Pagoda (photo: Ken Banks)

A battery-powered market stall sells groundnuts into the early evening (photo: Ken Banks)

A local bus speeds through the quietening streets (photo: Ken Banks)

Whenever I travel I do my best to see the place at night. They often take on a whole new identity, and Yangon was no different. Not only did the sunset present a wonderful backdrop, but the temperature dropped significantly and the traffic thinned out to make walking quite a pleasure. In the photo (three up) we met this young monk who spent much of his time at the Shwedagon Pagoda finding tourists to help him practice his English.

Children reclaiming the streets at night (photo: Ken Banks)

After nine hours exploring Yangon largely on foot we headed back to the coach. As I turned the last corner I literally bumped into about ten children playing football on what was earlier a busy road. Many of the streets seemed to be reclaimed at night like this, with the more popular spots being those with the best lighting. In the background is another of Yangon’s many pagodas, or tiered towers (note the mobile phone mast to the left). This was my last shot of the day.

In case you’re wondering what I’m doing in Burma, I’m spending a month aboard a ship mentoring about a dozen socially-focused technology start-ups as they take their products and services to a dozen cities around the world over a hundred days. I joined about three weeks ago in Hong Kong and leave when we get to India, our next port of call.

You can read more on the Unreasonable at Sea website and on my earlier National Geographic post, or follow the rest of the journey on my Twitter or Instagram pages.

Last month, eleven technology startups joined world class mentors on a voyage which will see them pitch their business ideas and innovations in thirteen countries over one hundred days. Between ports representatives from the likes of Google, SAP, Mozilla, IBM, Microsoft and Stanford’s d.school will help them refine their pitches, engage in rapid prototyping and help tighten the business, branding and marketing plans for their products. I’m on board to share the inside track of my own work building communications technologies for the developing world, and my experience working across a number of African countries over the past twenty years.

The MV Explorer at rest in Ho Chi Minh City (photo: Ken Banks)

“Unreasonable at Sea is a radical experiment in global entrepreneurship, design thinking and education, designed to scale-up effective technological solutions to the greatest social and environmental challenges of our time” says Daniel Epstein, Founder of Unreasonable at Sea. “We are an accelerator program for creative misfits and tech-entrepreneurs who desire to take their ventures into new international markets.”

Diverse markets

In exchange for a small percentage of equity or future profits, companies selected to join the voyage vary widely from the likes of Solar Ear, producers of the world’s first digitally programmable and rechargeable hearing aid, to Evolving Technologies, developers of radically affordable medical devices for maternal care in emerging markets.

Another company on board, One Earth Designs, develops products which harness the power of the sun to help bring clean energy to the three billion people who lack access to clean fuels.

“Where we work on the Himalayan Plateau, girls spend long hours collecting fuel while their brothers attend school” says Catlin Powers, the company’s co-founder and COO. “Forests disappear as trees are felled to fuel cooking fires, and the pollution from these fires causes illness and death.”

Their products include the SolSource S1, the top performing parabolic solar cooker in the world, and the SolSource S2, the world’s first temperature adjustable solar cooker. “Our products save lives, reduce carbon emissions, save time for women, and save money for families.”

Partners at sea

For the venture, Unreasonable at Sea have teamed up with Stanford’s d.school and another initiative, Semester at Sea. Operated by the non-profit US-based Institute for Shipboard Education, Semester at Sea aims to “educate individuals with the global understanding necessary to address the challenges of our interdependent world” by giving students the opportunity to spend one university term out of the classroom on the “MV Explorer”.

Described as a 25,000 ton travelling campus, their time is spent working on a mixture of rigorous coursework with in-country field assignments and project-based learning. It’s an incredible opportunity for those lucky enough to be on board.

Students also get the opportunity to hear from the Unreasonable at Sea startups and mentors. “Fireside Chats” are held in the evenings while the ship is at sea giving students the opportunity to hear stories of success – and failure – first-hand from leading innovators and entrepreneurs. Workshops and guest lectures also give the students the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interact and work directly with them. The entrepreneurs in turn get access to hundreds of keen and eager volunteers.

Lasting legacy

Shortly after leaving Hong Kong, Daniel Epstein joined me for my own Fireside Chat. During the well-attended event I fielded probing questions about my early school years, my first time in Africa, my thoughts on the future of international development and my work developing and launching my own project, FrontlineSMS. It’s the kind of event, and interaction, I love. If running out of business cards is a sign of success then I think you can safely say the evening was a success.

Since then I’ve met one-on-one with a number of students with ambitions to ‘get out into the world and make a difference’. Although my primary role is to mentor the near-dozen technology startups, having the opportunity to support and encourage social entrepreneurship among younger people is what it’s really all about for me.

