crowdsourcing crisis information

mobile.crisis.reporting.

(c)Yasuyoshi Chiba

Our Goals Create a way for everyday Kenyans to report incidents of violence that they saw using the tools they had (mobile phones) Create an archive of news and reports around those same events Show where the majority of the violence was happening

Protesters gathered in groups and attempted to walk into the town centre; police fired live shots and tear gas canisters to disperse them. Three protesters were seriously injured and one shot dead. Police battled youths who set fire to roadblocks; the police shot indiscriminately, “targeting anyone on sight”; one man was shot in the stomach as he stood in front of his house. A 13-year old boy was laid to rest next to his uncle´s house; the burial was attended by hundreds of residents who wailed and lit up bonfires. January 17

“User-generated content, on average, is a lot less interesting than professional content. But there are a lot more people creating their own content for fun than those doing so for a living, and in aggregate, that content is at least as interesting.” - Ethan Zuckerman

UshahidiHistorical Benchmarks Apr 2008 – Deployed Ushahidi to South Africa May 2008 – Won the NetSquared mashup challenge June Began gathering developers for the open source rebuild Sep We get a new website Sep 2008 – Featured in Technoloy Review magazine Aug Integration with FrontlineSMS and iPhone application designed July 2008 – Receive initial funding from Humanity United July Ushahidi v2 development starts July 2008 – Started the CrisisMappers group Jan Initial deployment in the Kenya crisis

UshahidiHistorical Benchmarks Nov 2008 – Founding member of the Open Mobile Consortium Nov 2008 – Deployed alpha version into DR Congo Nov 2008 – Translation features launched December Al Jazeera tests Ushahidi in Gaza Dec Top 3 USAID mobile challenge finalist Dec 2008 – Won a WeMedia GameChangers Award Dec 2008 – Featured in Forbes magazine and the BBC print/radio/TV Nov PeaceHeroes uses Ushahidi to find people who helped do positive things during and after the post-election violence in Kenya Oct Launched our alpha software, Ushahidi Engine v0.1 (“eldoret”)

if it works in africa it will work anywhere

the default device the default device

FrontlineSMS+Ushah idi SMS => Cloud

Lessons Mapping accuracy and value of geo- location Data poisoning - Antagonists using the tool Verification is difficult, but can be achieved with hyperlocal involvement + NGO’s Create a feedback loop - SMS & RSS alerts to mobiles and s Offline, online and mobile strategy

What are we trying to achieve?

Ensuring that others don’t have to start from scratch, like we did.

Ushahidi Crisis Mapping Engine Map Timeline SMS Alerts RSS Output Methods News Media Citizen Generated NGO data Government Public APIs Flickr YouTube Twitter Data Types Input Methods SMS Web form API RSS MMS tw Direct input

IT talent

Free Platform Open Source For data collection

Way Forward... Growing the community that supports Ushahidi > Tech features & Dev. - Smartphones (Android, Iphone S60, winmobile) J2ME Geo-RSS Instedd’s SMS Geo-Chat, Rapid SMS & Java Rosa Freedom Fone integration - Audio =>SMS

Get Involved Connect us with groups that can/should use Ushahidi Use Ushahidi when a crisis happens that affects you or for projects that would benefit from the platform Ideas, further testing of Beta & Mobile Versions as we develop a global project

ory okolloh erik hersman juliana rotich david kobia

Thank You