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Freedom Fone ~ Mobile Information Service

Listen Listen to Freedom Fone content prepared for the AWID Forum, November 2008

Read Dialling for information and news, the BBC's Digital Planet interview with Freedom Fone - December 2008

Freedom Fone (Mobile Information Service) addresses communities’ requirements for a simple, affordable technology to communicate with one another. Freedom Fone leverages the fastest growing tool for personal access to information 24/7 – the mobile phone – & marries it with citizen radio programming.

Audio files are stored by Freedom Fone in a Content Management System (CMS) which is updated through a simple to use browser interface. These audio clips populate an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu through which callers can navigate for information. Deployment in any language is possible as key global files for menu prompts can be uploaded through the browser interface to the CMS.

Individuals can contribute questions, content and feedback by leaving voice messages via the IVR interface. Freedom Fone can be operated as a collective, with different groups managing different channels (IVR menu options) of information from the same installation.

Freedom Fone is network agnostic and can work easily and happily with mobiles and landlines. Scalability can be factored in through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in countries where VoIP is available.

This technology can be used in a ‘cost free to caller’ context – where users could dial a toll-free number to access the service – or tickle a number that records the user’s phone number and calls them back, connecting the user to the IVR menu content. In a ‘low cost to caller’ context users can SMS in for a call back.

There are no geographical or community size limitations to the implementation of Freedom Fone. The interface facilitates frequently updated short segment audio programming. It removes the technical challenge of hosting and setting up the back-end, allowing users to concentrate on content.

Elements used by Freedom Fone aren’t new, but their intuitive convergence makes it innovative and globally relevant. Global Voices' Ethan Zuckerman said recently "I'm surprised there hasn’t been more work done making interactive voice response systems usable for development purposes."

Freedom Fone provides exactly that.

For more information about Freedom Fone please email:

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Activism is my rent on Earth

Electronic activism . . . get involved and use ICTs to advocate, lobby and mobilize.

Powerlessness and silence go together. We should use our positions not as a shelter from the world's reality, but as a platform from which to speak. A voice is a gift. It should be cherished and used.
~
Margaret Atwood

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