Spreading the spirit of entrepreneurship ashore is another part of Unreasonable’s wider mission. Boot Camps have been organised in a number of countries to give people new to the world of innovation and entrepreneurship the opportunity to meet the mentors, staff and startups taking part in the voyage. The next Boot Camp, described as “cross-cultural and experiential learning for the global community”, is due to take place in Cape Town on 25^thMarch.

In the technology-for-development field we talk a lot about project sustainability, but little about human sustainability. If we’re to have any chance of successfully tackling many of the bigger social and environmental problems of our time then we need to attract the brightest young minds to our cause, and then give them all the support they need to keep them there. We need to be brave and we need to be bold, and Unreasonable at Sea is certainly that.

That said, it’s unclear what will ultimately happen to the eleven companies aboard “MV Explorer”, and whether their ideas will take hold and scale in the ways they hope. But if introducing the hundreds of students aboard, and countless more ashore, to the world of entrepreneurship inspires them to go out and make a difference in the world, then the experiment would have been well worth it.

Ken Banks is the founder of kiwanja.net and FrontlineSMS. He specialises in the application of mobile technology for social good and has worked at the intersection of technology, anthropology, conservation and development for the past twenty years. He is one of the twenty Unreasonable at Sea mentors and is taking part in the voyage for a month between Hong Kong and India. You can follow him on Twitter at @kiwanja

Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from kiwanja.net about the way mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used around the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. This edition was curated by our Media and Research Assistant, Olivia O’Sullivan.

By Zarah Rahman

Can mobile phones solve the world’s water crisis? This is a big question that my colleagues and I are exploring at the Aquaya Institute, a non-profit research and consulting organization that specialises in innovative safe water solutions for the developing world. The global water crisis affects all countries, rich and poor, and spans many issues that range from the availability and sustainability of water resources to their safety for public health. At Aquaya we focus on water and public health: infants and children are especially vulnerable to waterborne diseases like diarrhea, and according to the World Health Organisation unsafe water is responsible for approximately two million child deaths a year, more than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.

In March this year the United Nations announced that, at a global level, the Millennium Development Goal for access to improved drinking water had been met. 89% of the world’s population, 6.1 billion people, now access improved drinking water sources. But thousands of these improved water systems don’t deliver safe drinking water and many more break down each year.

A hand pump in a rural community in Malawi, a typical scene of rural water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa (Photo: Zarah Rahman)

How can we improve the reliability and safety of drinking water supplies? A lot of hard work and research by many people has taught us that more and better infrastructure is just not enough. Ongoing oversight of water systems by trained professionals is also important. But this support is hard to provide. Government institutions are often highly centralised, financially constrained and geographically overstretched. We need simple tools to improve communication between local community water managers and their support agencies in order to promote the efficient use of existing management resources.

This is where mobile phones come in to the picture. Mobile phones are cheap, easy to use and nearly ubiquitous in countries like Ecuador, Vietnam and Mozambique where we work. Most importantly, mobile phones can transmit multiple types of information – including images and GPS points – cheaply and quickly over long distances.

In October 2011 I traveled with colleagues from UNICEF to Chimoio, a mid-sized hill town in Southern Mozambique that is close to the border with Zimbabwe. UNICEF is collaborating with the Government of Mozambique to develop and maintain hand pumps, which are the primary water sources for rural villagers. We were there to show district health technicians how to use mobile phones to send information on pump status and water quality to their regional and national level supervisors. The mobile phone application (or “app”) that we used for sending this information is called Water Quality Reporter, and it was developed by the iComms Group at the University of Cape Town in South Africa as a reporting tool that runs on very basic mobile phones.

The district health technicians are on the road constantly, so much so that we had to travel between towns to try and catch them on the road. Each week they travel for hours on unpaved roads to communities of under a hundred people to inspect drinking water sources, provide technical support to community water system managers and provide health education lessons to the community.

District Health Technicians in Mozambique learn to use the Water Quality Reporter mobile application (Photo: Zarah Rahman)

The district technicians have long had responsibility for monitoring drinking water sources, but the information they collect generally stays in their logbooks and is rarely reported to their superiors. However, the technicians need resources and technical support from their managers to fix broken pumps and treat contaminated water. We wanted to find out if instant reporting through the Water Quality Reporter would make everyone more responsive to water supply problems.

A few months after training the technicians to use the app we witnessed concrete changes. The Director of the Ministry of Health’s national laboratory issued formal memos to the local Government, asking them to respond to the high levels of contamination reported in a number of the district’s water supplies. In her letters, the Director noted that many rural supplies are ‘improper for human consumption’ and provided technical guidance on determining the source of the contaminants (mainly bacteria and nitrites) and how to take action. For local governments that are juggling competing priorities, this kind of guidance and accountability is critical.

