passionate about helping others with great software
Software isn't just ones and zeros. Nyaruka understands this, providing expert technical guidance, dependable support and applications that shine. Sean Blaschke, UNICEF
I’d like to thank Nyaruka’s staff for their hard work on creating our new platform. I highly recommend them for other ICT for health initiatives. Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Hon. Minister of Health, Rwanda
Nyaruka is an innovative and talented software developer. They were thoughtful in understanding our needs, and took pride in delivering a quality product that not only works well but looks fantastic. Nupur Parikh, TechnoServe
Nyaruka built us a powerful yet flexible product that allowed us to interact with our patients and research subjects. Their expertise, experience, attention to detail, and customer focus are second to none. Dr. Thomas A. Odeny, University of Washington
Nyaruka surpassed all of our expectations in terms of quality and customer service. Their attention to detail and creativity is impressive. Frankly, I don't know where our business would be without them. Sloan Holzman, NURU Energy International
Nyaruka's work exceeded our expectations. Thousands of people in Uganda are now participating in SMS radio polls thanks to code they wrote. Their professional approach to software is unchallenged in the region. Wouter Dijkstra, TRAC FM

The People of Nyaruka

Nicolas Pottier

Nic is Nyaruka's CEO, but he's also a premier coder with a huge swath of experience. His passion for open source software, development methodologies and teaching methods make him well suited for Nyaruka's diverse goals.

His previous work includes building patented algorithms to rank customer reviews at Amazon.com and improve search results for Medio Systems. Most recently, Nicolas cofounded Trileet Inc, which published top selling mobile applications across four different smartphone platforms. His background spans from building software run on thousands of servers to writing clients for mobile phones.

Nic attended Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Computer Science and Physics. He is also an avid outdoorsman and can often be found recreating in the mountains in his spare time.

He can be found at @nicpottier

Eric Newcomer

Eric has been a core contributor for several young technology companies based in Seattle including his own. Over the last ten years, his career has since pointed him to explore how mobile phones could be used to improve our daily lives.

Eric studied Computer Science and Business Administration at the University of Washington. He is married and has two sons.

He can be found at @enewcomer

Norbert Kwizera

Norbert is driven by his curiosity to understand not only how technology works but also why it does so. He likes learning new things and mastering everything the best way he can.

Norbert likes sharing knowledge and discussing ICT and is a co-founder of CODEPAC through which he met others passionate in software. He started software development by studying online courses, primarily from Udacity. Now that he's mastered the basics, he looks forward to learning the best practices in his day to day work.

Norbert studied Electronics and Communications Systems Engineering at National University of Rwanda. In addition to software he likes playing sports, playing basketball for ESPOIR BBC in the Rwandan National League.

He can be found at @norkans7

Rowan Seymour

Rowan is an Irish software developer who has spent many years living in Rwanda applying his programming skills to projects in electronic healthcare. For several years he worked at Partners in Health where he helped develop a national medical record system based on OpenMRS. During that time he was also academic lead of a training program to give local software developers the skills to assume development of that system. After that, he worked as a consultant for University of Washington and was lead developer for a similar project to develop a medical record system for Kenya. He enjoys contributing to open source projects like OpenMRS. Rowan has a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast in audio-visual speech and speaker recognition. In his spare time he still mentors junior developers and leads a project to build an online Kinyarwanda-English dictionary. He can be found at @rowanseymour

Kellan Alexander

A Fellow of the Dorothy E. Everett Program for Social Entrepreneurship, Kellan devoted his undergraduate schooling to the study of mobile-based solutions for information management in international development. His work with organizations to implement SMS-based social enterprise projects has taken him as far as West Africa and as near as his backyard, the SF Bay Area.

Kellan holds a degree in Global Information and Social Enterprise Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In his spare time, Kellan pursues interests in food science, statistics, and communication design.

He can be found at @kelluhn

Nyaruka was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda. Since then, our mission has been to bring more software expertise to the region and seek out challenging problems that can be addressed with technology. We are experts in mobile software solutions and our company is staffed with skilled professionals.

Follow the Nyaruka team on Twitter or Google+.

Why open source?

We believe in the power of working together with the rest of the world -- that a better final product is achieved through collaboration. That's why we love, use, and contribute to open source software at Nyaruka.

By leveraging existing solutions wherever possible, and building our systems such that they are clearly documented and easy to maintain we are able to ensure a deliverable designed for maximum simplicity and transparency. Using these practices guarantees that our customers will always have full control long after our engagement with them has ended.



Technologies

There are many, many options out there when it comes to selecting the right technology for the job. Here's a few of our favorites.

RapidSMS

Developed by UNICEF to address the needs of developing countries to gather information from the field, RapidSMS leverages Django and Python to allow for the quick development of custom solutions. It has been used successfully across the world in tasks varying from collecting maternity health statistics to monitoring of medical supplies. Nyaruka uses RapidSMS to quickly build customized open solutions to these problems

Android

Android is already playing an important role in allowing for rich access to information in remote areas. We've got many years of development experience working with Android and can leverage this open mobile platform in a myriad of ways. With Android phones being small computers with redundant power and networking capabilities, they are uniquely qualified to be deployed in developing countries.

Django

Built on top of Python, Django is an open source web framework. Django enables us to build stable, feature rich interactive websites in short timeframes. Using a mature framework like Django allows us to maximize the time we spend satisfying your unique needs.

Django Smartmin

Using Smartmin as a base and customizing it for your needs is a very DRY way to build custom websites.

With it, you can quickly build scaffolding which you can customize by using 'smart' views. The big win by using Smartmin is the ease of leveraging prebuilt CRUDL operations at the object level, that is, Create, Read, Update, Delete and List. Smartmin will also manage your URL mappings and permissions for each view.


https://github.com/nyaruka/smartmin

Django Quickblocks

Django is a fantastic platform for rapid prototyping. To make it even faster, we've built QuickBlocks, a Django app that allows for database driven content management. They are simple, lightweight, and multipurpose.


https://github.com/nyaruka/django-quickblocks

Android SMS Relay

Although integrating SMS systems directly with a carrier or aggregator is our preferred solution, sometimes circumstances dictate a more agile approach.

Our Android relayer transforms a simple Android phone like a Huawei Ideos into a reliable gateway to and from your online SMS system.

It is available for free on the Google Play store and we've made the source available on GitHub as well.


https://github.com/nyaruka/android-sms-relay

RapidSMS XForms

Nyaruka built the RapidSMS xforms application for UNICEF which provides an interactive web based form builder. Created forms support data being submitted to them via freehand formatted SMS, standard XForm HTTP posts or structured SMS. Implementors can choose to use xforms to quickly prototype systems, or even use them as their primary interface.


https://github.com/nyaruka/rapidsms-xforms

RapidSMS Http Router

This project was created to allow HTTP endpoints for routing messages. It provides an easy AJAX style interface for receiving messages, marking them as delivered or simply viewing messages queued for delivery. This module will also integrate easily with Kanel.<br/><br/>After creating this add-on for RapidSMS we have collaborated with UNICEF Uganda to help mature it.


https://github.com/nyaruka/rapidsms-httprouter

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At the core of TextIt lies our exclusive Flow engine. With Flows, anybody can set up or modify a complex SMS application without the need of a programmer or expensive consulting company. Using a basic Android phone, you can launch your application instantly in any country while avoiding expensive set-up costs or external technical support.