[open-government] Freedom of Information Portals and Mobiles

Wed May 15 14:19:14 UTC 2013

Hi Lucy,

Given that FOIs tend to be big and complex, and SMSes small and simple, I
think that perhaps the best thing you could do today would be to combine
two totally separate software platforms and just have a human sit in the
middle and interpret.

So the obvious pairing in my mind would be FrontlineSMS (for the texting
part, made easy) plus Alaveteli (for the FOI part) with a nice person
sitting with both windows open on one machine!

best,

Tom

On 15 May 2013 14:44, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca> wrote:

> Ushahidi is one technology, and they would very likely be able to
> recommend others.
>
> On 2013-05-15, at 3:55 AM, Lucy Chambers wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm just doing a quick bit of scouting around to see what I can find out
> about how mobiles can be used in areas with low access to the internet,
> particularly if there are any pre-existing software projects that make use
> of them.
>
> Ideally I'm looking for something that will work with non-smartphone users
> and allow them to send and receive some kind of information.
>
> Realising the limitations of how much information you can fit into one
> text message, the answer might not be to actually receive a full answer by
> SMS. An alternative could just be that an organisation with access to the
> internet could act as a proxy - and a notification could be texted to the
> sender's mobile phone when the answer is received.
>
> All the best,
>
> Lucy
>
>
> --
> **
> *Lucy Chambers*
>
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