RapidSMS is a web framework based on the Django web framework which extends the logic and capabilities of Django to communicate with SMS

SMS

SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...

 messages. Initial development was funded by UNICEF for use in mobile data collection and polls. A side effect of the work was pygsm, a Python library for interacting with GSM modems, including cell phones which handle the Hayes command set

Hayes command set

The Hayes command set is a specific command-language originally developed for the Hayes Smartmodem 300 baud modem in 1981. The command set consists of a series of short text strings which combine together to produce complete commands for operations such as dialing, hanging up, and changing the...

. The software has been deployed in Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

, Mauritania

Mauritania

Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

, Somalia

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

, Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, Malawi

Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

, and Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

.

RapidSMS won the 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge.

Projects

RapidSMS is the basis for a few notable projects

• ChildCount, developed by the Millennium Villages Project
  Millennium Villages Project
  The Millennium Villages Project is a project of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the United Nations Development Programme, and Millennium Promise....
  
   and deployed in Kenya. Matt Berg
  Matt Berg
  Matt Berg is the director of ICT for the Millennium Villages Project at the Columbia University’s Earth Institute and member of its Department of Mechanical Engineering research group in Columbia's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is the ICT Director of the Millennium...
  
   has been chosen by Time Magazine as one of 100 most influential people of the year for his work with RapidSMS and ChildCount.
• RapidAndroid, developed by UNICEF and Dimagi, is a port of RapidSMS to the Android operating system

• Jokko, developed by UNICEF, Dimagi, and Tostan
  Tostan
  Tostan is a US-registered 501 international nongovernmental organization with operations in over 500 communities in Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Mauritania, Somalia, and Djibouti...
  
   to help teach literacy in West Africa.
• Textonic, developed by students in Clay Shirky
  Clay Shirky
  Clay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He has a joint appointment at New York University as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and Assistant Arts Professor in the New...
  
  's 2009 Design For UNICEF course at New York University
  New York University
  New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
  
  's Interactive Telecommunications Program to extend RapidSMS to use Amazon.com
  Amazon.com
  Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
  
  's Amazon Mechanical Turk
  Amazon Mechanical Turk
  The Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services...
  
  service.