Ushahidi

In my last post, I wrote about key questions to ask before adding ICTs to a development initiative, using the example of a violence against children program I’m working on in Benin. The piece that was missing, and which came together over the past 2 weeks, was the view from the ground.

Our hearts and minds are with the people of Haiti in these crucial days after the earthquake. No matter where you are in the world, you can help. Below is a message from Erik Hersman of @ushahidi with a very good opportunity to volunteer online to help map and integrate info from Haiti for use by people in need and those who can provide relief.

Many things happening at Ushahidi in this run-up to the holidays.  As always, you can keep updated on our blog.  Here is a quick list:

• Ory Okolloh is featured in a new Forbes article on Ushahidi that just came out.
• If you haven't already, go give a quick vote for Ushahidi at the WeMedia Gamechanger's Awards (takes 45 seconds.
• Ushahidi is used for a non-disaster purpose in Kenya.  Nominate someone who did something amazing.
• We deployed to the DR Congo two weeks ago.  Help us get the word out on this, we need to let the ordinary Congolese know of this resource.
• Juliana and Erik will be in Kenya from Dec 2-12, and there will be an Ushahidi meet up then.  If you'd like to get together, let us know!

A big thanks to everyone in the community, helping us get Ushahidi out and spreading the word about the new platform. 

The DRC deployment can be found at http://DRC.ushahidi.com, and the mobile number to send SMS reports to is +243992592111. From Ken Banks via the mobileactive mailing list: Some of you might be interested to know that Erik Hersman and his team have just deployed an instance of Ushahidi (http://www.ushahidi.com) to help report on the DRC crisis.

You can read more on the Ushahidi blog here:

http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/07/ushahidi-deploys-to-the-congo-drc/

Ushahidi, which means ''testimony'' in Swahili, is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi's roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web - and map them. It is being built so that it can grow with the changing environment of the web, and to work with other websites and online tools.

Ushahidi which was launched in January this year to document post election violence in Kenya and which has since gone from strength to strength including winning a number of awards [Net Squared, Knight Batten Award] 

(Crossposted from whiteafrican.com. With all eyes on Zimbabwe's election today and everyone hoping and praying for the best outcome - Sokwanele is an inspirational initiative which demonstrates how civil society can use Web 2.0 to engage at critical moments to try to ensure the best outcome. Comments on whiteafrican.com also very interesting, hinting at potential support for initiatives such as Sokwanele in the Ushahidi project which just made the finalist round in the N2Y3 Mashup Competition)

I'm pleased to see that Ushahidi and nearly all of the projects I supported made it to the finalists stage! There were few African projects in the running but there were some really good ones and I think in fact that most of the winning projects show terrific potential to be very beneficial for Africa. Congratulations everyone!