Link 2: http://ushahidi.com

About: SwiftRiver is a free and open source software platform that uses algorithms and crowdsourcing to validate and filter news.

Our Role: This white paper explains the relationship between algorithms and users within the SwiftRiver platform.

Awards: n/a

Link 2: http://www.globalhealth.harvard.edu/

About: Many medical test results in the developing world are never received by patients and not acted on by healthcare providers. This negatively impacts both patient care and research efforts that rely on effective data collection to draw meaningful conclusions. A system that could significantly increase the rate of test result delivery and follow-up could therefore improve both patient outcomes and the quality of research performed in developing countries.ResultsSMS is a Short Message Service (SMS)-based results delivery system that builds on existing electronic medical record systems to automatically send test results to patients (via SMS) as well as healthcare providers and researchers (via SMS or email) as they became available. The system includes features to allow for patient confidentiality through password protection and results compilation for healthcare providers and researchers. The code for the system will be open source and is being written to build on the popular OpenMRS electronic medical record platform. It will also be adaptable for use with anything from a pen and paper records system to a full functionality electronic medical record. Beyond delivering results, the system will also allow for the delivery of targeted public health messages based on test results to assist patients with follow-up.

Many medical test results in the developing world are never received by patients and not acted on by healthcare providers. This negatively impacts both patient care and research efforts that rely on effective data collection to draw meaningful conclusions. A system that could significantly increase the rate of test result delivery and follow-up could therefore improve both patient outcomes and the quality of research performed in developing countries.

ResultsSMS is a Short Message Service (SMS)-based results delivery system that builds on existing electronic medical record systems to automatically send test results to patients (via SMS) as well as healthcare providers and researchers (via SMS or email) as they became available. The system includes features to allow for patient confidentiality through password protection and results compilation for healthcare providers and researchers. The code for the system will be open source and is being written to build on the popular OpenMRS electronic medical record platform. It will also be adaptable for use with anything from a pen and paper records system to a full functionality electronic medical record. Beyond delivering results, the system will also allow for the delivery of targeted public health messages based on test results to assist patients with follow-up.

Our Role: Design, System Architecture, Usability, UX, Programming, Research, Software Development

Awards: Harvard Initiative for Global Health Grant

Link 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ww4f/4100142073/

About: The fiber infrastructure and bandwidth available to Africans is rapidly progressing. Our Quarterly Infostate of Africa graphic analyzes this progress in detail.

Our Role: Research, Design, Layout, Print, Art Direction

Awards: n/a

Date: October 2009
Client: UNICEF
Link 1: http://unicef.org
Link 2: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/uganda.html

About: Rwanda is a living and breathing example of UN reform. The aim is to be more coherent in our actions, to work more efficiently and have stronger effect for the development of Rwanda and well-being of its population. Rwanda is one of eight countries in the world that has been selected as a pilot country for the Delivering as One UN reform. The reform in Rwanda consists of 5 pillars; the One Programme, The One Budgetary Framework, The One Leader, the One Voice and the One Office. Read more about Delivering as One UN office.

Our Role: Our staff spent two and half weeks working on data collection forms alongside UNICEF programmers using the RapidSMS platform. The data was used as part of a mapping project which we also helped develop using Ruby on Rails.

Awards: n/a

Date: Sept 2009 – Current
Client: Ushahidi
Link 1: http://ujima-project.org
Link 2: http://appfrica.net/blog/2009/09/19/appfricast-16-ujima-and-the-future-of-journalism-3/

About: The Ujima Project is a new experiment in journalistic transparency. The Web site offers African journalists, nongovernmental organizations and others seeking factual data access to information that is not readily available in many African countries. The project operates on the premise of reverse transparency, taking database, documents and other information from donor countries — The United States, European Union, for example — and providing it in an easily searchable manner. Want to know what NGOs are doing in your country? The Ujima Project can provide some of the answers. Want to know how much your government is spending to influence policy in the United States or to promote its image abroad? The Ujima Project can assist with that as we

Our Role: Appfrica developed the Ujima website and visualization suite.

Awards: n/a

About: User-generated content is becoming an increasingly important source of information during emergency events while traditional media continues to play a pivotal role in documenting events as they unfold. These trends are expected to continue well into the future. The challenge, then, becomes filtering this growing torrent of information. There is an apparent tradeoff between crowdsourcing (opening the floodgates) and validation (the filter). One of the strengths of crowdsourcing is the ability to collect a high volume of information from diverse channels like Twitter, Email, News sites, blogs, and SMS.

SwiftRiver acts as the verifying filter for these different channels and is possible precisely because of the volume of information available from these sources. The more information generated, the more the community interacts with it, and the easier it becomes to identify mutually trusted sources.

Our Role: Appfrica staff members are the core developers responsible for this open source projects continued development and progress. Jon Gosier handles system architecture, roadmap, UX, UI, visualization, and manages the project’s open source community. Matt Griffiths handles Technical Architecture, lead development and scalability. Ivan Kavuma handles additional development on the platform.

Awards: n/a

Link 2: http://appfrica.net/blog/2009/08/12/the-future-of-giving/

About: Concept art for an application we are envisioning illustrating how Augmented reality can be used to serve NGOs, nonprofits, their donors and the developmental aid community.

Our Role: Not a real application but one we hope to build in the near future.

Awards: n/a

Link 2:

About: Twenty-Five percent (about 1.73 billion) of the world’s population is currently online, largely in developed world countries. Challenges for bringing the other four billion online include: investment in regional infrastructure, reducing individual poverty, offering multilingual content, engaging mobile web users, producing local content and reducing the wholesale costs of bandwidth and computing equipment. It’s incredible to consider that even with all the amazing content available on the internet right now, three fourths of the planet have yet to even join the global conversation. The above graphic illustrates how far we’ve come as well as how far we still have to go.

Our Role: Each block contains up to eight pieces of information. The rank (and sequential order of the chart), place among the top ten fastest growing internet populations, the country code (also the countries ccTLD), rank among the countries with the fastest bandwidth speeds, percentage of population using the internet, the country name, and in some cases whether or not the block represents a country or territory.

Awards: n/a

Link 2: http://sites.google.com/site/gwscommunitytranslation/uganda/volunteertranslatinggooglecougintoluganda

About: Google is one of the world’s largest technology companies. Google.co.ug is the Ugandan portal for Google’s products Search and Apps.

Our Role: Appfrica’s role was to kickstart their localization project in Uganda, which we did by volunteering our developers and resources to translate Google.co.ug into Luganda.

Awards: n/a

About: Question Box is an all questions answered service that attempts to democratize the world’s information for all the world’s people. Unlike many services that target only mobile or web users, Question Box takes into account the fact that some people are illiterate, some people are too poor to afford even a mobile phone and some people (often times women) are shut out from communicating with certain people or information sources. The service was started by Rose Shuman a few years ago when she got the idea to offer the internet and information found in things like Wikipedia to people who couldn’t read or who were otherwise disenfranchised. Since then the service has been piloted in India and Uganda.

Our Role: Our role was to work with Open Mind to rethink the Question Box project for the African continent. This meant using mobile phones and publicizing a phone number in rural areas instead of deploying costly question boxes. We also operated a three-person call center outfitted with custom software for answering caller questions.

The custom software we developed is called Open Question, an open source software project that allows for the quick offline search and storage of content.

Awards: Presented at TEDGlobal 2009