It’s a totally new ball game adding the word ‘free’ to the criteria Erik discusses in his post. Very few mobile services are free (although sometimes clever marketing can make people see it this way). Many Kenyans already have access to mobile technology – either a handset of their own, or access to one via a friend or family member. The point is how people can be mobilised to report on what’s happening in their areas, and in their lives, during times of crisis, and how a service can be put in place to allow them to do it.

Of course, it’s easy to sit here in a place like the UK (where I am) and hope, or expect, a Kenyan NGO to rapidly set up some kind of SMS service for everyday Kenyans to use to report news, ethnic violence, police brutality and so on. The technology to set up such a service is already out there, but it’s often inaccessible to these kinds of organisation due to cost or complex technical requirements.

The whole point, as far as I’m concerned, is how we provide relevant and appropriate technology solutions to grassroots organisations looking to use mobile technology in places like Kenya in times of crisis. I’d love to know how many Kenyan NGOs considered doing something, but didn’t because of a lack of knowledge, funding, technical skills or resources.

This, for me, is the point. There simply isn’t enough focus on servicing the needs of this grassroots community, and this is something I’ve been saying for a long time now. We need to be looking at developing appropriate technology solutions, and empowering organisations in their work. The problem is there isn’t much money, if any, in this.

My own work is based on initiatives such as FrontlineSMS (http://www.frontlinesms.com) and nGOmobile (http://www.ngomobile.org), both of which seek to address this imbalance.