[open-government] Freedom of Information Portals and Mobiles

Wed May 15 14:40:38 UTC 2013

I completely missed the part about FOI since it was only in the subject :/ I agree it would most likely involve human proxies.

On 2013-05-15, at 10:19 AM, Tom Steinberg wrote:

> 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
>> 
>> Project Coordinator  | skype: lucyfediachambers  |  tel: +44 7909 330731  |  @lucyfedia 
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