A water treatment plant operator submits water quality data via the Water Quality Reporter mobile app (Photo: Zarah Rahman)

As in Mozambique, we have observed poor information flows between field staff and institutional managers in many other countries. For example, environmental health technicians in Ecuador regularly send water samples by bus to a Ministry of Health laboratory in Quito, but they rarely receive the test results. Without this feedback loop, the technicians can’t use the data to inform their health promotion activities – things like hygiene education in schools and delivery of chlorine to water system operators. A mobile phone based data sharing system would allow these technicians to efficiently share field information with managers and receive water quality test results.

Fortunately, a number of groups working in the water sector have caught on to the potential of mobile phones for improving the reliability and safety of water supplies. Some NGOs are now incorporating mobile data collection into their project monitoring surveys and creating dynamic websites to share results with donors and other stakeholders.

But it is also important to remember that implementing mobile phone solutions in low-resource settings is not without challenges. Though mobile phone coverage is rapidly growing, the networks are generally weakest in the places where information flows are the most critical. In addition, management procedures must be in place for things like lost or broken phones, the topping up of phone credit, network configuration and new user training.

At Aquaya we’re optimistic that although mobile phones may not address all aspects of the global water crisis, they will be important tools for managing the many challenges. We are exploring other exciting ways to use mobile technology to support safe water delivery including bulk SMS messages for public service announcements and customer alerts (like a boil alert when contamination is detected in a utility network), public submission of complaints and status reports, and automated, dynamic data analysis for managers.

Although the developing world is changing rapidly, particularly through urbanisation, much of the urban growth – especially in Africa – is in small and medium sized towns. As a result, strategies for linking geographically dispersed actors to support regulatory agencies remain critical. In his annual report last year, Engineer Robert Gakubia, the CEO of the Kenya Water Services Regulatory Board, summed it up when he said “There is no transparency without information, which means that information is key to good governance. Information helps water service providers and customers improve access to water services”.

Zarah Rahman is the Director of Programs at the Aquaya Institute, a non-profit research and consulting organisation specialising in innovative solutions for safe drinking water worldwide. At Aquaya, Zarah leads programs that improve local stakeholders’ ability to obtain and use data for better water and management. Though based in California, Zarah has traveled to over fifteen countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America for Aquaya’s programs. Zarah studied International Development at Brown University.

Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. You can follow him on Twitter @kiwanja

Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from kiwanja.net about the way mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. This edition was curated by our Media and Research Assistant, Olivia O’Sullivan.

By Edith Saldivar, Staff Analyst, Qualcomm Wireless Reach

Aya, a 9^th-grade student at the all-girls Um Abhara School in Baiader Wadi Al-Sier, a village nestled among olive trees in the hilly outskirts of Amman, Jordan, has the traits of a budding teacher. One of the school’s 8^th-10^th graders who are using mobile technology as an essential tool to enhance their education, Aya shares the benefits of her Internet-connected netbook with younger students. In cooperation with 1^st and 2^nd grade teachers, she’s creating digital lessons that help the younger children learn math, science and languages.

Good things are also happening through the use of mobile technology at the all-girls Balqees School in the Citadel neighborhood in Amman.7^th, 8^th and 9^th graders are using netbooks, the Internet and online educational resources to research projects, develop PowerPoint presentations and create and share videos on YouTube.

It’s all part of a pilot project providing 32 teachers and 223 students with a netbook and 24/7 Internet connectivity to demonstrate how students can use advanced mobile technology in and out of the classroom to gain valuable skills that will better prepare them for the future. Having access to online educational resources at all times nurtures and maximizes each student’s opportunity for learning. It also makes school work more engaging by encouraging personalized, self-initiated learning.  The overall objective of this project is to create a model for mobile learning programs throughout Jordan and the region.

Students in Jordan working with their new educational technology. (Photo: Qualcomm)

The project was launched in December 2011 by the Jordan Education Initiative (JEI), one of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah’s nonprofit educational organizations, and Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach^TM initiative, a program that brings wireless technology to underserved communities globally.

At first, parents were uneasy about the program. What if their child lost or broke their netbook? What if they went to inappropriate websites? JEI addressed everyone’s questions and concerns during intensive training workshops and worked with teachers to help them understand how to integrate the technology into their curriculum. Skepticism gave way to excitement, particularly as parents realized how they too could use the technology to find employment, community resources and other helpful information.

The technology has transformed the educational model inside the participating classrooms. Gone are the lecture-based lesson plans – with their new ability to research, collaborate and communicate online anytime and anywhere, teachers now create project-based lessons that require students to use their new tools to complete assignments.

