The online realm is no longer only for the geeky guys and gals of the WoW world, it has the ability to assist with offline philanthropic causes, in countries that do not have the digital freedom that most have, or any freedom for that matter.
In the spirit of the launch of our very own Mobile Marketing course as well as acknowledging the recent xenophobic attacks that occurred in our country, Ushahidi is the site to note for this week.
The Ushahidi platform is a system that plots incidents of violence and peace efforts worldwide on an interactive mapping system, based on reports that were submitted via the Web as well as mobile phones. It was developed in Kenya in 2008, and was borne as a result of the post-election fall out that occurred at the beginning of that year.
In May of 2008, the Ushahidi group shared their pearls of wisdom with a group in South Africa, who used it to map incidents of xenophobic violence. Today, this tool is being used to report on violence all over the world.
What is the Ushahidi Platform? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.
Ushahidi has been utilised to aid a variety of organisations for example:
- Haiti Crisi Map – this organisation tracks the post-earthquake crisis response and recovery efforts in Haiti.
- Sudan Vote Monitor – this is a Sudanese civil society initiative that uses SMS to monitor the elections in Sudan.
- Atlanta Crime Map – maps criminal activity in the Atlanta area metropolitan area.
- Al Jazeera uses Ushahidi in their "War on Gaza" website covering the activity happening in Gaza in January 2009 and many more.
Within the Ushahidi software there are a variety of ways to collate the data. SwiftRiver is a free open-source platform that assists users when managing real-time data. This platform enables filtering and verification of real-time data from RSS feeds, Twitter, email and SMS. This is an especially useful tool for organisations that need to sort their data by authority, accuracy and importance.
Crowdmap is a crowdsourcing platform which was originally built to crowdsource crisis information; however, the platform has now evolved has other uses such as: plotting reports of violence on an interactive map, “Real Time” data tracking, and a dynamic timeline which tracks reports over time and allows you then to see when things happen and where they are located on the interactive map.
The Ushahidi software is accessible to all, and you can download it directly to your PC or to your Smartphone using the current applications that are available.
Although the site does not have any “fun” features as such, it serves its purpose as being a professional and well-built site. From a usability perspective, the Ushahidi website is easy to navigate and the content is well spaced and easy to read and understand. The site has all of the elements that make a visitor want to stay and find out more which is essentially what any company or organisation looks for online; although Ushahidi’s message runs deeper than a high click through rate.
The benefits of the evolving world we live in today are that we can connect with people across the globe without having to move from our computer screens. Ushahidi is essentially using the power of the online world to deal with offline atrocities. This is definitely platform to keep an eye on!
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