ACM Distinguished Service Award

Ken Banks, recipient of the Eugene L. Lawier Award for developing Frontline SMS, using mobile technology and text messaging to empower people to share information, organize aid, and reconnect communities during crises. A self-descrived "moble anthropologist," Banks has a gift for building technology that benefits humanity. As someone who was writing code and tinkering with computers since he was 13, Banks instinctively saw an opportunity to harness the world's most-used communications platform--mobile messaging--to help people in the developing world. In 2005, he designed, coded and launched FrontlineSMS, a mobile messaging platform that allows people to subscribe to groups, receive alerts, and establish communication hubs.

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