[open-government] Freedom of Information Portals and Mobiles

Wed May 15 14:49:37 UTC 2013

Thank you all for your input - this is tremendously helpful!

Lucy

On 15 May 2013 15:19, Tom Steinberg <director at mysociety.org> 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 |
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>>
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-- 

**

*Lucy Chambers*

Project Coordinator  | skype: lucyfediachambers  |  tel: +44 7909 330731  |
 @lucyfedia <http://twitter.com/lucyfedia>

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>

Empowering through Open Knowledge

http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn <http://twitter.com/OKFN>  |  OKF on
Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/OKFNetwork> |
Blog <http://blog.okfn.org/>  |  Newsletter<http://okfn.org/about/newsletter>

OpenSpending | http://openspending.org/ |
@openspending<http://twitter.com/openspending>|Tracking every
government financial transaction across the world

School of Data | http://schoolofdata.org |
@schoolofdata<http://twitter.com/schoolofdata>| Evidence is Power
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