Turn.io is a startup incubated by Praekelt.org, an initial associate in the WhatsApp Business API pilot programme. Developed to connect social impact organisations with audiences using chat messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Google’s Android Messages, Turn.io is underpinned by the significant role of chat as the expanding platform of choice for the majority world.

 

“Every day there are over a billion opportunities to have conversations that can improve lives,” says Turn.io co-founder, Simon de Haan, from San Francisco where he is at the moment attending the 2019 Social Capital Markets Conference.

 

“However, conversations only have value if they have an impact. We believe that having an impactful conversation at a key moment can positively change someone’s life”.

 

When MomConnect, a digital maternal health programme, was unveiled in partnership with South Africa’s National Department of Health in 2014, it rapidly reached national scale cited as a global measure of what a mobile health programme can achieve. Developed by Praekelt.org, MomConnect launched as an SMS messaging service, but by 2017, the number of users made it difficult to manage and track key behavioural change conversations.

 

To solve this, Turn.io  was developed to manage conversations with mothers. It changed the way mothers interact and instantly triggered a necessary and continuous evolution of the technology platform that drives MomConnect.

 

Since 2018, Turn.io has developed features and functionality to enhance the use of chat for social enterprises such as for example using Natural Language Processing & Machine Learning to triage the most urgent conversations, making sure that conversations start at the right time with the right people.

 

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