This is a prototype for a service to help people find missing families and friends by sending a simple SMS text message to Refugees United.
The demo was created by Premasagar Rose of Dharmafly.
The idea is for an extremely simple mechanism for users to register details of missing persons, and be reassured that Refugee United will investigate and respond with news.
Poster campaigns, newspaper and radio adverts will be used to tell people about the service and give the essential details, such as the phone number to use and the information required. People will be encouraged to spread the information to others. Sending a report will cost no more than sending a local text message.
Information about the missing person will be structured so that it can be properly understood by the system. However, human moderators could edit the data, allowing a degree of flexibility in the text messages. An administrator's control panel could be used to search, filter or export data, as required.
If a person is reported missing to the service, and that same person later uses the service to announce their presence (or another person reports they have found the person), then both parties can be notified and reunited.
If the user needs a reminder for how to use the service, they can send the one-word message "helpme" to 07786 201114. Try it; it actually works. You will receive the following response:
Send one or more msg starting "find" to 07786 201114. Give as much info as you can: "find Jomo Kibaki, tribe: Kikuyu, last seen: Nyeri, email: you@example.com"
Here, the user is being asked to supply all the relevant information, with each type of data separated by commas and colons.
To report a person missing, the user can send a message to the same phone number, starting with the word "find", followed by information about the person, as described above. The following response is given:
Thanks. If you have more details, please send them. We'll get in touch if we have news. Please tell family and friends about Refugees United: 07786 201114
For this prototype, an email is then sent to a moderator about the reported person. The "thank you" response message is always the same - the data is not processed at all. In the final version of the app, however, the data could be programmatically split apart and logged in a database. An admin control panel might be used to correct any incorrectly formatted messages.
For a person to log himself or herself as alive and well, in case family or friends are seeking him or her, start a message with "iamhere", e.g: "iamhere Jomo Kibaki, tribe: Kikuyu". The response is:
Thanks. If someone is looking for you, we will let you both know. Please tell family and friends about Refugees United: 07786 201114
If the person's name (and possibly other details) match the name of a person reported missing, then both parties can be notified and reunited.
Of course, the keywords "helpme", "find" and "iamhere" could be changed if required and the type of formatting (e.g. with commas and colons) could be changed, if a more intuitive format is devised.
The calls-to-action, asking users to tell family and friends about Refugee United's service, are included to help the service spread virally, by word of mouth.
The prototype uses the SMS gateway service, Taykt, which routes text messages to web applications. The web application can then process the message and respond. Taykt was chosen for its simplicity; other gateway services, e.g. Twilio could be used, depending on requirements.
Messages starting "helpme" are passed to the application at the address refugee-sms.dharmafly.com/app/helpme/, messages starting "find" are passed to refugee-sms.dharmafly.com/app/find/ and those to "iamhere" are passed to refugee-sms.dharmafly.com/app/iamhere/.
The phone number used here is UK-based. However, a phone number in any given country could be used, and the end user could be charged only for sending a message to a local number. Depending on the gateway service used, Refugee United would be charged a small fee.
SMS has been used here, due to its ubiquity, simplicity and familiarity. It seems conceivable though that partnerships could be forged with telecoms companies to spread the service through USSD too. For example, Refugee United's service details might be advertised at the end of a telco's top-up confirmation message. A generous (or marketing savvy) telco might even be willing to host the service on their own infrastructure, making it a free service to the end user and to Refugee United.