The Data Journalism Awards is a GEN initiative supported by Google, and organized in collaboration with the European Journalism Centre. TRAC FM is proud to be selected with 56 others among more than 300 applications from all over the world!

Trac FM involves people in monitoring service delivery in their community through radio polls. Responses to the polls are instantly visualized in the radio studio so talk-show hosts can discuss the data with their guests and give feedback to listeners on what is happening on the ground. This instant feedback loop creates transparency, awareness and promotes accountability and informed debate. The Trac FM method is the first of its kind and uses radio talk-shows, SMS and internet in a configuration which is custom made for the use in rural Uganda. The platform has been used in radio broadcasts since May 2011 and is proving to be a very popular way for radio listeners to participate in public debate! We are willing to share our fully functional Software with interested radio stations in the developing world and give them advice on how to best use it. If you want more information or are interested to partner with Trac FM contact wdijkstra@trac.pro.

VIDEO: See how Trac FM works in Lira. Trac FM works together with local radio stations and provides them with software to run online polls. Listeners can send in their reports or opinions by SMS. Radio presenters get an instant and clear overview of poll results which they feed back to listeners during radio debates. Stations invite local leaders to comment on collected data and Trac FM makes sure data reaches responsible authorities. Trac FM wants people to be part of the running of their society and provide them with a platform to participate and discuss policy issues in an accessible and objective way.

This month, Trac FM founder & Director Wouter Dijkstra was interviewed by PC Tech magazine. PC tech is one of the first technology magazines in Africa and the only one in Uganda. Click here to find the whole article.

Kampala's oldest radio station has taken up Trac FM in their broadcasting and will involve their listeners in voicing their opinions and reporting on failing public services. Sanyu's awesome threesome, Seanice, Fatboy and Melanie will discuss pressing public issues during their 4 hour breakfast show and ask their fans to join the debate by sending in free SMS messages. The trio immediately get all SMS feedback on their screen, depicted in clear data visualizations, and update their listeners on results. Our first broadcast showed that a large majority (65%) thinks that healthcare should be a priority by government and on the question 'Do you think the Urban working class is held back because they are burdened with the healthcare of the rural population?' 52% of the Kampalan Sanyu listeners answered 'Yes'.

Trac FM goes live after quick adoption in the programing of the community radio station Radio Wa in Lira. On Monday June 13th we asked listeners of radio Wa what area of service delivery the local government of Lango sub-region should prioritize on. After a first announcement messages came in from all around Lira. We received 177 replies which clearly showed that people were concerned most with education (52%), second was healthcare with 21%, followed by roads (18%). In July we are starting a weekly show on service delivery on radio Wa.

Last week we tested the first draft of the TRAC FM software with students from the Makarere University Business School in Kampala. Truely exciting to see TRAC materialise into real life. We simulated an interactive radio-talkshow were questions regarding public service delivery were asked to the students. They could reply to these questions using text messages with their mobile phones. Their answers were instantly updated on our screen showing us growing graphs and geo-maps with relevant content. After following up on the valuable feedback from the test results, we’re confident to have TRAC FM blast out of radio’s all over Kampala pretty soon! Look at the video by clicking on the title of this post.

Following research on the power of talk radio in Uganda, we are setting up a radio-based platform for people to report their problems with public service delivery. Which street has too many potholes? Which public hospital has no malaria medicine? Who is the best primary school teacher in Kampala? All these questions will be aired on the popular radio station KFM in Kampala. People can reply by SMS and have their grievances or opinions count! Radio presenters will get an instant overview on all the SMS responses that come in using our smart overview dashboard (based on the latest data visualization technologies). All data will be shared with the general public through professionally designed Info-Graphics published in one of Uganda's leading newspapers.

67% of our Kampala respondents say that Boda Boda motortaxi's should be banned from Kampala city centre.

Has the Regional District Commissioner ever visited your sub-county? The responses were an eye-opener. In 1 hour 269 responses came in from all 8 disticts in Lango. less than 5% of the respondents said that they had actually received a visit.

Which area in Kampala has the worst roads?! Ntinda was voted as the neighboorhood with the worst road, followed by Kisaasi and Mutungo. We will share this data with Kampala city council and the Uganda Road Authority

In Kampala, people were divided on whether The Urban working class was disproportionally burdened with the healthcare of the rural population. 52% said yes and 48% said no.

A question we directed to Farmers in Lango subregion: Have you personally benefitted from the NAADS program? Out of 113 responses 90% told us that they did not benefit.

Should Graduated tax be reinstated? 70% of the 222 WA participants said No.

Which area of public service delivery should be prioritized on? 64% of Sanyu FM listeners replied with Healthcare, 15% Education, 5% Roads, 5% Sanitation, 5% security.

The Trac FM project is based on ethnographic research on the use of ICT for accountability (ICT4Accountability) conducted in Uganda. ICT4Accountability is defined as a distinct form of civic media which uses ICTs to systematically collect, process and deliver accurate, comprehensible and direct data with the purpose to assist citizens in making objective assessments of the performance of who-ever is taking action on their behalf. Read more on ICT4Accountability by clicking on the title of this post.

Increasingly considered a key requirement for success, accountability remains a vague concept that can be difficult to achieve. Many donors are uncertain how to assess and support a potential recipient’s capacity for accountability, and many recipients struggle with the overwhelming bureaucracy that can come with such programs.

In 2008, Bruce Girard concluded in a MobileActive.org guest post that the addition of text messaging technology into the community radio toolkit was still in its infancy. SMS use at radio stations was informal, he wrote, and the few cases of more complex use of SMS messages accompanied political crisis or natural disaster and were largely donor financed. Two years later, Mobile Active once again delved into the state of SMS and mobile technology at community radio stations, by way of an informal survey. While advances have been made and creative projects have emerged, integration remains an ad-hoc and individual enterprise.