Berkeley Innovation Group working on open source Question Box Hardware

Monday, November 12th, 2012

A team of students at UC Berkeley in the Berkeley Innovation Group are developing blueprints for an open source Question Box!

“Our current goal is that by the end of the semester (December 14th), we will publish a construction manual that anyone can use to build their own Question Box. It’s not yet clear exactly what form this document would be, or even whether it would be a typical document at all; but if rural villages in Africa, India, or Asia can use our creation to build a Question Box and connect their members to the world, we’ll consider it a success.”

Follow their blog and progress at http://questionboxberkeley.tumblr.com/

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Open Question – Navigating the technical white water rapids

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012

The Indigo Trust just published our recent account detailing the wild and wooly journey we have taken to develop our newest offering, Open Question. This journey was generously sponsored by The Indigo Trust, and we got there thanks to our incredible and dedicated programming team, who went through incredible challenges to get us to the finish line.

Open Question – Persevering Through Technical White Water Rapids

By Scott Fairbanks and Rose Shuman – Question Box

Our organization, Question Box, spent years creating and running local hotlines in rural, developing world communities. In 2010, the Question Box team agreed upon a major shift in direction. To achieve a real shift in development practice we needed move away from being implementers, and towards being a tool-provider. That way, we could spread and scale the promise of low-cost hotlines by taking what we had learned and creating a way for NGOs to build and manage their own hotlines.

Open Question, our software concept, was a keystone to building a hotline toolkit. Open Question is a software program that helps community organizations record data from incoming hotline calls, efficiently search for answers, and track call times, caller demographics, and answers to survey questions. The spec demanded a simple desktop interface that could work on offline, outdated computers in developing countries. Meaning, it had to be compatible with the likes of a Pentium II PC with 128 MB of RAM running Windows XP.

Read more

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From our partner, The Zimbabwean

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

Please help us win News Challenge!

The Zimbabwean has entered the 2012 African News Challenge in partnership with Question Box – but we need all our readers to help us win. We propose to harness the unique power of Question Box technology to engage our existing network of journalists and readers in opening up new avenues of discussion and news gathering inside Zimbabwe.

In our own country as well as in much of Africa, media access is not free, nor is it a two-way discussion. Our submission can change that – but we need your help! The more popular our entry, the better our chances of winning the money we need to get it off the ground. If our supporters take 15 seconds of their time to leave a “heart” and comment on our entry, we stand a much better chance of being able to make a real difference.

So, please visit the link below and leave a comment and a “heart”, and then forward this message on to all your friends. We’re really grateful for the support you’ve shown us so far; we know that with your help we can continue to help promote freedom and justice in Zimbabwe.

Our submission: http://africannewschallenge.tumblr.com/post/26750041254/the-zimbabwean-question-box-anti-corruption-people

Wilf Mbanga

Editor The Zimbabwean

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Please <3 or comment QB entry to ANIC Media Challenge – deadline July 10th!

Monday, July 9th, 2012

Question Box & The Zimbabwean newspaper are entrants in ANIC media grant challenge. Your comment & <3 help us stand out
http://africannewschallenge.tumblr.com/post/26750041254/the-zimbabwean-question-box-anti-corruption-people

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Question Box auf Deutsch

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

Question Box was recently featured in Betterplace Lab’s Trendreport.

” Sie können nicht lesen? Sie leben in einem Slum oder auf dem Acker ohne Internetzugang? Sie sprechen kein Englisch oder Deutsch? Aber sie müssen unbedingt was wissen? Fragen Sie die Question Box, eine Sprechanlage, bei der man auf Knopfdruck mit jemandem verbunden wird, der im Internet recherchiert. Etwa wann der nächste Bus in die Großstadt fährt. Auf welche aktuellen Preise für Weizen sie sich beim nächsten Verkaufsgespräch beziehen können. Wie das Wetter morgen wird, falls sie sähen wollen.”

Read the entire article – auf Deutsch!

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Question Box at UNESCO World Press Freedom Day

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

Question Box was a featured technology presented at UNESCO World Press Freedom Day in Tunis, Tunisa May 3-5, 2012. In developing, emerging, and conflict/post-conflict countries, we demonstrated how Question Boxes can connect the local media to citizens safely and efficiently. Question Boxes are useful both to get tips and reporting from citizens on the ground, and to give citizens a point of access to learn the latest news updates live.

Check out our slide presentation below! If you are a news media outlet, please get in touch if you would like to use Question Box for citizen outreach.

UNESCO World Press Freedom Day Question Box Tunisia May 2012

View more presentations from Open Mind.
Thanks to IREX for sponsoring our participation.

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Presenting next week at UNESCO World Press Freedom Day

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

Question Box will be represented on a panel at UNESCO World Press Freedom Day in Tunis, Tunisia on May 4th. Presenters will share “Innovations in Gathering and Sharing News.”

At Question Box, we’ve always seen a natural fit between media and the Question Box approach, both as way for the media to get information from citizens, and for citizens to get information from the media. We will post our slideshow after the presentation. If you are going to be at the conference, please get in touch!

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US State Department Webinar on Question Box

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012



Today, Question Box Founder Rose Shuman presented an hour-long webinar broadcast to all US State Department Posts. View the complete slide show here, or click below to view the complete video interview.

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Question Box featured by Christian Science Monitor Change Agent blog

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Question Box helps people Google can’t reach

Millions of people in the developing world lack internet access and the ability to ‘Google’ an answer to their questions. Question Box provides a simple solution.

Originally published by Yadira Gutierrez, Mercy Corps Global Envision / February 14, 2012

For millions in the developing world who can’t just “Google it,” a box is providing the answers.

To begin, users push a green “talk” button on the metal intercom box and ask a question in their local language. An operator in a larger town with more Internet bandwidth will look up their questions online and relay the answers to the caller. The red button ends the call.

The Question Box was created by Open Mind, a nonprofit founded by Rose Shuman in partnership with the Grameen Foundation.

Internet access is not given a second thought in the developed world, but for billions around the globe, the Internet is far out of reach.

“Question Boxes leap over illiteracy, computer illiteracy, lack of networks, and language barriers,” according to Shuman and fellow organizers. “They provide immediate, relevant information to people using their preferred mode of communication: speaking and listening.”

Read full article here

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Fast Company Co.EXIST features Question Box!

Friday, January 6th, 2012

Question Box Answers Questions In Remote Villages That Can’t Just Google It

By Michael J. Coren

January 4, 2012

Without an Internet connection or robust smartphones, many people around the world don’t have access to instantaneous information. Question Box–a mobile phone connected to an operator–can help villagers from settling bar bets to answering serious questions about health and farming.

Ask, and you shall receive. When it comes to information in much of the developing world, this simply isn’t true. Connectivity is like air in industrialized nations: We take it for granted that we can go online with a question in mind and search a good portion of human knowledge to find the answer.

But the next time you’re in a bar settling an argument by checking IMDb on your smartphone, think about how people in other parts of the world have to resolve these questions, or even more important ones. Rural areas without decent roads or schools, never mind an Internet connection, have little to link them to the outside world. For these places, there is now Question Box.

Read Full Article

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