Edith with students. New forms of IT transform the classroom experience. (Photo: Qualcomm)

A 7^th-grade religion teacher at Balquees School describes the change as such: “I’m no longer standing in front of a room, putting information on a blackboard and lecturing. Instead, I put a question on the board, and the students search several websites for the answer. Through this research approach, the learning process and its impact are more focused, impressive and interactive.”

With students taking on so much responsibility for their own learning, more classroom time is given to mentoring, presentations and discussions. According to Mrs. Eman Hamdan, the science teacher at Balqees School, “Teachers’ instructional styles have moved away from the ‘sage on the stage’ model and more towards the ‘guide on the side’ approach.” This new way of teaching encourages the development of critical thinking skills.

Teachers and students now produce PowerPoint presentations and use social media for project-based work. Both schools created YouTube channels where teachers and students can upload videos.

The use of technology integration has been unexpectedly creative. Mrs. Ahed, an English teacher at Balqees School, had been using her netbook as a voice recorder for personal use when she had the idea that the students could use their devices to improve their English language skills. Once students were able to record and then hear themselves reading, they became more engaged, motivated and invested in their own learning. Soon after, students’ progress exceeded twice the rate that used to be considered normal for that period of time.

For students with disabilities, the arrival of the netbook has improved their lives and prospects. Sulafa, a 7^th-grader with a hearing impairment, felt isolated, finding it difficult to understand subjects, especially her favorite, Arabic. Her teachers were frustrated by their inability to help her. With netbooks in hand, Sulafa’s teachers are accessing educational software and resources online that help them teach Sulafa more effectively. And Sulafa now loves school, excels in class and no longer feels alone.

One remarkable aspects of this project is how the students use their netbooks as a teaching or demonstration tool for their parents, younger siblings and others. The portability of the tools has allowed for impromptu training sessions by students as they share their technical knowledge beyond school walls.

Edith working with students in Jordan. (Photo: Qualcomm)

On my last visit to Jordan, as our car bumped along toward the Um Abhara School, past the olive trees dotting the hillsides and the villagers selling fruit by the side of the road, the rural setting took me back to the small farming community in Mexico where I spent part of my childhood.

I’m the daughter of migrant workers and the first in my family to have attended school in the United States. When I see the girls in Jordan, I see my family members who are still in Mexico and who I wish could have had the same opportunities that I had. These girls have the potential to do great things. I want them to have opportunities to excel, succeed and be independent. I hope that their exposure to technology is opening their minds and helping them form new aspirations that they can then go out and reach.

Edith Saldivar is a graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz, where she was awarded honors in the Global Economics/Latin American and Latino Studies major. In addition, she received her Master’s degree in international affairs at the UCSD’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. Prior to her work at Qualcomm, Saldivar was an economic development coordinator, responsible for creating and expanding programs to ensure the economic vitality of downtown El Cajon, California. She also worked at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), as a research assistant, where she helped advance wireless telecommunication capabilities in rural Oaxaca for a transnational project supported by UCSD, USAID and Qualcomm. She currently serves as Wireless Reach™ staff analyst within Qualcomm’s Government Affairs department. She is also on the board of directors for Izcalli, a community-based non-profit with a focus on community and youth development.

Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives.

You can read all the posts in this series, visit his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from kiwanja.net about the way mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives.

By Olivia O’Sullivan

In the developed world, we are used to the idea that we created the model of industrial and economic progress which other countries must follow. Many of our big ideas about development rest on the assumption that the West cracked the formula for economic progress sometime in the 19^th century, and what we need now is for the developing world to ‘catch up’. Even the language we use encapsulates this idea, in the division between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’. But new innovations are challenging the idea that development requires handing ideas down from developed to developing. In banking and finance, the big ideas in cashless transfers and mobile, flexible exchanges are not to be found in Geneva or London or New York. A revolution in mobile money transfer has occurred, but not in these financial centres. Instead, it’s happened in Kenya, with m-Pesa.

The service was developed between Safaricom and Vodafone, and launched in 2007. And it’s not just something used in cities or by big commercial interests. By 2010, over 50% of Kenya’s population had used it – this means rural villagers haggling over produce, then using their Nokias to make the final deal. It means Masai herdsmen bringing their phones to market along with their cattle, ready to stock up on essentials to bring back to their homes.

The widespread use of mobile phones in Africa provides huge potential for innovation. (Photo: kiwanja.net)

For people who live in isolated areas, the service means no longer having to carry lots of cash to markets or towns, risking losing huge amounts to banditry and theft. For people without permanent addresses or bank accounts, the service means they can pay what cash they have to m-Pesa in exchange for mobile credit, making payments and transfers and building up savings – becoming participants in an economy from which they had previously been locked out. For migrants, the service allows them to send money home to their families and villages safely and simply. Safaricom’s international money transfer service uses a similar system for international immigrants, coordinating great webs of remittances and payments across the world. For Kenyan businesses, the service means payments for stock or repairs can happen almost instantaneously, wiping out the need to rely on bank clearances and flawed infrastructure which had clogged the economy with inefficiencies and delays.

