A Billion Messages for Good: Twilio.org Launches for Nonprofits | Hacker News Reader

A Billion Messages for Good: Twilio.org Launches for Nonprofits

twilio.com

55 pointsshakes10 comments

We're really excited to see what hackers can do to improve the world... Let's do this!

Jeff, this is awesome. Thank you.

I am working on a front-end system for non-profits that will use there Twilio account information, runcampaigns.com. A discounted cost to support 501c(3) organizations will be very good.

Please tell me you're aiming for Convio and will have a reasonably reliable system...

Eventually but one step at a time. I ran a groupware platform for 9 years that was very reliable. This is my reboot of that but it needs to make money this time around so I am focusing on managing data and communication that leads to better fundraising results.

Jeff, we use twilio for short codes and sell primarily to non-profits. This is awesome for those that want their own short codes, but I'd really like to pass a discounted rate to non-profits through!

This is awesome! Thanks for being such a leader.

An idea (that might already exist): SMS reminders to take prescriptions. I know, for example, that my great-aunt struggles with this at 79: she's not debilitated or anything, but she's old and doesn't have the greatest memory, and remembering that she has one prescription to take twice every six hours, one to take every four hours, and one every 12 hours makes for a difficult life. (Hell, that's hard for me to remember.)

I worked on that idea as part of a team for a while. As I recall, it wasn't so much the SMS sending, but the interface design. Without compatibility with PHRs (Personal(Electronic) Health Records) transferring the notifications would be cumbersome pretty soon.

I work at Grameen Foundation, and we do that in developing countries. The system we are developing, called MOTECH, is a modular application that can be used for Pill Reminders, tracking appointments or sending periodic educational messages.

We have a lot of work still to do, both on our documentation and our code. You can read about the system here http://www.motechsuite.org/ or watch a video describing some of our implementations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzYy6NETvGI (there are shorter videos in our channel if you don't have 14 minutes). Our code is on google code if you want to check it out or even help out http://code.google.com/p/motech/

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