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Ushahidi

The above mentioned interactive maps are realised with the Ushahidi-software. Ushahidi is a non-profit company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. The platform was developed as a tool to easily crowdsource information using multiple channels, including SMS, email, Twitter and the web. The company is an example for the potential of web developers at the so-called periphery in Africa, it started in Kenya and the Ushahidi-App for the Android-Marketplace e.g. was developed by a developer in Ghana.

Examples from East Africa

“Ushahidi”, which means “testimony” in Swahili, was a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the elections in 2007. The roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The original website was used to map incidents of violence throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones. The incidents were grouped in classes like Riots,  Deaths,  Property Damage,  Government Forces,  Civilians,  Looting,  Rape and Peace Efforts. Together with local Kenyan NGO’s each incident was verified. The website had 45,000 users in Kenya (it is not active anymore).

In 2010 Kenya voted on a proposed new constitution and Ushahidi in partnership with local political networks was deploying an election monitoring system called Uchaguzi (“election” in Swahili). Uchaguzi provided web and mobile-based channels for citizens and civil society to report on electoral offences such as intimidation, hate speech, vote-buying, polling clerk bias, voting mis-information etc.  The reports were then sent to the electoral authorities or security personnel for action.

The Site “Tracking the Eastern Congo Conflict”  monitors the renewed conflict in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since autumn 2008. Beside the reported incidents official and mainstream news about this political conflict can be found (like new from the European Media Monitor) on the website.

Beside Ushahidi

There are many more initiatives which can be subsumed as “Gov 2.0“. The most prominent is Wikileaks, others like CrisisCommons gain momentum. They show the potential of participatory governance and of moving cities and communities towards a more sustainable future.

Another recent example for innovative solutions coming from Africa is JamiiX. It is a messaging management system developed by the Cape Town-based Reconstructed Living Labs (RLabs) team, originally to help them counsel drug addicts on the Cape flats. JamiiX was developed to more effectively manage multiple conversations from different Social Media and Instant Messaging platforms. It allows eight counsellors to have 300 IM conversations in one hour, massively increasing their ability to assist those who need help. In 2010 it was released for third-party use . The name comes from a combination of the Swahili word for social, “jamii”, and eXchange, to mean social exchange.

The interactive web supports humanitarian and democratic activities in a very useful way. This is one way how the masses can help to make things a little better.