So how does it work? m-Pesa relies on a network of small shop-front retailers, who register to be m-Pesa agents. Customers come to these retailers and pay them cash in exchange for loading virtual credit onto their phone, known as e-float. E-float can be swapped and transferred between mobile users with a simple text message and a system of codes. The recipient of e-float takes her mobile phone into her nearest retailer when she wants to cash in, and swaps her text message code back for physical money. There are already more m-Pesa agents in Kenya than there are bank branches.

An mPesa agent. (Photo: Laxman Rajagopalan)

Such a system also requires intermediaries, to get the cash to m-Pesa agents, and ensure cash movement keeps up with e-float exchanges. In this way, the system has created new jobs, with some intermediaries and retailers earning $1000 a month in commission from m-Pesa transactions.

As of m-Pesa’s fifth birthday – March 6 2012 – it had been used by a staggering 15 million people. The system was employed by the ‘Kenyans for Kenya’ campaign to raise money for Kenyans suffering from the Horn of Africa drought – just one way in which it has contributed to independence and innovation in Kenya’s economy.

In response to m-Pesa’s success, the model has been imitated in other countries. Africa’s biggest mobile operator MTN has rolled out schemes elsewhere, the most ambitious in Kenya’s neighbour Uganda. Central banks in some countries, such as Brazil, have now created financial inclusion teams, with a vision for using similar systems to bring financial access to the poor and isolated. The Indian government has also shown determination to achieve this aim, and analysts predict, with its strong IT infrastructure and dense population, India too could be on the road to becoming a cash-light, financially inclusive economy in the near future.

m-Pesa is a triumph of thinking locally but dreaming big. (Photo: kiwanja.net)

m-Pesa has big things to say about the future of African economies. It demonstrates the potential in the huge and rapid dissemination of mobile phones and other flexible, adaptable technologies on the continent. But it also shows the value of dreaming big but thinking locally. M-Pesa is not an attempt to recreate developed countries’ banking systems in Africa. Instead, it’s an idea which has been tailored to the Kenyan environment. Rather than giving up on poor, isolated communities as unbankable, it has extended financial services to their most apparently unlikely customers. Rather than giving up on sophisticated economic transactions in countries with poor infrastructure, it has found a way to circumvent that infrastructure, creating a virtual, mobile one of its own.

Olivia O’Sullivan has worked for the Guardian newspaper, the Sudan team of the UN Peacekeeping Department and with the London NGO Waging Peace. She is an MPhil in International Relations at Cambridge University. She previously studied History at Cambridge University and Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College, California. She is currently the Research and Media Assistant for kiwanja.net/FrontlineSMS.

Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives.

You can read all the posts in this series, visit his website, or follow him on Twitter.

In this way, MedicMobile works not against the constraints in their environment, but with them, finding smart solutions that are calibrated to the developing world. MedicMobile uses apps that provide information and the ability to coordinate, so health workers can  manage staff, mobilise communities for vaccination drives, set up satellite clinics and manage and map health services, logistics and supply chains. But they don’t all need complex technology or even smart phones. Isaac explains how, below.

Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from kiwanja.net about the way mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. This article was curated by Olivia O’Sullivan, our Media and Research Assistant.

By Isaac Holeman

After driving south to the end of the pavement, we continued on gravel and dirt roads for a few hours, long enough for me to fall asleep and wake up several times before arriving at the district hospital.  Temperatures can reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit near the Nsanje River in southern Malawi, so I was grateful to arrive in a milder season when midday temperatures hovered just under 100. For more than a year I had been using mobile phone technology to improve health services and I expected this project to follow the typical routine: discuss the plan with leaders at the local district hospital, install software on phones and computers, and train frontline health workers to deliver routine reports using a mobile phone-based data collection app called FrontlineForms.

Training health workers to use Frontlineforms. (Photo: Isaac Holeman)

In Malawi, government-employed community health workers (CHWs) treat children in rural villages for malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea. Although highly effective medicines exist, these three ancient afflictions remain leading causes of death among children in developing countries, often because medicines are out of stock or only available at distant locations. My goal in Malawi was to improve the flow of information from CHWs to the district hospital, so that these life saving medicines could be resupplied efficiently to remote communities.

