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March 17, 2011
Ushahidi's Open Source Platform Lowers Barriers & Accelerates Storytelling
I ran into Juliana Rotich in Long Beach during TED, who is a Program Director with a non-profit organized called Ushahidi.
They specialize in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping.
Their tools help democratize information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories.
"Ushahidi", which means "testimony" in Swahili, was a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008.
Since then, the name "Ushahidi" has come to represent the people behind the "Ushahidi Platform".
Their roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The original website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones.
This website had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst to realize there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be used by others around the world.
March 17, 2011 in On Africa, On East Africa, On Education, On Innovation, On Technology, On Women, Social Media, WBTW, Web 2.0 | Permalink
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