Business
RapidSMS – an innovation improving the lives of Africans
RapidSMS data flow. IMAGE/Technology for Humanity
A technological innovation to boost Malawi’s food security surveillance 4 years ago has become a secure tool in the area of data transfer around Africa. In Nigeria, the system has had a huge impact on the lives of many.
When in 2009 Christopher Fabian and Erica Kochi, two employees of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), developed RapidSMS, a platform for data gathering and group communication using the short messaging system (SMS) on mobile phones, their aim was simply to tackle the problem of slow data transmission within the food security surveillance system in Malawi.
Four years later, RapidSMS is touching the lives of millions in many African countries, helping to record births and monitor distribution of mosquito nets in Nigeria, monitor neonatal health in Zambia and track food distribution in the Horn of Africa, among other uses.
Fabian and Kochi are now global celebrities. U.S.-based Time magazine included them on its list of 100 most influential people in the world in 2013.
“I am proud to be their colleague. This is a great recognition of how the 21st century ideas and tools can transform ordinary people’s lives in an extraordinary way,” says UNICEF’s executive director Anthony Lake.
RapidSMS is a simple tool that helps front-line workers send data through SMS texts to a secure website. Decision makers and the public can monitor such data in real time and determine progress in projects even in remote communities. Where necessary, they can also intervene promptly.
Nigeria, where RapidSMS was deployed in January 2011, registered about 7 million new births by the end of 2012. Birth registrars in 686 local government areas in 33 of its 36 states delivered data through SMS texts to a Internet-based dashboard.
