The open-source toolkit allows users to broadcast using just a smartphone and a transmitter
Radio is still and continues to be a powerful medium across most of the African continent. Not only is radio used to share community information but it is cheap and very accessible. In Uganda a mixing of radio’s power with new mobile and internet technologies has created a cheap and powerful open-source toolkit that allows communities to create their own micro-radio stations. All one needs is an inexpensive smartphone and a transmitter and a community that will share, promote and collaborate on dynamic content.
RootIO is working to mobilise what they call ‘intercommunity communication’. Co-founder, Chris Csikszentmihalyi says the idea came after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 when FM radio stations transformed their programming from ordinary radio shows to programming on information on how people devastated by the earthquake find places where there was water or where they could find help.
This story was first published by the Journalism and Media Lab, a Wits Journalism project. Please click on the following link to read the full article: How RootIO is broadcasting radio shows using a bucket in Uganda
