Meet the Millennials whose Text Messages are Changing the World
Today’s young people are often labeled as technology-obsessed, especially when it comes to communication. Google the phrase “Before you call me, ask yourself: Is this textable?” and you’ll find over 8 million snarky search results. While psychologists fervently measure the impact of texting on social skill development, and educators worry whether spelling and punctuation will become relics of the past, a surprising number of today’s youth are harnessing the power of SMS technology for social good.
Below are five innovative ways that young people around the world are transforming texting from a platform for socialization to a tool for social impact.
1. Providing new mothers with life-saving medical information
For Isaac Gogo, proud father of a one-year-old boy, maternal and infant deaths resulting from preventable complications are unacceptable. But the reality is, roughly 7 million children under the age of five in his home country, Kenya, die annually from diseases that could have been prevented. Half of these preventable deaths occur within one month of a child’s birth.
Knowing that most mothers living in rural areas struggle to travel to clinics for frequent care, Isaac decided to meet them where they are — on their mobile phones. With a team of medical experts, he developed weekly SMS updates that provide expectant mothers with vaccination schedules, healthy eating tips, reminders on when to take medications, and alerts for upcoming doctor visits. He named the initiative Linda Mtoto, a Swahili phrase meaning “save a child.”
Today, Isaac and his team of 20+ volunteers have worked with 30 rural hospitals to develop a database of 2,500+ mothers with young children. In participating communities, the number of women giving birth in health facilities rose from 28% to 63% and more than 70% of women are attending all critical pregnancy and infant health appointments. Says Isaac:
“From the last mile rural community to the most vulnerable in urban settings, the predictable cost, ability to schedule intermittent messages, and simple, hand-held nature of SMS makes it ideal for moving small packets of information swiftly and reliably.”
2. Putting power in the hands of citizens to hold their leaders accountable
Believing that powerful institutions should protect — not jeopardize — human rights, Deepa Gupta co-founded Jhatkaa.org. When moments arise for Indian citizens to hold their decision makers accountable on key issues of public welfare, Jhatkaa uses mobile text messages, as well as automated voice calls, email, and social networks to rapidly inform its 40,000 members about the injustice occurring and opportunity to address it. Members are provided immediate action steps to impact outcomes, such a contacting a government official or voting at an upcoming election.
Relevant leaders soon feel the pressure, and Deepa’s team opens dialogue with them to ensure citizen voices are heard and those in power are held accountable. To date, Jhatkaa has mobilized 200,000+ people to take action on several winning campaigns and met with dozens of decision makers.
In one of several successful campaigns, Jhatkaa members pressured law enforcement to seek justice after a woman was assaulted by rickshaw drivers, resulting in a sting operation with dozens of drivers arrested. In another winning campaign, India’s Home Ministry implemented the Bezbaruah report, outlining stricter measures against racism following a series of high-profile racial attacks on minority groups.
3. Linking marginalized groups to opportunity
Mohammed Zaid Al-Kilany co-founded Souktel in 2006. In the beginning, it was a service that connected disenfranchised job seekers in the Middle East to life-changing information about employment and training opportunities. Job seekers created “mini CVs” via SMS that included basic data on their skills and location, which were then sent to a database of employers to search and recruit new talent. In just two years, Souktel reached 12,000 Palestinian job seekers and 250 employers.
Today, Souktel has expanded to reach 500,000+ mobile users in over 30 countries by partnering with NGOs, governments, and businesses to develop technology-based development solutions in areas such as gender equality, emergency response, education, and economic growth. From an SMS alert system in Gaza to notify parents when local schools are in danger, to a platform for Syrian refugees in Turkey to obtain important legal advice in their own language, Souktel continues to prove the relevance and impact of SMS technology for protecting vulnerable populations.
4. Protecting consumers from fraud
The World Health Organization reports that counterfeit medicine sales comprise a $200 billion annual global industry. Worldwide, there are more fake medicines than real ones on the market, putting consumers’ lives at risk. Concerned by stories of expired malaria preventatives being sold with incorrect labels in his home country of Ghana, Bright Simons founded mPedigree, an SMS-based verification system that revolutionized the way prescription drugs are purchased in developing countries.
Using Bright’s system, consumers verify the source of a prescription drug at the point of purchase, for no cost, by sending a text message to a central database funded by the legitimate pharmaceutical companies. The mPedigree scratch-off label has been adopted as the national standard in six countries, including India, with early stage roll-out in six more.
Seeing the power of SMS messages for product authentication, Bright expanded the scope of mPedigree to protect more customers in diverse markets. Through its GoldKey platform, the organization works with companies in industries ranging from agriculture to beauty, providing SMS-based point-of-sale product verification. The organization’s GoldKey icon is now on tens of millions of products around the world, helping consumers and companies crack down on counterfeit and potentially harmful or ineffective products.
5. Increasing food security and the success of small-scale farmers
Agriculture represents more than half of all industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), making the country fertile ground for tech-savvy millenials to advance the sector they’ve inherited from their parents. After noticing that a gap in accessible agriculture information was limiting the outputs and earning potential of small scale farmers in his country, Giresse Lokwa Mila founded AgriBiz.
AgriBiz is an SMS mobile service that helps farmers select the best crops for their location using climate and weather data, decide when and how to plant their crops, and link their products to available markets. Farmers can easily connect with customers by sending an SMS with information on goods, prices and quantities for sale. This information is plotted on a map, enabling customers to see farmers and make a connection. The increase in efficiency throughout the agriculture chain results in higher wages for farming families and decreased food shortages in the DRC and beyond.
The only constant in technology is change. With the global surge of smart phones, along with apps and mobile web browsing, SMS may seem primitive. However, the success of these young social entrepreneurs proves that sometimes the simple solution is the best one. The role of SMS remains especially relevant in regions off the 3G internet grid, where individuals stand to benefit most from access to information.
As a millennial, I find hope in knowing that for every expert claiming that the tech habits of this generation are dooming human interaction, there’s a young person using technology in a heroic fashion, making our world more connected and inclusive.
And next time you see a teen buried in their phone? Don’t be so quick to judge — there’s a chance they’re busy changing the world.
By Lisa Jones, storyteller for youth-led social change at the International Youth Foundation. Learn more about YouthActionNet, an IYF initiative building one of the world’s largest networks of young changemakers: www.youthactionnet.org
