6. Ushahidi: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information: 2008 in Review

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Violence erupted in Kenya after a disputed presidential election in the final days of 2007, but a government-imposed media blackout meant information was scarce.

At the start of 2008 Kenyan blogger Ory Okolloh mobilised volunteers to set up a site where people could document and find real-time reports about the violence.

The result was Ushahidi (“testimony” in Swahili), a site to which witnesses could send in their reports via SMS, e-mail or web and where these reports were detailed on a map.

One report from Nandi Hills on January 20th read: “A gang of about 200 men armed with bow, arrows, clubs and a host of other crude weapons raided our small town council. Terror grasped hold of our strong hold, wails and cries were heard all over till dawn during the house to house search…”

By the time the violence subsided in April, the site had received approximately 140 reports. Many came in via SMS – a sign of how ubiquitous mobile phones have become in Kenya and other parts of Africa.

Ushahidi went on to use this model of crowdsourcing crisis information to map attacks against foreigners in South Africa. It is also using the same technology to track the eastern Congo conflict.