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Apps I Use

These are apps I use almost every day. I find that many of my peers are not making best use of some of the superb technology that is available, much of for free. So this section is for them. I'm not including apps like Dropbox or Skype that most people use anyway. Some apps are for computers, others specifically for smart phones.

BENEFICIARY FEEDBACK AND ACCOUNTABILITY

DevelopmentCheck

Integrity Action's DevelopmentCheck is the most successful Open Beneficiary Feedback system for mid- to large public projects.

Ushahidi

Robust platform for citizen feedback and crowdsourcing used around the world. Supports both smartphones and feature phones.

Open Corporates

This is the biggest database of companies and company directors in the world.

Open Ownership

A global beneficiary ownership database. Who actually owns the company you are working for? the company bidding for a major public tender?

PRODUCTIVITY

Trello

Brilliant for tasks, both for myself and for our teams. The phone app is very good as well so you make sure your tasks are always with you.

Evernote

Keep all your files, web clippings, newspaper articles, ideas in one easily searchable location. It does that job far better than Dropbox. And make sure to have the Evernote App on your phone so you can access those docs and notes anywhere.

Evernote

TurboScan

This app turns your phone into a scanner. It does that task perfectly and converts files into PDF (which your camera won't do). Good for documents, business cards, receipts, etc. Works with Evernote so you can also file documents straight away.

CamCard

CamCard does for business cards what TurboScan does for documents. This phone app is integrated with my address book so once the cards are scanned the contacts are synced with all my devices.

WorldtimeBuddy

If you work with people across multiple timezones you will find this incredibly helpful and a good way of making sure that you don't get your time zones confused. Phone and computer.

TransferWise

Reliable, fast and excellent value for international money transfers.

TRAVEL

TripAdvisor

Very widely used and still brilliant.

CityMapper

An incredible navigation and public transport phone app for many of the world's large cities.

Waze

A navigation phone app I can't do without. There are other navigation apps out there but this it the one Uber driver and taxi drivers everywhere use.

Dark Sky

An excellent weather phone app. It's more informative than most other apps and has excellent graphics. But it does sometimes make mistakes. The weather gods can still keep us on our toes.

La fourchette - The Fork

Originally a French app, and now part of TripAdvisor, this app has superb coverage in some geographies (like France, Spain) but is not so good in other places. Where it's good, it's brilliant. It makes restaurant bookings and price comparisons easy. But also gives access to discounts.

Google

Just in case you haven't already done this: if you Google a flight number it will tell you the estimated time of arrival or departure of a flight. I have found the accuracy very impressive. The Google Flights app I don't very useful. There are better alternatives.