Johathan Jackson, with his partner Vikram Sheel Kumar, founded Dimagi, a social enterprise providing open-source software to frontline healthcare workers in low-resource settings around the world. With Dimagi's product, CommCare, organizations can create custom mobile applications for field workers to collect medical information and track patient data over time. Today, CommCare is used on more than 500 projects in over 60 countries. Dimagi moved its headquarters to Cambridge, MA in 2012, becoming one of the first benefit corporations (for-profit corporate entities that focus on public good) in the state.
Field workers using computerized devices as a part of their work has been around since the 1990s. The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) published Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy, a pioneering article, published in October 2001 that provides early examples of volunteers/citizens/grass roots advocates using handheld computer/personal digital assistants (PDAs) or phone devices as part of community service/volunteering/advocacy, or examples that could be applied to volunteer settings. It was originally part of the UNITeS online knowledge base. It anticipated the popularity of smart phones and #apps4good, talking about these concepts long before they had these names.