This document discusses activist mapping and the Ushahidi project. It provides background on Ushahidi, which was created to map reports of violence during the 2007 Kenyan elections. The document outlines Ushahidi's goals, how it was built using mobile phones and the web, its launch timeline, and lessons learned. It also shares examples of other activist mapping projects and discusses how mapping can be used for documenting human rights violations or activism more broadly.

1. Activist Mapping
Erik Hersman
erik@ushahidi.com

3. Stuff I’m Excited About

4. geotate.com

5. AfricaMap
http://africamap.harvard.edu

6. buglabs.net

7. diydrones.com

8. Kenya Elections 2007
Getting from here
To here

9. President Mwai Kibaki Raila Odinga
incumbent opposition

10. Ethnicities vs Election

11. Media Blackout
traditional media blogs/social media

12. Ory Okolloh
kenyanpundit.com

13. 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

14. Building It
• Detailed geospatial data is hard to come
by in Africa
• How much should it be web-based in a
mobile phone culture?
• Mobile phones - getting a full report in 140
characters is not easy
• What data points do we need?

15. Ushahidi Calendar
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

19. Lessons Learned
• The importance of mapping accuracy
• Data poisoning - what happens when
your antagonist starts using it?
• Verification is difficult
• Clarify why it was created and make that
inescapably obvious
• Create a feedback loop to end users

20. juliana rotich erik hersman ory okolloh david kobia

21. On Activism

26. Activist Issue Antagonist

27. It turns out activists are just everyday people,
most with limited technical acumen.

28. Global Activist Maps

29. Crisis in Darfur - http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/darfur

30. Sudan ICC War Criminals - http://www.wantedforwarcrimes.org

31. Global Voices Online Censorship - http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/maps

32. Tunisia Prisons Map - http://kitab.nl/tunisianprisonersmap

33. Bahrain Land Rights (PDF) - http://elijahzarwan.net/blog/?p=268

34. Chicago Idealist Network - http://www.chicagoidealistnetwork.org/2007/03/spaces.html

35. before after
Operation Murambatsvina (Zimbabwe) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Murambatsvina

36. Sokwanele “All Breaches” - http://www.sokwanele.com/map/all_breaches

37. Green Peace - http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/whaling/great-whale-trail/map

38. Planet Action - http://www.planet-action.org

39. I Love Mountains - http://www.ilovemountains.org

40. Mapping for human rights violations
vs
Mapping for activism
(activists are not the authority)

41. Think about how you can use your skills to help
in a cause that is important to you

42. Thank You