Ken Banks

Digital Library

ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics

United Kingdom - 2016

citation

For pioneering work developing FrontlineSMS, using mobile technology and text messaging to empower people to share information, organize aid, and reconnect communities during crisis.

Ken Banks, a self-described "mobile anthropologist," is an internationally recognized leader in efforts to empower people by leveraging the ubiquity of mobile phones, as well as familiarity of text messaging, by turning a laptop and phone into a communications hub.  Banks designed, coded and launched FrontlineSMS in 2005, and its breakthrough use came in the monitoring of the 2007 Nigerian Presidential elections.  Since then it has been used widely in the social and environmental sectors in over 170 countries, helping tens of millions of vulnerable people in the process, including helping family farmers in Laos, training rural medics in Ecuador, monitoring disease outbreaks across Africa, and promoting literacy in Niger.

FrontlineSMS was designed to be highly flexible, and this has been demonstrated by its integration into many other services including Ushahidi's crowd-sourcing platform, a powerful combination used in civil strife and natural disasters around the world.  It has also sparked the creation of new startups in the field of health, radio and micro-payments, among others.

Banks is currently the Entrepreneur in Residence at CARE International and was previously visiting fellow at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.  He is also the recipient of numerous awards, and has raised millions of dollars for his work from the Rockefeller, MacArthur, and Hewlett Foundations, among others.  Banks also spoke on a panel to young people on Semester At Sea with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who wrote the foreword to his first book.  Banks is a mentor to many, and a passionate advocate who is deeply committed to technology-driving social change.

Press Release

2016 ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics

Ken Banks was named recipient of the Eugene L. Lawler Award for developing FrontlineSMS, using mobile technology and text messaging to empower people to share information, organize aid, and reconnect communities during crises. A self-described “mobile anthropologist,” Banks has a gift for building technology that benefits humanity. As someone who was writing code and tinkering with computers since he was 13, Banks instinctively saw an opportunity to harness the world’s most-used communication platform—mobile messaging—to help people in the developing world.  In 2005, he designed, coded and launched FrontlineSMS, a mobile messaging platform that allows people to subscribe to groups, receive alerts, and establish communication hubs. FrontlineSMS played an important role in the 2007 Nigerian presidential election, where it was used to monitor, identify and curtail violence and harassment at polling places. Because of FrontlineSMS’s built-in flexibility, it quickly became a standard platform deployed in 170 countries by countless organizations. It has been used to help family farmers in Laos, train rural medics in Ecuador, double the amount of patients receiving tuberculosis care in Malawi, and monitor disease outbreaks across Africa. 

Banks continues his work as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at CARE International. To achieve CARE’s goal of raising more people above the $2 per day extreme poverty level, Banks is leading the development of a new mobile phone application for Village Savings and Loan Associations. Along with his colleagues at CARE, he is also investigating how technology might be used to advance gender equality in Rwanda. His two books The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator and Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation recount his experiences—and those of other global social innovators— and serve as guides for those who are inspired to leverage technology for positive social change.

The Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics recognizes an individual or group who has made a significant contribution through the use of computing technology. It is given once every two years, assuming that there are worthy recipients. The award is accompanied by a prize of $5,000.