FrontlineSMS – A Free & Useful Tool For NGOs & Social Entrepreneurs

Singapore is a country blessed with mobile broadband and easily accessible, almost ubiquitous, Wi-Fi such that sometimes it is easy to forget that mobile phone users already have a killer application in SMS ( i.e. Short Message Service ).

While SMS is more commonly thought of just an application to send messages to your family and friends, it can be used as the messaging system for database driven client-server applications. FrontlineSMS is a free software that allows a laptop to become the server and mobile phones the clients.

It is possibly a great tool for social entrepreneurs who need a widely accessible, easily installed and scalable system to manage their communications.

In their words:

“A lack of communication can be a major barrier for grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in developing countries. FrontlineSMS is the first text messaging system created exclusively with this problem in mind.

By leveraging basic tools already available to most NGOs — computers and mobile phones — FrontlineSMS enables instantaneous two-way communication on a large scale. It’s easy to implement, simple to operate, and best of all, the software is free.”

Bio of Ken Banks the founder of kiwanja which developed the application here.

Ken Banks has graciously allowed SGEntrepreneurs to download a copy of the software. We are trying to get it to work on our own laptops. If you are from a non-profit organization and need help figuring the software out, do contact us. If you are tech savvy, better yet, go to the site and request a copy.