Contact person:  Chantal Openda - Growth and Marketing Associate    

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Ona is a vibrant platform and tool for data collection and management. It uses forms on smartphones and desktops with or without a data connection. Data is automatically uploaded when a connection is detected. It also provides tools for data analysis and management. These features are described here.  A guide explaining how Ona works is available here.  

 

Challenges 

The challenge of how to train low skilled data-collectors in rural settings and secondly how to deal with a lack of access to the internet. The design for the questionnaire might require higher IT competency, more specifically XLS Form authoring knowledge. Ona however provides the option to use the online form builder which provides an easy to use drag and drop interface.  

Ona can also provide training on XLS form authoring as well as user training on how to use the platform. Normal Ona training can take between 3-4 days to complete.  

 

Solution and Innovation

The ONA tool is an innovation. Once customized to the school situation, it belongs to the school or stakeholders 

Ona has an Impact Grants program through which they grant access to the Ona platform free for a period of 12 months, renewable upon consideration. This program is only open to non-grant funded grassroot organizations/non-profits, and researchers. The organizations/individuals must apply to be considered https://ona.io/impact-grant.html. The review process can take about a week to have the application reviewed and a status given. The grants program provides free access to the Ona service, including technical support, to organization and individuals making a difference, who might not be able to afford the service otherwise. 

This free version will be useful for South Sudan where maintenance cost for platform may not be possible for the 3 districts 

 

Results and impact  

ONA is widely used in health and agriculture. IT Has been used in education but not in Kenyan context.  

There are some lessons learned in terms of the engineering the solution. Depending on the capacity of the technical staff. It could take 10-15 days to deploy the full platform. This only applies to custom deployments where an organization needs to host its own custom instance of Ona on its own infrastructure. The SaaS platform is very easy to set up, it takes less than 5 minutes to sign up for an account. 

Ona do not charge for the number of collaborators accessing an account. Their pricing is based on usage on submissions, forms, and project. Please see their subscription options. The Ona platform operates on a SaaS model to mean that one can pay for the period that they need and for the months when they are not doing any data collection you can stop paying and the account will be reverted back to the Free Plan. You will be able to pay for a subscription whenever you need it next. This process does not result in any data loss.  

Use Case Nepal Post-earthquake Damage Assessment In Nepal, the government and local partner Kathmandu Living Labs are using a local instance of Ona at their national data center to conduct a post-earthquake building damage assessment of over 800,000 structures. This effort, involving close to 2,000 engineers, will inform the government rebuilding efforts. Kenyan Ministry of Health Measles Rubella Coverage Ona is supporting the Kenyan Ministry of Health, CDC, and WHO to conduct a national post event coverage survey for the new measles-rubella vaccine. 

Farm Africa, used to collect cashew small holder farmers data at the Kenya Coast. Contact Maureen Maureenn@farmafrica.org  and Mobile +254 724706612