Since our last update in June, AtmaGo has reached over 10,000 users! Our users and staff in Indonesia deserve a big round of applause.
Along with expanding to new cities in Indonesia and improving our web-based software, we are very happy to report that the Cisco Foundation has pledged to help us develop an Android application next year.
In 2014, the Android operating system had a market share of 60% in Indonesia and smartphone usage is growing quickly. Given the rapid growth, users have been asking us to optimize AtmaGo for smartphones—and to provide solutions for dealing with intermittent internet access. Thus we will be building asynchronous capabilities into our app that will allow people to compose posts “offline” and then have them go live when their phones find a connection. We also want to ensure Emergency Warning Systems (EWS), which have failed poor communities in the past, can reach the last mile in poor urban communities by connecting them to AtmaGo.
With the help our new community manager David Khoirul and our field director Alfan Rodhi, we started an AtmaGo user video contest and users have uploaded nearly 30 short videos showing what challenges they face and what is interesting about their neighborhood. Check out some of the submissions. Our Facebook page, now managed by Jimmy Welles has also been very active.
Thanks to all of our donors, staff and friends for making 2015 a fantastic year—we can’t wait to show you what we are working on for 2016!