Is Ushahidi the new paradigm in humanitarian work? The small Kenyan-born organization is, in the words of The New York Times, "Africa's Gift to Silicon Valley." Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, started in the wake of Kenya's disputed election in 2007. It uses common mapping software usually used for social purposes for targeted humanitarian work. From The Times:
A prominent Kenyan lawyer and blogger, Ory Okolloh, who was based in South Africa but had gone back to Kenya to vote and observe the election, received threats about her work and returned to South Africa. She posted online the idea of an Internet mapping tool to allow people anonymously to report violence and other misdeeds. Technology whizzes saw her post and built the Ushahidi Web platform over a long weekend.
The site collected user-generated cellphone reports of riots, stranded refugees, rapes and deaths and plotted them on a map, using the locations given by informants. It collected more testimony -- which is what Ushahidi means in Swahili -- with greater rapidity than any reporter or election monitor.
Since then, Ushahidi's mandate has expanded dramatically. What started as a wiki tool allowing people to anonymously report election irregularities is now used as a crisis map in natural disasters, track votes in the Indian elections, and following medicine shortages. Because cellphone penetration is heavy even in the third world, the rapidly evolving Ushahidi's dev community has developed a mobile strategy. Ushahidi has become a humanitarian force -- albeit digitally -- in both the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes, where victims text messages to better organize relief. In the new paradigm, according to the Times, "victims supply on-the-ground data; a self-organizing mob of global volunteers translates text messages and helps to orchestrate relief; journalists and aid workers use the data to target the response."
Ushahidi, which had no venture-capital backing and uses open-source software, is tailor-made for re-engineering to each particular crisis in the developing world. The question that inevitably arises is: How many more *Ushahidi's* are possible should young people in the developing world received a better tech education? Can technology -- and, more important, a technology education -- lessen the gap between the Haves in the West and Asia and the Have Nots in the developing world? What do you think?
Ushahidi Saves Lives




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