Phoning It In

Imagine you're a farmer in Uganda, and mosaic virus is bedeviling your tomatoes. You don't have a phone line, much less an Internet connection, to help you get advice on how to fix your problem.

Imagine you're a Ugandan teenager, and you fear you might be pregnant. You've been feeling strange lately but you're too embarrassed to ask anyone about it — sex is a taboo topic in your culture.

If only some innovative new project would bring you a simple cell phone on which you could receive text messages with the basic information you need. If only a cure for mosaic virus — mix 1 liter of milk + 9 liters of water, spray crops every 10 days — could arrive right in your palm. If only you could find out the symptoms of pregnancy without asking out loud.

This is just what the Grameen Foundation's AppLab is up to. AppLab, an initiative focused on using communication technology to give poor communities "access to important information and knowledge that would enable them to improve their lives and livelihoods," has just announced a new suite of phone applications to provide advice on topics such as agriculture and family planning to disadvantaged communities via Google SMS text messages. The applications were developed in cooperation with Google and MTN Uganda, a telecommunications company operating in the country.

Some of those who use the service receive texts on their own mobile phones, while others frequent entrepreneurial communal telephone operators in their villages and towns. Whichever way they access it, the information is starting to flow to those who need it most, and may just change people's lives.

See a video about the project here:

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.