When you hear someone say ‘Zimbabwe’ the first images that pop up in your mind are not particularly those that would evoke positive feelings… at least not in most cases. However, it appears Zimbabwe is not left behind when it comes to Open Source tech innovation, as the rest of the continent moves forward, Zimbabwe is also making some strides in tech innovation.

We came across this interesting project called Freedom Fone. It’s an Open Source Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system built by information activists in Zimbabwe:

Freedom Fone is a project of The Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe which comprises a small, hard working group of information activists based in Zimbabwe. Since 2001 Kubatana has worked to develop innovative communication strategies to amplify and extend access to the work of civil society in Zimbabwe. Our goal has been to share these alternate voices with local Zimbabweans during a period of overwhelming government propaganda and oppression…

Freedom Fone is an information and communication tool, which marries the mobile phone with Interactive Voice Response (IVR), for citizen benefit. It provides information activists, service organisations and NGO’s with widely usable telephony applications, to deliver vital information to communities who need it most…

Freedom Fone makes it easy to build voice menus, run SMS polls, receive SMS messages and manage voice messages.

This is really interesting. You can play with an online demo to see just how cool the technology is (and how simple it is to use)