Ushahidi, which means ''testimony'' in Swahili, is a platform that allows anyone to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web - and map them.
The Problem
During the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007, there was a need for rapidly-generated information where there were hotspots and where violence was breaking out. A group of technologists created a platform for user-generated reports and Google Maps to gather citizen generated crisis information.
What is Ushahidi?
Ushahidi is a web-based platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information. The core platform allows for plug-ins and extensions so that it can be customized for different locales and needs. This tool is made available as an open source application that others can download, implement and use to bring awareness to crises in their own region. Organizations can also use the tool for internal monitoring purposes.
The core engine is built on the premise that gathering crisis information from the general public provides new insights into events happening in near real-time. The private alpha of the redesigned Ushahidi Engine was released in October 2008, and is currently undergoing testing in pilot projects.
Ushahidi's platform has been implemented in a variety of situations and countries. For example, Ushahidi was set up to track the Swine Flu reports coming in from official and unofficial sources at Swineflu.Ushahidi.com.
Currently, Ushahidi is also used in the 2009 general election in India. Vote Report India is a collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections.
Al Jazeera, the Arab news station, uses Ushahidi in their "War on Gaza" website covering the activity happening in Gaza in January 2009. Short-term deployments of the incidence-reporting platform have happened in the Congo and South Africa where Ushahidi was used to map xenophobic attacks perpetrated against non-South Africans.
Ushahidi is currently in open Beta. The code is now available for anyone to download and run on their own servers at Download.Ushahidi.com
