The new Open Mobile Consortium announcement of ODK = Open Data Kit

Hello W3C MW4D WG members

Today I did receive this e-mail (advertizing) to my e-mail box.

But this could be interesting to our Working Group.

Disclaimer: I don't have any relations to these organizations.
This was news to me. And I feel, this might be interesting also
to rest of our WG.

Their web-site: http://mobileactive.org/
seems to be very active reporting on many African mobile stories.


Br. Lauri

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All of us at the OMC are very pleased to announce today that Open Data Kit has joined the Open Mobile Consortium.  See the press release below, and also http://www.open-mobile.org/news/open-data-kit-join-open-mobile-consortium
  for more information on ODK and why it is important!

Thanks, and welcome ODK team, to the Open Mobile Consortium!

***For Immediate Release***

Media Contact:
Robert Kirkpatrick, Chairperson
Phone: +1 650 796 5709

New York, NY, June 15, 2009.  The Open Mobile Consortium is pleased to announce today that Open Data Kit is joining its growing line-up of organizations working towards social good through collaboration on open-source mobile technologies.

Open Data Kit (ODK) is a suite of open-source tools to help organizations collect, aggregate and visualize complex data. Examples of these tools include ODK Collect, a powerful phone-based replacement for paper forms, and ODK Aggregate, a scalable online repository for collected data.

Among ODK's users is AMPATH, the largest HIV treatment program in sub- Saharan Africa and Kenya's most comprehensive initiative to combat the disease. Over the next two years, ODK Collect will be used to conduct a home-based testing and counseling program reaching 2 million people.

ODK's efforts exemplify the interoperability and code reuse that Open Mobile Consortium aims to achieve by bringing together diverse organizations building open source mobile solutions.

For example, although ODK Collect is designed for Android phones, it leverages the OMC's JavaRosa project to ensure that forms designed for JavaRosa work with ODK tools. Moreover, ODK Collect allows GPS location, barcode scans, photos, and video to be added to the forms -- a powerful mix that enables an entirely new class of data collection.

Robert Kirkpatrick, chairman of the Open Mobile Consortium says: "We are excited to welcome ODK as a member of the Open Mobile Consortium.  
We believe that the Open Data Kit will have opportunities for field use far sooner than many expected. The arrival of Android in India, for example, indicates that ODK's strategic decision to adopt these cutting edge software technologies both on mobile devices and in the cloud is prescient. In the meantime, a number of OMC members have already begun exploring possibilities for integration between ODK and their respective tools. ODK is yet another clear indication that the new generation of data collection tools is beginning to hit its stride in terms of power, portability, and ease of use, to the point that we may soon see relief and development practitioners consider abandoning paper en masse."

Yaw Anokwa, one of the developers of Open Data Kit, notes, "We want our users to choose individual technologies that are appropriate for their organizations and be confident that it will all work together.  
Open source and open standards are important, but we are also building an open community that makes the tools easy to try, easy to use, easy to modify and easy to scale. ODK helps organizations rid themselves of the problems of expensive and error-prone paper-based data collection.

ODK's demo videos, source code, and current roadmap can be found at http://code.google.com/p/open-data-kit
. ODK is possible thanks to generous support from Google.

The Open Mobile Consortium's open source software tools help organizations to better serve the health, humanitarian and development needs of the "bottom billion," the poorest and most disenfranchised citizens of the world. It is an unprecedented collaboration across organizations to better serve communities with open source mobile tools.  Together, they are building a vibrant set of platforms for use, at no cost, with no restrictions. OMC members share a vision that by working together to drive grassroots mobile technology innovation in some of the most challenging, resource-poor environments in the world, they will create a simple, flexible, and reliable set of technology that enable to individual and organizations anywhere in the world to effect social change.

With almost 280 million subscribers in Africa alone, mobile phones are recognized as instruments of change in finance, agriculture, media and development work. Mobile technology can easily provide data on food prices to farmers, patient  information to remote medical clinics, and help track supplies and logistics. It is estimated that by 2010, 1 in
3 Africans will own a mobile phone. The Open Mobile Consortium was founded to develop and bring to scale free  and open-source solutions that leverage the power and ubiquity of mobile phones.

OMC has already brought together a number of mobile technology tools for collaboration and sharing.  These include, among others:

    * CommCare, a mobile-phone based application that allows community health workers to provide better, more efficient care and improve coordination of community health programs;
    * Mobilisr, an open source enterprise class mobile messaging platform for NGOs around the world;
    * Mesh4X, a platform for seamless cross-organizational information sharing between mobile devices, databases, desktop applications, and websites;
    * RapidSMS, an open source platform allowing for any mobile phone to use SMS to collect data, used in Malawi, Ethiopia and Nigeria to collect information and provide rapid feedback to field workers;
    * GeoChat, a flexible open source group communications tool that enables mobile field communications and situational awareness during emergencies;
    * Ushahidi, a web-based platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information.


About the Open Mobile Consortium

The Open Mobile Consortium is a thriving and growing community of mobile technologists and practitioners working to drive open source mobile solutions for more effective and efficient humanitarian relief and global social development. Founding member organizations include Millennium Villages Project, Cell Life, Dimagi, D-Tree, InSTEDD, MobileActive, TextToChange, UNICEF and Ushahidi.  We are at http://www.open-mobile.org .

*****

Katrin Verclas
Co-Founder and Editor
MobileActive.org
katrin@mobileactive.org
+ 1 413 687 9877
skype: katrinskaya

Read the latest about mobiles in social change work at http://mobileactive.org

Received on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 20:44:14 UTC