RapidSMS is a web framework based on the Django web framework which extends the logic and capabilities of Django to communicate with

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

messages. Initial development was done by

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

's Innovation Unit for use in mobile data collection and polls. A side effect of the work was pygsm, a Python library for interacting with

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

modems, including cell phones which handle the

Hayes command set The Hayes command set (also known as the AT command set) is a specific command language originally developed by Dale Heatherington and Dennis Hayes for the Hayes Smartmodem in 1981. The command set consists of a series of short text string ...

. The software has been deployed in numerous countries, including

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

, and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

Awards

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and UNICEF won the 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge for their work with RapidSMS in Malawi. * In 2009,

won the Gov2.0 Summit Award in the 'Government as a Provider' category for their work with RapidSMS in Malawi. *

Frog Design frog (styled as ''"frog, part of Capgemini Invent"'') is a global creative and design consultancy founded in 1969 by industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger in Mutlangen, Germany, where it was initially named “esslinger design”. Soon after the ...

won two IDSA

IDEA Awards The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is an award program previously co-sponsored by ''BusinessWeek'' magazine, and in 2010 ''Fast Company'' magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). According to the IDSA, IDEA "i ...

(Gold in the Social Impact Design category and Silver in the Design Strategy category) at the 2012 International Design Excellence Awards for their work with UNICEF on Project Mwana. * In 2010, Matt Berg was chosen by

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

as one of the 100 most influential people of the year for his work with RapidSMS and ChildCount. * In 2013,

Christopher Fabian Christopher Fabian (born April 18, 1980) is a technologist who works for UNICEF. He founded technology and finance initiatives in both the public and private sector, including the creation in 2006, of UNICEF's Innovation Unit. Fabian is an advo ...

and

Erica Kochi is a humanitarian and a technologist who worked in UNICEF's Innovation Unit with Christopher Fabian. In 2013, she was chosen by ''Time'' magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Dorsey, Jack (18 April 2013)"The 2013 Time ...

were selected by Time Magazine to be on the

Time 100 ''Time'' 100 is a list of the top 100 most influential people, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, politicians, and journalists, the list is now a highly ...

list of the 100 most influential people in the world for their work with RapidSMS at

.Time 100
/ref>

Projects

RapidSMS is the basis for a few notable projects: * mTrac, a disease surveillance and drug tracking system developed by

and the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

in Uganda, is one of only a handful of mHealth projects being scaled up nationally. In August 2012, it was featured in "The Wireless Issue" of

. * U-Report, one of the largest SMS social networks of community crowd sourced volunteer reporters in the world, with approximately 200,000 registered users in Uganda as of April 2013, reporting on development issues and engaging directly with national and local government through the platform. *

Birth Registration A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a person. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the en ...

and Timba Objects developed a system with RapidSMS that is used for birth registration nationwide in Nigeria. * Project Mwana uses RapidSMS to improve early infant diagnosis of HIV and post-natal follow-up and care. Project Mwana was developed by

and

and has been deployed in

and

. Project Mwana won two IDSA

(Gold in the Social Impact Design category and Silver in the Design Strategy category) at the 2012 International Design Excellence Awards. * RapidSMS MCH, is a system for monitoring pregnancy and reducing bottlenecks in communication associated with maternal and newborn deaths in

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

. The project was developed by

and Pivot Access. * ChildCount, developed by the

Millennium Villages Project The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was a demonstration project headed by the American economist Jeffrey Sachs under the auspices of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the United Nations Development Programme, and Millennium Promise ...

and deployed in Kenya. Matt Berg has been chosen by

as one of the 100 most influential people of the year for his work with RapidSMS and ChildCount. * RapidAndroid, developed by

and Dimagi, is a port of RapidSMS to the

Android operating system Android is an operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen-based mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android has historically been developed by ...

* Jokko, was developed by

, Dimagi, and Tostan to help teach literacy in West Africa. * Textonic, developed by students in

Clay Shirky Clay Shirky (born 1964) is an American pundit, writer, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism. In 2017 he was appointed Vice Provost of Educational Technologies of New York University (NYU), aft ...

's 2009 Design For UNICEF course at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Interactive Telecommunications Program The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic, and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, as the School of the Arts at New York University, Tisch ...

to extend RapidSMS to

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

Amazon Mechanical Turk Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing website with which businesses can hire remotely located "crowdworkers" to perform discrete on-demand tasks that computers are currently unable to do as economically. It is operated under Amazon Web ...

service.

References

External links

Nutrition RapidSMS
{{Web frameworks Python (programming language) web frameworks Free software programmed in Python Software using the BSD license