What is Ushahidi?

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• published: 27 Nov 2009
• views: 28841

• Imagine a way for people all over the world to tell the story of what was happening to them — or around them — during a disaster or emergency • It would need to be easy to use. Something that almost anybody can do. And it would need to be deployable worldwide. • And thatʼs why weʼve created Ushahidi ("testimony" in Swahili). • Born form the post-election violence in Kenya in 2005, Ushahidi kept Kenyans current on vital information and provided invaluable assistance to those providing relief. • Since then Ushahidi has grown into a large open-source project impacting a number of communities around the world. • It was deployed in the DR Congo to monitor unrest. • Al Jazeera used it to track violence in Gaza. • It was used to help monitor the 2009 Indian Elections. • And to help gather reports globally about the recent Swine Flu outbreak. • Anybody can contribute information. Whether itʼs a simple text message from a SMS-capable phone, a photo or video from a smartphone, or a report submitted online, Ushahidi can gather information from any device with a digital data connection. • After a report is submitted itʼs posted in near real-time to an interactive map that can be viewed on a computer or smartphone. • But the most powerful feature Ushahidi offers, is the ability to take the core application and deploy it yourself to suit your communityʼs needs. Since Ushahidi is open-source, anyone can improve the service in anyway they see fit. • Our growing community of developers are constantly at work improving Ushahidi to bring it to as many people as possible — including working to bring native applications to todayʼs most popular mobile devices. • With Ushahidi, itʼs easier than ever to get critical and timely information to those that need it most, on a platform that almost everybody can use.