Incubated within Praekelt.org, Turn.io was born out of the need to reduce the cost and sustainability of large-scale SMS programs such as MomConnect. In 2017, leveraging a partnership with WhatsApp, the South African Department of Health and Praekelt.org, Turn.io enabled MomConnect to send their audience WhatsApp messages at scale using the WhatsApp Business API.
Introducing WhatsApp resulted in an explosion of engagement. Not only were mothers 6.7x more likely to reach out to the MomConnect Helpdesk, they were also 3x more likely to stay engaged thereafter.
New tools were essential to support Helpdesk operators engage in impactful health conversations at this scale. And the potential impact was too great to keep this within Praekelt.org.
So we setup Turn.io
Turn.io is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBO) optimised to build world-class software products for social impact organisations.
Using Turn.io, MomConnect now sends over 400,000 pregnant women health messages every week and receives over 10,000 health questions weekly.
Turn.io now works with over 150 social impact organisations who have built chat services to improve health, employment, education, climate, agriculture, humanitarian response, financial inclusion and civic engagement.
