open source

Omidyar Network will give US$1.4 million over two and a half years to Ushahidi, for a so-called ‘crowdsourcing’ system in Kenya.

Ushahidi, which means ‘testimony’ in Swahili, plans to spend the money improving its open source system to collect and pass on citizen-generated information, particularly during a crisis.

Ushahidi was first developed as a web site tracking violence in Kenya after its election nearly two years ago. Developers plan to adapt the system for use by NGOs and others around the world to use in trouble spots.

To read the article titled, “Omidyar Network grants $1.4m to Ushahidi,” click here.

SANGONeT is assisting Vodacom in facilitating a workshop with NGOs on 14 July 2009 in Braamfontein to discuss a new concept in mobile application development for social impact - the Betavine Social Exchange.

Vodacom will also be holding a similar event in Cape Town.

All NGOs - or those working in the development sector - are invited to join Vodacom to find out more about the Betavine Social Exchange, and to contribute to its development and deployment in South Africa.

Betavine was created to encourage developers to cross over from other types of software development to mobile. Betavine provides a space to learn about mobile development and to participate in it by uploading applications which are then accessible to people directly on their mobile phones via betavine.mobi.

The Betavine Social Exchange is aimed at creating mobile solutions to solve social problems in a way that helps them to be sustainable.

For more information about the Betavine Social Exchange, click here.

Workshop Agenda:

14h:00 - 15h15

• Betavine overview;
• Betavine Social Exchange Concept overview;
• Session 1: discussion around the concept.

15h15 - 15h30

• Tea

15h30 - 17h00

• Details of the Betavine Social Exchange;
• Session 2: walkthrough design and detailed feedback;
• Sign-up for trial;
• Next steps.

17h00: Netsquared Jozi Meetup

RSVP: Nhlanhla Kunene, SANGONeT (nhlanhla@sangonet.org.za / tel: 011 381 3408) to confirm your participation or contact Matthew de Gale (matthew@sangonet.org.za) if you have any questions for clarification.

New York, NY – May 26, 2009 – The Open Mobile Consortium today launched its global development community to help organizations working towards social good to better collaborate and share mobile phone-based technologies. The OMC’s open source software tools help organizations to better serve the health, humanitarian and development needs of the “bottom billion,” the poorest and most disenfranchised citizens of the world.

The Open Mobile Consortium is an unprecedented collaboration across organizations to better serve communities with open source mobile tools. Together, they are building a vibrant set of platforms for use, at no cost, with no restrictions. OMC members share a vision that by working together to drive grassroots mobile technology innovation in some of the most challenging, resource-poor environments in the world, they will create a simple, flexible, and reliable set of technology that enable to individual and organizations anywhere in the world to effect social change.

With almost 280 million subscribers in Africa alone, mobile phones are recognized as instruments of change in finance, agriculture, media and development work. Mobile technology can easily provide data on food prices to farmers, patient information to remote medical clinics, and help track supplies and logistics. It is estimated that by 2010, 1 in 3 Africans will own a mobile phone. The Open Mobile Consortium was founded to develop and bring to scale free and open-source solutions that leverage the power and ubiquity of mobile phones.

“OMC’s approach is a radical departure from how the traditional humanitarian and development works,” said Robert Kirkpatrick, Chief Technology Officer of InSTEDD and chair of OMC. “Typically, organizations must compete for funding grants, which frequently leads to ‘silo’ mentality and hesitation to fully share key technologies. By contrast, we are agreeing to work together to share source code, standards, protocols, approaches and lessons learned. We’re even sharing development plans and testing each others’ software. As a result, we’re building a vibrant community and making very rapid progress.”

Katrin Verclas, founder of MobileActive.org and a founding member of the Open Mobile Consortium, says, “The mobile technology explosion has put more than four billion phones in use around the world. In the hands of organizations working for social good, and with easily available and accessible software, mobile phones can significantly improve the health and well-being of people in developing countries around the world. But there are technology and collaboration barriers. The Open Mobile Consortium aims to eliminate these barriers by developing interoperable, free and open source mobile platforms, and we encourage others to join us.”

"Mobile technology can make a huge difference in key areas like access to health care and education, and UNICEF helped form the Open Mobile Consortium to challenge the open-source community to play a role in this process," says Erica Kochi, co-lead of UNICEF’s Innovation team. “OMC is a forum to pool expertise and develop partnerships to empower those most in need and to use mobile technology to improve their lives."

The OMC strives to enable organizations working in the field in developing countries to collaborate across disparate platforms and products, reduce redundancies, and create a mechanism for freely sharing technical tools, information and approaches.

OMC has already brought together a number of mobile technology tools for collaboration and sharing. These include, among others:

• CommCare, a mobile-phone based application that allows community health workers to provide better, more efficient care and improve coordination of community health programs;
• Mobilisr, an open source enterprise class mobile messaging platform for NGOs around the world;
• Mesh4X, a platform for seamless cross-organizational information sharing between mobile devices, databases, desktop applications, and websites;
• RapidSMS, an open source platform allowing for any mobile phone to use SMS to collect data, used in Malawi, Ethiopia and Nigeria to collect information and provide rapid feedback to field workers;
• GeoChat, a flexible open source group communications tool that enables mobile field communications and situational awareness during emergencies;
• Ushahidi, a web-based platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information.

About the Open Mobile Consortium

The Open Mobile Consortium is a thriving community of mobile technologists and practitioners working to drive open source mobile solutions for more effective and efficient humanitarian relief and global social development. Founding member organizations include Millennium Villages Project, Cell Life, Dimagi, D-Tree, InSTEDD, MobileActive, TextToChange, UNICEF and Ushahidi. We are at http://www.open-mobile.org .

The Community Education Computer Society (CECS) is conducting a two-day course on Web Designing Training Using Joomla from 26-27 November 2008 in Johannesburg.

Joomla is a Content Management System (CMS) which makes it easy to create dynamic and complex websites. You do not need any programming knowledge to use Joomla. Joomla makes it ideal for NGOs and small businesses to build their own websites.

Joomla can be downloaded for free from the Joomla website. Here are some of the ways people use Joomla:

• Corporate websites and portals
• Small business websites
• Non-profit and organisational websites
• School and church websites
• Community-based portals
• Personal or family websites
• Contact Person:
• Installing a local server
• Installing and configuring Joomla
• Overview of modules, components and plugins
• Overview of page layout/positions
• Planning and organising your content
• Creating Sections, Categories, and Articles
• Creating menu items
• Installing and configuring extensions (components, modules)
• The Front Page component
• Inserting images into content
• Joomla templates
• Backing up your site
• Upload your website to an ISP
• Using FreeMind to plan your website

Dates: 25-26 November 2008

Venue: 3rd Floor FNB Nelson Mandela Building, 37 Harrison Street (Cnr Commissioner Street)
Johannesburg

Course Fee: R950 (VAT inclusive)

Contact Person: Moipone Mpshe, tel: 011 834 3329, fax: 011 834 9054, email: courses@cecs.org.za

Application Form: Click Here (PDF).

For more information, click here.