Eric Bai '15.5 is a Social Innovation Fellow working on TextUp, a text messaging platform seeking to improve the outcomes of people served by social service providers through better communication. Get in touch at [email protected] for information and if you'd like to help out!

The new iPhone 6 just came out a few days ago and, to no one's surprise, thousands lined up across the world for this latest must-have gadget. Despite the rain and the cold nights, many were unperturbed; the only thing they could think about was the prize at the end of the line.

If you've ever waited for an iPhone launch, a Black Friday sale, or for tickets to a Sox game, you'll have experienced how all-consuming the competition for a scare resource is. At that moment, being one of those who "got it" and not one of those who waited with no payoff seems like the most important thing in the world. This single-mindedness, reminiscent of our ruthless and raw drive for survival in earlier days, is why we hear about how someone was trampled at a Walmart on Black Friday or how two women fought with a stun gun at a Philadelphia mall over a sale.

But what if this fight for scarce resources extended to your very basic needs? For the poorest in our society -- the homeless -- the illusion of camaraderie between "bums" we see in Kerouac's On The Road and other works in popular culture is shattered by the stark realization that, in an under-resourced social welfare system, either I get by or you do. And when it gets down to the wire, I'll pick myself over you.

I volunteered at a meal site in South Providence yesterday. While all patrons of the site were courteous, all decisions were made against a backdrop of subtle aggression and tension: who would get the bread first? Which table would get bread refills? Who got two cups of coffee milk? Why did she get seconds and I didn't? This isn't a moral indictment of poverty -- I don't believe that those who are poor have inherent flaws in character. Rather, what I'm describing is the evolutionary drive to get by. I'm describing the world of someone whose main focus is on the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, who is focused on a physiological need for air, food, water, and sleep in order to survive.

With the creation of an Office for Digital Excellence, Rhode Island in recent years has pushed heavily to digitalize portals for accessing government services. Initiatives such as BroadbandRI seek to expand opportunities for internet access to close the digital divide that has emerged to parallel the class divide. Yet, these initiatives will not have their full impact unless those reliant on social welfare have had their basic needs met. How do you find time to worry about which vocational training program makes the most sense if you don't know where you'll be sleeping tonight? For those better-off, how do you write a paper when you're fighting for an iPhone?

There are two solutions for an under-resourced system: either allot more resources or make the system more efficient. The currently fractured political climate renders the first unlikely, leaving enhancing efficiency as the only viable short-term option. Our approach to this dilemma is a text-messaging platform called TextUp that seeks to use government-subsidized and privately-purchased cell phones to enable the efficient and instantaneous relaying of critical information between providers and constituents. From number of beds available at the closest shelter to a two-way channel of communication between case manager and client, an integrated text messaging platform has the potential to reimagine the scale and scope of social service delivery.