Despite the economic gloom, social responsibility is still high on the agenda for many SMEs. British company MatsSoft is the latest to become involved, with a project to fight malaria in Africa.

SMS for Life is a public-private partnership involving big names such as Vodafone, Novartis and IBM, along with the World Health Organization and the Tanzanian government. It relies on software called Mats (Multi Application Tracking System), which was developed by MatsSoft.

Mats interprets texts sent from health facilities in Tanzania saying how much anti-malarial medicine they have. It then sends emails to district medical officers showing where supplies are most needed. "Essentially, Tanzania is a couple of generations behind, but when you plug in this type of technology it almost takes them a couple of generations ahead," says MatsSoft director Andy Hendry.

A child dies from malaria every 30 seconds. And until now, Tanzania could not measure how much stock health facilities had, meaning many remote facilities would run out of supplies.

Mats was first designed for the financial market, but with a few tweaks it works well for this application, says Hendry. "The principles are the same. Basically what Mats is all about is measurement, workflow, efficiency and communication," he says.

SMS for Life is being rolled out across Tanzania. Hendry hopes to extend the project in Africa soon. "To be part of something which is making such an impact on human life is something that our team is very proud of," he says.