Mobile WellBeing

The Grameen Foundation on Tuesday launched the first application of its Application Laboratory (AppLab) project. It aims to use the proliferation of mobile phones in Africa as a way to get information and services to poor communities in Uganda without Internet access.

The project began 18 months ago. The Grameen Foundation has been operating a village phone service in Uganda, and had almost 50,000 people receiving “pay-by-the-minute mobile phone services. The foundation wanted to broaden into information services and it sought out Google and MTN as potential partners. They did extensive ethnographic studies to see what kinds of services the Ugandan people wanted and did pilot projects in the field to test out early versions of the services. They’re launching with a few services and hope to add more later. Eventually, they hope to branch out to other countries in Africa.

“The new services work through any phone capable of sending or receiving SMS messages”, Joseph Mucheru, Google’s director of sub-Saharan Africa business, said, adding that almost all phones in Uganda will be able to use the services. “The five applications use Google SMS Search technology and MTN’s telecom network. They include

• Farmer’s Friend, a searchable database with agricultural advice and weather forecasts.
• Health Tips with sexual and reproductive health information, paired with
• Clinic Finder, to locate nearby health clinics.
• Google Trader, which matches buyers and sellers of agricultural produce, commodities and other products.

Content is provided by local partners. Marie Stopes Uganda and the Straight Talk Foundation provide health information, while the Busoga Rural Open Source Development Initiative (BRODSI) provides agricultural information created and tested by small-holder farmers.