EOTV: Cell Phone Spring Break 2009 - Uganda!

by Josh Nesbit · 2009-03-10 07:44:00 UTC
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An MTN van in Kampala, Uganda, courtesy of FutureAtlas.com

In two weeks, I’ll be in the middle of my very last Spring Break - the final hiatus before finishing up my undergraduate studies at Stanford. Some of my friends are booking beach houses in Cabo San Lucas. I’m preparing for a slightly different trip.

I’ll spend ten days in rural Uganda, working with Dr. Elioda Tumweisgwe to set up FrontlineSMS:Medic programs at Bushenyi Medical Center and Kabwohe Clinical Research Center in the western district of Bushenyi. Dr. Tumweisgwe is the Chairman of the Uganda Parliament’s HIV Committee.

I’ll be carrying admittedly strange luggage - 100, recycled cell phones, two donated laptops, antimalarial medication, and a bag of solar panels. The phones are all java-enabled, an important specification given the release of the FrontlineForms client, last week. Over 200 community health workers (CHWs), along with the patients they serve, await the SMS program’s arrival. The CHWs cover 800,000 people in 29 subcounties and 2,304 villages.

There’s plenty of work to be done before I leave. The other weekend, FrontlineSMS:Medic had a team summit at Stanford. For 48 hours, the e-mails, tweets, Skype conferences, and Google Docs subsided and face-to-face discussions birthed a true (albeit penniless) organization.

We are a team of ambitious 20-somethings, volunteers and optimists. There are currently fifteen Country Directors who will work alongside community partners as they roll out SMS programs at more than 25 sites across four continents. While assisting these clinics, a team of software developers will be working with FrontlineSMS:Medic’s partners to open up a new and exciting world for mHealth. Our strong connections to in-country partners will provide  the ability to shape innovations based on feedback from the very same healthcare workers we’re looking to serve and support.

After months of work in the US, the coming weeks will undoubtedly provide a breath of fresh air and refuel my commitment to this work. My time working with the CHWs in Uganda will be “caught on tape,” thanks to a Flip video camcorder provided by the Clinton Global Initiative. I’ll certainly share that footage when I’m back - just don’t expect any party scenes.

This is the second post by Josh Nesbit in the inaugural Entrepreneurs on the Verge series, a feature which will follow the lives and work of four up and coming social entrepreneurs for the next six months. Josh is a senior at Stanford University and co-founder of FrontlineSMS:Medic, an organization designed to help community health workers use mobile technology to expand the quality and scope of their care. Read more about Josh on his website Jopsa.org

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