crowdsourcing crisis information

The Ushahidi Story

Ushahidi (v1)
rapid development and deployment of
a crowdsourcing mashup

Kenya Elections 2007
Getting from here
To here

In January of 2008 there was a disputed election in
Kenya. The incumbent claimed a win and, due to
gross irregularities, the opposition refused to accept
the results.
What started out as a political fracas quickly devolved
down ethnic lines. Government forces and civilians
battled it out in the urban slums and rural Kenya.
A media blackout was created and only non-
traditional media was in operation...
and cell phones.

Ory Okolloh
kenyanpundit.com

Our Goals
• Create a way for everyday Kenyans to report
incidents of violence that they saw
• Create an archive of news and reports around
those same events
• Show where the majority of the violence was
happening

Ushahidi Calendar
Kenya, January 2008
27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 27
idea, production, launch blogging and media
violence
Dec. 27 - Kenyan Elections Jan. 10 - 75% of Kenyan bloggers write about Ushahidi
Dec. 27 - Dec. 30 - Period of uncertainty Jan. 12 - MSM pickup: BBC, NPR, Guardian, etc...
Dec. 30 - Jan. 1 - Media blackout
Jan. 3 - The idea of Ushahidi
Jan. 5 - Ushahidi discussed
Jan. 6 - Ushahidi prototype
Jan. 9 - Ushahidi launched
Jan.10 - Added functionality (RSS, SMS, etc...)
Jan. 10 - Kenyan SMS shortcode partnership
Jan. 22 - Ushahidi blog added
Jan. 26 - Ushahidi timeline feature

Rapid Development
2 days
Rapid Deployment
6 days

Media Hits
100
blog posts in week #1
350
blog posts by week #3

Ingredients Needed
(to get it up in record time)
• Connector
• Champion
• Passionate developers
• Collaboration
• Technical Expertise
• Volunteers

To Really Get Cooking
(we still need)
• Data gathering - on the ground
• Fear of contradicting government statistics
• Wrestling with verification
• Ability to answer the “why?” question
• Stretched resources - we all wear other hats

Data Gathering

Ushahidi Engine v1:
Kenya (post-election violence)
www.ushahidi.com
South Africa (xenophobia attacks)
www.UnitedforAfrica.com

Ushahidi engine (v1) being used to map reports of
Xenophobia in South Africa

What’s Next?

Ushahidi Engine (v2)
a free and open source crowdsourcing
and visualization tool

Ushahidi (v2)
Using what we’ve learned to fulfill our primary
goals:
1. Create a free, open source and easy tool to
get crowdsourced crisis information
2. Help non-profits gather data and visualize
that data in multiple ways

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

from PHP experts to mapping gurus,
we need YOUR help with:
• SMS alerts
• Time visualization
• Mapping infrastucture
• Missing persons index
• Bandwidth issues
• ... and many more fun challenges!

The Ushahidi Team
juliana rotich erik hersman ory okolloh david kobia

Ory Okolloh (ory@ushahidi.com)
NGO relationships, media interviews,
verification, blogging
Erik Hersman (erik@ushahidi.com)
Website development, media interviews, blogger
www.ushahidi.com relationships, blogging
Juliana Rotich (juliana@ushahidi.com)
Local citizen outreach, media interest, blogging
David Kobia (david@ushahidi.com)
Website development, programming, feature
updates