Reaching Beyond The Web Using RapidSMS to power democracy in Libya Vinod Kurup

Take home points 1. Why build SMS apps? SMS = Short Message Service (i.e. 'text' message) 2. RapidSMS is very simple.

Outline Libyan SMS Voter Registration RapidSMS

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Government of Libya Mandates: Build an SMS Voter Registration System

Why SMS?

Why electronic? photo by Josh Thompsoncc-by-2.0

Why electronic? User's time Protests Expense Staff Materials Access

Courtesy of NASA

Why not the web?

Why not the web? Expensive! photos by and Alejandro Pinto Thomas Kohlercc-by-2.0

Why not the web? Developer time No HTML No JS No CSS No Fonts No Colors No Forms

Why not the web? User's time

Why not the web? The most important reason....

Courtesy Neal Jenningscc-by-2.0

Access Internet SMS Libya 16% 165% Africa 21% 80% South Africa 49% 147% United States 87% 96% World 39% 97% Sources: and Wikipedia World Bank

SMS Summary Widely accessible User friendly Inexpensive Libya made a wise choice!

The Project

Timeline 2012: Libya mandates HNEC to build SMS VR system Sep 2013: Caktus and partners join team Dec 2013: > 1 million registrations Feb 2014: CDA elections (60 seats) May 2014: additional 500K registrations Jun 2014: CoR elections (200 seats)

How do I register? 10010 is the HNEC short code Send to 10010: We respond: You are registered or with an error message 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 # 1 2 3 4 5

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Other Features

Voter query Send to 10010: We respond with your registration status Also available via the web at 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 https://libyavotes.ly

Translations Standard Django setup Transifex

Encodings Easy with Python Not easy when communicating with MNOs Thank you Praekelt!

Reporting Central staff needs to monitor polling centers in real-time Parallell Voting Tabulation (PVT) With 1600 centers, voice phone is not feasible Staff reports number of voters with SMS to 10050: 1 1 0 0 7 # 3 # 9 3 2

Analytics Fraud monitoring Status reports

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Help Desk

Bulk Outgoing SMS Remind voters to vote Inform voters of registration center changes

Deployment

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Deployment Fabric Salt scripts Caktus Django Project Template https://github.com/caktus/django-project-template/

Testing Automated tests HNEC staff testing ... (message 58)

Intro to RapidSMS

RapidSMS: Overview UNICEF developed in 2007 Free and Open Source (BSD) https://rapidsms.org https://github.com/rapidsms/rapidsms

RapidSMS: Installation p i p i n s t a l l r a p i d s m s

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RapidSMS: How To 1. Setup a Backend 2. Create an App 3. There is no step 3

RapidSMS Backends Twilio Android phone GSM Modem Vumi Others

1. Configuration settings 2. URL for incoming messages I N S T A L L E D _ B A C K E N D S = { " l i b y a n a " : { " E N G I N E " : " r a p i d s m s . b a c k e n d s . v u m i . V u m i B a c k e n d " , " s e n d s m s _ u r l " : ' h t t p : / / 1 2 7 . 0 . 0 . 1 / l i b y a n a ' , } , } u r l p a t t e r n s + = p a t t e r n s ( ' ' , u r l ( r " ^ b a c k e n d / v u m i - l i b y a n a / $ " , V u m i B a c k e n d V i e w . a s _ v i e w ( b a c k e n d _ n a m e = " l i b y a n a " ) ) ) RapidSMS Backend

Just Python! Messages are just text f r o m r a p i d s m s . a p p s . b a s e i m p o r t A p p B a s e c l a s s P i n g P o n g ( A p p B a s e ) : d e f h a n d l e ( s e l f , m s g ) : i f m s g . t e x t = = ' p i n g ' : m s g . r e s p o n d ( ' p o n g ' ) r e t u r n T r u e r e t u r n F a l s e RapidSMS Apps

Multiple apps Multiple phases f r o m r a p i d s m s . a p p s . b a s e i m p o r t A p p B a s e c l a s s P i n g P o n g ( A p p B a s e ) : d e f f i l t e r ( s e l f , m s g ) : p a s s d e f p a r s e ( s e l f , m s g ) : p a s s d e f h a n d l e ( s e l f , m s g ) : p a s s d e f d e f a u l t ( s e l f , m s g ) : p a s s d e f c l e a n u p ( s e l f , m s g ) : p a s s RapidSMS Apps

Libya Example i m p o r t r e f r o m r a p i d s m s . a p p s . b a s e i m p o r t A p p B a s e c l a s s P r e p r o c e s s A p p ( A p p B a s e ) : d e f p a r s e ( s e l f , m s g ) : N O N D I G I T S _ R E = r e . c o m p i l e ( ' [ ^ \ d ] ' , f l a g s = r e . U N I C O D E ) m s g . n u m b e r _ l i s t = [ n f o r n i n N O N D I G I T S _ R E . s p l i t ( m s g _ t e x t ) i f n ]

Router Handlers Connection / Contacts Message Tester Message Log Third party modules R A P I D S M S _ R O U T E R = " r a p i d s m s . r o u t e r . c e l e r y . C e l e r y R o u t e r " Other RapidSMS concepts

Cool RapidSMS projects - A project aimed at decreasing child mortality during the critical 1000 days after birth. - A project to provide HIV test results and tracking to to infants, their mothers, and caregivers. 1000 Days Project Mwana

Conclusion

Take home points 1. Is access important to your project? Then SMS is important to your project. Easy to add to a web app 2. RapidSMS is easy to set up RapidSMS is flexible and scalable RapidSMS is NOT the only option

Thanks! Caktus: Colin, Dan, Daryl, Elliott, Hao, Jeff, Michael, Nicole, Philip, Scott, Tobias, Victor Reboot: Hunter, Josh, Justin Praekelt: Ben, JP, Simon, Simon, Vincent HNEC: Ahmed, Fadia, Munir MIS: Ian, Joe UN: Ajay, Panto

Questions?