During the last few days we have been bringing a few amazing projects that appeared on NetSquared in 2011 to your attention. This blog post is the last in the series. We want to introduce you to the SMS Micro Loans idea. Daniel Schiffman wanted to combine mini-loans and ICT while working on his Master thesis. He described and researched the project (and posted it in the NetSquared Projects Gallery), but hasn’t been able to find the funding to bring the idea to life. He still believes in the project though, and so do we. Reading this interview you can learn more about SMS Micro Loans and David himself. If you want to connect with him, please let us know in the comments or reach us using one of our social media channels (Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus). Thank you Daniel for taking time to answering our questions!

 With just a few hours away to the casting of the first community Vote for FACT Projects , we request you to take a look at AMIS-CAMEROON's noble cause for the farmers and VOTE to send this project to glory. When we win, it is the farmer who wins, and when the farmer wins, it is YOU the consumer who wins because you shall have the products you need at the price you need , in the market you need, and at the time you need them. All of these can happen if only you browse through the projects and push the VOTE button against the AMIS-CAMEROON project

In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, the American Red Cross raised over $32 million in donations through $10 text messages. This figure smashed the existing mobile fundraising efforts and amazed even the champions of mobile advocacy.

Introducing Twilio SMS

Has your organization ever wanted to have an easy way to automate your text-messaging services? Last week, Twilio announced a tool that allows you to add SMS functionality to your web apps for about 3 cents a message. At the bottom of this post, I've embedded a video from Twilio explaining how the service works.

Text messaging technology has recieved a lot of attention after having a considerable impact in the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Haiti, but for some of us it's hard to know the best ways to dip our toes into the world of SMS.

I have been invited to return to Netsquared as champion for Ipeace, a featured project of the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge. The innovative project is described as follows:

Ipeace, is a safety open source mobile telephony platform and Web 2.0 platform to allow journalist, human rights activist, scientist and people to expose war crimes and human rights violation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ipeace open-source mobile telephony platform will uses J2ME code that can run on a wide range of java-enable phones. 

I just want to introduce our IJCentral featured project and welcome any comments - I look forward to receiving comments or questions from N2Y4 conference participants.  You can find the project at: http://www.netsquared.org/projects/ijcentral

 Here is a trailer of The Reckoning, the documentary that will be driving the IJCentral project:

I.  What does Cell Alert/FrontlineSMS offer?

Cell Alert/FrontlineSMS empowers people in poor areas by providing alerts on anything they want to track. Whenever our online searches find useful information, we forward alerts alerts through cell phone or email that lets users act in response to humanitarian crises, genocide, economic aid, medical supplies, loans, and agricultural market trends.

II.  Our origins and development

Cell Alertâ„¢ was launched as a non-profit service as a response to difficulties encountered by refugees coming to the Washington D.C. area from many different African countries.

HI THERE DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY PROJECT ON THE N2Y4 COMPETITION AND VOTE FOR IT TO BECOME A SUCCESS. LINK:

HTTP://www.netsquared.org/projects/eduican-sharing-knowledge

Dear Friends,

I have submitted my entry for N2Y4 Mobile Challenge.

http://www.netsquared.org/projects/local-sms-community-newsletter-promotion-self-employment

Kindly visit my project & help me in spreading the idea.

Regards

Ravi Ghate

Pune,India