Climate & disaster
Flood, fire and hazard observations; damage triage; recovery checks.
FOONA COMMONS · PUBLIC-INTEREST INFRASTRUCTURE
Safe WhatsApp reporting, open for communities to build on.
A reusable collection and safety layer for organisations working where connectivity, time and trust are constrained. Open core, managed implementation, protected gamification.
Built for NGOs, civic startups and public-interest teams. A pilot never requires access to FOONA's private scoring or rewards system.
PROOF IN THE FIELD
One collection pattern. A live flood-response view.
The Cape Town prototype shows how reports can arrive through WhatsApp, pass through review, and become aggregate evidence without turning people into public data points.
Open the public prototype →362report records
7damage types
20areas
Report records are not unique users or verified beneficiaries. No 40,000-scale claim is used.
THE OPEN COLLECTION FLOW
Five steps from message to responsible public evidence.
- 01WhatsApp report
Use a channel people already understand.
- 02Consent + signature
Verify permission and the messaging provider.
- 03Minimise
Validate, redact and reduce location precision.
- 04Review
Route the event through an approved human workflow.
- 05Aggregate
Publish only safe indicators, maps or dashboards.
START WITH ONE DECISION
A common collection layer for very different field problems.
The reusable part is the route from a trusted message to a safe event. Each deployment defines its own purpose, safeguards and review rules.
WASH & infrastructure
Service interruptions, water points, sanitation and public-asset faults.
Programme feedback
Last-mile delivery checks, community feedback and accountable follow-up.
Local markets
Price, stock and availability observations without exposing contributors.
EARLY PILOT PROGRAMME
For small NGOs and startups that need to test before they scale.
Bring one bounded collection problem. We will assess whether the open collector is a fit, define the safeguarding boundary, and choose a self-hosted or managed route.
Propose a pilotA strong first pilot has
- one decision the reports must support;
- a named operational owner and review path;
- a documented consent and retention approach;
- no child-identifying public data;
- willingness to share synthetic or aggregate learnings.
Child-facing deployments require an accountable safeguarding partner before launch.
THE PUBLIC BOUNDARY
Open enough to reuse. Narrow enough to protect people and the moat.
OPEN UNDER MIT
The collection and safety layer
- Provider webhook verification
- Consent, schema and input validation
- Pseudonymisation and redaction hooks
- Coarse geolocation and safe event schemas
- Synthetic fixtures, tests and documentation
PROTECTED BACKGROUND IP
The gamification and operations layer
- Mission design, scoring, points and rewards
- Payout, ranking and recommendation logic
- Fraud and behavioural models
- Client configuration and production data
- Moderation, verification and service operations
OPEN CORE · MANAGED OUTCOMES
Use the commons directly, or ask us to operate it with you.
Inspect & self-host
Code, schemas, examples and community documentation.
Run a safe pilot
Setup, hosting, workflow configuration, safeguarding review and training.
Deliver reliably
Monitoring, moderation, verification, dashboards, support and service levels.
Integrate at scale
Localisation, enterprise systems and data-governance controls.
RELEASE PATH
What is done, and what still has to be true.
- Done
Public boundary and licence selected
MIT code, CC BY 4.0 documentation, synthetic-only fixtures.
- Now
Security review and clean-history export
No legacy identifiers, secrets, unsafe media handling or proprietary algorithms.
- Next
Publish version 0.1
Public repository, CI, security policy, contribution guidance and tagged release.
- Then
Prove independent reuse
A partner-led pilot and aggregate learning report, maintained in public.
USE THE TECHNOLOGY
Bring one field problem. Leave with a testable route.
Tell us who needs to report, what decision the evidence must support, and what must never become public.