Malawi has two major mobile network operators: Airtel and TNM. I had surveyed all 50 health workers about which mobile network had a stronger signal in each of their communities. When the training began, I was bewildered and frustrated to find that there was almost no signal for the network that 8 out of 10 had requested. I had offered to connect them to either network; why would so many choose the one with much poorer coverage? Reluctantly, they explained that although Airtel had weaker signal locally, they sold airtime in units of 25 Malawi Kwacha, while the smallest increment for TNM was 50 Kwacha. These CHWs typically had 25 Kwacha on hand but may not have 50 in their pocket when they wanted to buy airtime for personal use (work related airtime was to be reimbursed). This experience was eye opening, almost unnerving. I was distributing $100 phones to people who considered 25 Kwacha (about 15 cents in US dollars) a greater barrier to access than walking or bicycling several kilometers to reach mobile signal.

MedicMobile apps can be used to share information about when medicines are in or out of stock, saving long journeys and helping to fix the supply chain. (Photo: Isaac Holeman)

Money on hand for airtime is one of several important considerations for rural health workers. A few weeks ago I spoke with a volunteer health worker who provides immunization and antenatal care services in coastal Kenya. Mary has a solar panel on the roof of her house and one other volunteer in her community group has grid electricity, but the other 38 volunteers must travel to the market to charge their phones. Charging a phone just once costs 30 to 80 cents. For a volunteer health worker whose cash income may average a few dollars a day, the financial burden of charging a phone this way is similar to filling a car with gasoline in North America or Europe. Walking or paying for public transit to the market are inconvenient, so many volunteers wait a day or two after their phone runs out of battery.

Working in these circumstances for the last three years, I’ve learned that the key to understanding how mobile health services can proliferate is in understanding what technologies these communities are already using. There is wisdom embedded in the observed preferences of ordinary villagers. The technologies that are driving change in society today are, as a rule, already being used at a massive scale. For the urgent change-maker, cutting-edge technologies are hardly relevant, ubiquitous technologies should be captivating.

One such captivating technology is the mobile phone that costs $15 and can last a week or even two on one charge. Clunky nine-button keypads and black and white screens the size of a half-dollar coin can make these phones look second-rate, but they fill an enormous gap in households surrounded by neglected rural roads, with ineffectual postal service, no car and no land-line telephones or internet. The first-generation phone is a quaint memory in developed markets but in Africa, everyman’s phones are referred to with familiar terms such as Kabambe in Kenya and Mosewalelu in Malawi. They have become cultural icons of progress not unlike the early model T Ford, a cultural icon as the first everyman’s car in America. The low cost, long battery life, familiarity and ease of use, being less prone to theft, better supply chains, sales and repair outlets and the promotions put on by mobile network operators all contribute to the statistic that in 2011 there were 32 non-smart phones for every smart phone on the African continent.

A cultural icon of progress - the new Ford Model T. (Photo: Isaac Holeman)

During my first design research trip to Kenya in early 2010 I learned something about $15 phones that most Kenyans already knew: every phone can have apps – you don’t need a smartphone. I was talking with ordinary consumers about using mPesa, the wildly successful mobile banking service that lets users send money to and from any phone. I learned that mPesa is available and familiar on any kind of phone, from Android smart phones to ordinary $15 phones. This is possible because mPesa actually sits on the SIM card, not the phone itself. Many North Americans do not even realize that inside of their phone is a small chip called a SIM card that handles the phone’s connections to the mobile network. Throughout Africa, however, people frequently change their phone’s SIM card from one mobile network to another, to take advantage of evening calling rates or other sales promotions. SIM apps are viewed through the phone’s native menu which means that if you know how to check your contacts list or text message inbox on a particular phone, a SIM app on that same phone will look familiar.

Different phones, same apps - with a little creativity. (Photo: Isaac Holeman)

The challenge with deploying health related SIM apps is that mobile network operators strictly control which apps are installed on their SIM cards. But I kept tinkering with SIM cards and after several months I discovered that some groups in the financial and security sectors, as well as hackers trying to jailbreak iPhones, use paper-thin parallel SIM cards that slide underneath the mobile network operator’s SIM. Using any standard GSM phone, we’re able to put our SIM apps on the parallel SIM and still use an ordinary SIM card to connect to any GSM mobile network in the world. About a year ago I announced that Medic Mobile would be the first mobile health organization to develop and deploy SIM apps, and since then the Medic Mobile team has started SIM app projects in several African countries.

The ingenious parallel SIM card, which sits under an ordinary SIM. (Photo: Dave Brown)

As we take on larger SIM card projects, our goal is to work closely with mobile network operators so that the apps sit directly on the native SIM card and don’t require parallel SIMs. This will be cheaper and it’s true to the strategy that has served Medic Mobile well: no one understands the communities where we work better than the people who live in them every day. Our best chance of deploying mobile health services that are locally appropriate and manageable at a large scale, is to leverage the phones and other technologies that are already in their hands.

