An Open Source Mobile App for Assisting Health and Agricultural Aid in Haiti

Abstract

This work-in-progress paper describes an open source mobile application currently under development by the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software project (HFOSS) to support beneficiary registration and tracking for ACDI/VOCA in Haiti. ACDI/VOCA is a private, nonprofit organization that has been managing a USAID-funded Food for Peace program, the Multi Year Assistance Program (MYAP) in the Southeast Department of Haiti since 2008. It currently provides a food ration to over 10,000 registered beneficiaries and their families on a monthly basis. It also provides agricultural assistance ranging from seeds, plants, tools, and expertise to over 7000 beneficiaries The NSF-funded HFOSS project seeks to revitalize computing education by getting undergraduates engaged in building free and open source software (FOSS) that serves the public good. During the past five years HFOSS students have made significant contributions to a number of humanitarian software and IT projects. The app under development in Haiti will assist ACDI/VOCA workers in the rapid and reliable transmission of beneficiary registration and update data to support their food distribution efforts in rural regions of Haiti. The Android based application uses Short Message System (SMS) text messages to transmit the data directly from remote distribution points to the ACDI/VOCA server in Jacmel, Haiti. A proof-of-concept prototype was field tested in Haiti in March 2011 and a fully functional system was field tested in several rural areas at the beginning of July 2011. By the time of the Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in late October it is expected that the system will be fully deployed. This paper describes the overall system and field based observations. Data describing its utilization and performance in the field will be reported at the conference.