Reaching Beyond The Web

Using RapidSMS to power democracy in Libya

As web developers, we often think of the web as being a ubiquitous resource, available to everyone. The truth is that there are still large groups of people who have either limited or no web access. In addition, there are people who have excellent web access, yet still prefer to use simpler tools to connect to others. How can we reach these groups of people? While not perfectly ubiquitous, SMS technology is much more widespread, especially in areas that don't have great internet connectivity. It's also ubiquitous in the sense that people who have excellent internet access still use SMS frequently.

The government of Libya recently implemented a voter registration system and chose to use SMS as the implementation technology, largely because of these reasons. In this talk, I will explain how we used RapidSMS, a Django-based SMS framework, to build this groundbreaking voter registration system. We will discuss the basics of the RapidSMS framework, and show concrete examples from our Libyan project. I will mostly describe concepts at a high level, though familiarity with Python code may help you understand the details.

If you truly want your tools to reach everyone, adding SMS connectivity will spread the power of your web apps.

Transcript

1. Reaching Beyond The Web Using RapidSMS to power democracy in Libya Vinod Kurup
2. Take home points 1. Why build SMS apps? SMS = Short Message Service (i.e. 'text' message) 2. RapidSMS is very simple.
3. Outline Libyan SMS Voter Registration RapidSMS
5. Government of Libya Mandates: Build an SMS Voter Registration System
6. Why SMS?
7. Why electronic? photo by Josh Thompsoncc-by-2.0
8. Why electronic? User's time Protests Expense Staff Materials Access
9. Courtesy of NASA
10. Why not the web?
11. Why not the web? Expensive! photos by and Alejandro Pinto Thomas Kohlercc-by-2.0
12. Why not the web? Developer time No HTML No JS No CSS No Fonts No Colors No Forms
13. Why not the web? User's time
14. Why not the web? The most important reason....
15. Courtesy Neal Jenningscc-by-2.0
16. 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
17. SMS Summary Widely accessible User friendly Inexpensive Libya made a wise choice!
18. The Project
19. 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)
20. 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
22. Other Features
23. 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
24. Translations Standard Django setup Transifex
25. Encodings Easy with Python Not easy when communicating with MNOs Thank you Praekelt!
26. 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
27. Analytics Fraud monitoring Status reports
29. Help Desk
30. Bulk Outgoing SMS Remind voters to vote Inform voters of registration center changes
31. Deployment
33. Deployment Fabric Salt scripts Caktus Django Project Template https://github.com/caktus/django-project-template/
34. Testing Automated tests HNEC staff testing ... (message 58)
35. Intro to RapidSMS
36. RapidSMS: Overview UNICEF developed in 2007 Free and Open Source (BSD) https://rapidsms.org https://github.com/rapidsms/rapidsms
37. RapidSMS: Installation p i p i n s t a l l r a p i d s m s
39. RapidSMS: How To 1. Setup a Backend 2. Create an App 3. There is no step 3
40. RapidSMS Backends Twilio Android phone GSM Modem Vumi Others
41. 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
42. 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
43. 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
44. 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 ]
45. 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
46. 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
47. Conclusion
48. 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
49. 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
50. Questions?