Smap (StreetMAP) started in 2007, with the idea of “putting maps on mobile phones for Africa”. The vision was to create a tool that allowed African organisations to create value through digital content and hence overcome challenges from the lack of digital and other infrastructure.

However our first client wanted a mobile data collection tool where they could specify the forms to be filled in. And so we modified the idea but we did not change the vision. With RMIT University and World Vision we completed our first mobile phone based survey in Cambodia in 2009 on Nokia N95 phones. In 2011 we switched to using a fork of ODK Collect on Android and made our server Java Rosa compliant.