Isaac Holeman hails from a great big outdoorsy Oregon family. He’s a co-founder and the Chief Strategist at Medic Mobile, where he’s focused on building a team that uses communication technologies to improve health services, human centered design and the organization’s strategy for products and services. He was named one of the top 11 mHealth innovators of 2011 for his work with SIM apps. He studied Liberal Arts, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Lewis & Clark and will begin graduate study in sociology at the University of Cambridge this fall. You can follow him on Twitter.

Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives.

You can read all the posts in this series, visit his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Computer scientist Hendrik, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, is aiming to change that. He has designed a new smart-phone interface for farmers especially so that both illiterate and literate can share ideas and vital information about agriculture, helping them, and 62% of the world’s food supply, to stay in business.

Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from FrontlineSMS about how mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. This article was curated by Olivia O’Sullivan, our Media and Research Assistant.

By Hendrik Knoche

Rain-fed farming provides 62% of the world food supply. In India, small farmers cultivate 50% of the land.  However, these farmers are often held back by inefficient, unproductive methods. Rain-fed farming productivity could improve greatly if individual farmers picked up more innovative methods – improving production, business, and helping to fight hunger. The goal of the development project I work on is to boost the dissemination of information on agriculture and its practices among marginal farmers through information communication technology (ICT).

In 2009 I travelled to Devarahati, a small village three hours north of India’s prolific IT hub Bangalore for the first time, to better understand how to implement this project. At first glance Devarahati’s residents seem to use little advanced technology. In fact few things in this poor community remind me of life in the 21^st century. No sanitation is available but for a foot-wide groove in the ground. Drinking water comes from a government sponsored bore-well that required drilling 300ft down to reach the ever dropping water table. However, the pump for the well is only operational during the six-hour period each day when electricity is available.  Those who can afford to build concrete cisterns to collect the monsoonal rain from their homes’ roofs for later consumption.

A view of Devarahati. (Photo: Hendrik Knoche)

When one looks again, however, one sees signs of 20^th century developments. A few homes that look like they were constructed a thousand years ago sport satellite dishes. Plastic rubbish is strewn all over the ground. And in the distance two cell phone towers clearly mark the age of mobile communication.

Mobile phones have proven transformative in allowing residents of rural India to communicate more easily and frequently  with city-based family members or obtain information on market prices. They also provide unexpected side benefits. Walking around the village my translator Suma points out farmers wearing earphones – according to her, they are “poorly educated people who don’t even have a SIM card but just use their phones as music players”. One of them, Fakruddin, a 58-year old illiterate farmer, remembers that when GSM coverage arrived in the area five years ago only rich farmers and traders could afford to buy phones and make calls. Now even poor farmers like him can afford mobile technology. He feels that prepaid card call charges are still expensive but Suma counters that providers throw in 150 free text messages per day. However, like most marginal farmers in this area Fakruddin cannot benefit from texting as he cannot read or write the script of his mother tongue, Kannada.

Wiring up in rural India. (Photo: Hendrik Knoche)

Suma seems dismayed that many people in her home community appropriate technology for such mundane activities as entertainment. But I’m thrilled. It is clear that with the right incentives people are investing in individual ownership of technology, managing to charge their phones during the windows at which power is available, and mastering the user interfaces of phones not designed for illiterate people.

For our project the mobile phone is the most promising platform to disseminate relevant information throughout the farming community. A number of services already provide weather forecasts and market prices to farmers via text messages. But these don’t help illiterate farmers. The application that we have been developing is based on a long term involvement with a local NGO and numerous interviews and meetings with farmers. The farming application is for touch screen smart phones, the cost of which has dramatically decreased in recent months.

A smartphone interface for illiterate users. (Photo: Hendrik Knoche)

The application lets literate and illiterate farmers share information about the inputs they use such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and learn about problems their peers are facing in terms of pests and diseases and what crop yield and prices they have achieved. The immediacy provided by touch screen technology in conjunction with audio-visual feedback can enable illiterate people to engage with digital information. In a side project we have built an application that allows illiterate users to ‘read’, i.e. listen to, and compose SMS based on previous messages, icons, and speech input.

In a field trial this summer we are hoping to better understand if and how the farmers in Devarahati will appropriate this novel technology into their decision-making processes. For the many farmers who do not own TVs the mobile phone will most likely become a second source of entertainment as well as a flashlight to be used during the frequent power cuts. But we hope that farmers will more readily adopt agricultural innovations if a trusted peer had a good experience with them. Our goal is essentially to use the word-of-mouth approach that locals trust, rather than coming into communities and telling them what to do. It’s just that we’re using technology to make word-of-mouth bigger and better.

Hendrik Knoche is a computer scientist working on user experience in mobile multimedia technology. He is a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, who works on ICT for Development in India as part of the Common Sense net 2.0 project in collaboration with IISc Bangalore and the CKPura trust. This joint effort is sponsored by the Swiss agency for development and cooperation (SDC).

Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives.

You can read all the posts in this series, visit his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Pitching to the dragons in the Dragons Den. (Photo: Ken Banks)

The location could not have been better – the home of the BBC’s “Dragons Den” – a TV series where entrepreneurs (not usually the social variety) pitch business ideas to five dragons (aka investors) in the hope of walking out with cash in exchange for equity in their fledgling business. Often a daunting scene, it was made less intimidating with the addition of a Ben & Jerry’s banner, more casual seating and a splattering of cow bean bags, plastic cows, bails of hay and, of course, free ice cream.

By the time I arrived in the early afternoon most of the entrepreneurs had pitched their ideas but I did manage to catch the last half-dozen or so. The Den was out of bounds so I joined the other entrepreneurs, and Ashoka and Ben & Jerry’s staff, in one of the other rooms where we all watched intently on a big screen.

Play31 pitching their project. (Photo: Ken Banks)

It was a real honour to be given the chance to spend time with the entrepreneurs and talk to them about their business ideas. The range of ideas and projects may have been wide and varied, but the maturity, passion and commitment that each showed in their work bound them all. Anyone who reads my blog will know how much emphasis I place on helping young people see through their ideas and dreams, and how important I believe it is that we help them reach their potential. Three years ago, in “Enabling the inspiration generation“, I wrote:

If we can help anyone on their journey, then we should. Whether that be giving advice or a positive critique on an idea, helping raise awareness through blog posts, giving tips on fundraising, making introductions to other projects and people with the same interests, or offering to be a future soundboard as their ideas grow and develop. These are all things I didn’t have when I started out, and using them productively now that I do is one of the biggest contributions I believe I can – and should – make to the future growth of our discipline. Our legacy shouldn’t be measured in the projects or tools we create, but in the people we serve and inspire

My talk, which at an hour is about twice as long as I usually get, focused on a range of topics from reluctant innovation to grassroots innovation, my background, the humble beginnings (and current impact) of FrontlineSMS, things which I feel define me and my work, and lessons I’ve learnt along the way. It was a fun talk to give, and one I hope to give again some day.

During the early part of the evening the fifteen finalists were announced. In reality, there were no losers – all of the projects and ideas were worthy in their own right, and as I pointed out at the start of my talk, many entrepreneurs I know would have given their right arm to be at “Join Our Core”. By simply taking their ideas and turning them into something tangible, they had already elevated themselves into the top few percent.

Ideas vs. execution (Image: Ken Banks)

The fifteen finalists will be off to Uganda in August to take part in the final challenge. The projects that made it through are:

Archipelago. One of the largest communities of young entrepreneurs in Western Europe. They help young people create sophisticated businesses through events, think tanks and crowd sourced funding initiatives.

Biochar. A product created from burning waste materials such as manure and wood in the absence of oxygen in a process called pyrolysis. The outcome is a charcoal substance but unlike regular charcoal biochar has been proven to enhance soil condition, crop yield and it sequesters carbon for up to 1,000 years making it carbon negative.

Elevation Networks. An award winning youth employment charity that seeks to develop the leadership potential of young people to increase their employability.

Elvis & Kresse. Creators of stunning life-style accessories by re-engineering seemingly useless wastes. The raw material for their principal range is genuine de-commissioned British fire brigade hoses.

FairMail. A social enterprise producing fair-trade greeting cards. The pictures on the cards are taken by at-risk teenagers in Peru, India (and soon Morocco).

FoodCycle. Building communities by combining volunteers, surplus food and a spare kitchen space to create nutritious meals for people at risk from food poverty.

Hackney Pirates. Transforming the who, where and what of learning. They give kids intensive 1-1 support from volunteers, to work on projects that matter, in an unconventional learning environment.

!SYOU. Introducing the new way of walking. Unique sneakers produced in collaboration with DAC-listed nations.

Mattecentrum. Tutors around 70.000 young people in math every month – for free.

ONEforONE. A social enterprise in The Netherlands that sells water bottles, health insurances and green energy on a ‘buy one give one’-basis.

Play31. Using the unifying power of football to bring together people who have been torn apart by war.

Retoy. Creating experiences and places where children learn about the environment, sustainable consumption and children’s rights in a joyful way through toys and play.

Rubies in the Rubble. Making the tastiest chutney and the fruitiest jam in the nicest possible way at the same time as addressing social issues of unemployment, social exclusion and waste.

Ruby Cup. Improving menstrual hygiene and raising the quality of life of women and girls worldwide.

SuperHoney. Putting beehives into schools to teach kids about bees, the environment and food, and providing much-needed homes for millions of British bees.

You can find out more on each of these projects, and the competition itself, on the “Join Our Core” website, or follow on Twitter via the #JoinOurCore hashtag.