ICT and AG Profile: Magpi (formerly EpiSurveyor)

The project is funded under the Financial Integration, Economic Leveraging, Broad-Based Dissemination and Support Leaders with Associates award (FIELD-Support LWA). The FACET project provides field support to help missions with the challenges of using ICT interventions in agricultural development. Magpi, formerly known as EpiSurveyor, is a cloud-based platform developed by DataDyne that enables users to collect data via mobile phone and tablet computers. The platform allows users to create free accounts, design data collection forms using Magpi's web application, and download them to compatible devices. When the forms are filled in, the data is immediately uploaded to DataDyne's servers and available for reporting and analysis. Magpi offers a variety of reporting, graphing, mapping, and charting options, and data can be collected in offline mode. The data is secure, encrypted, and password-protected. Magpi has undergone significant improvements, including more than 40 enhancements, such as improved performance online, especially over slow connections, and improved working with long forms, mapping, sharing, and publishing. The platform is built off of DataDyne's EpiSurveyor platform and will completely replace it once it is launched. Magpi will have three pricing tiers: Free, Pro for $5,000 per year, and Enterprise for $10,000 per year. The Free tier allows up to 20 forms and 100 questions per form, whereas Pro allows an unlimited number of forms and an unlimited number of questions per form, as well as use of SMS. Magpi has been used worldwide, in more than 170 countries, with known applications in organizations in health, agriculture, conservation, education, and human rights. The platform has more than 10,000 user accounts from NGOs, academia, government, multilateral donors, and individuals. DataDyne keeps costs and prices low through its SSWFT model: self-service, web-based, "freemium" technology. The service is profitable and is supported entirely by the less than one percent of users who pay for a fee-based service. A World Bank report documents a case in 2010 in which EpiSurveyor and basic phones were used to survey beneficiaries of Guatemala's conditional cash transfer program. The report found that switching to EpiSurveyor reduced evaluation costs by 71 percent. A USAID/Food for Peace project called LAUNCH, working in Liberia, is also using EpiSurveyor to register beneficiaries participating in the food distribution program. The wait time from registration to food distribution has been reduced from a high of 21.4 weeks in March 2012 using the paper system to 5.1 weeks in July 2012.