Emerging World Leaders: Ushahidi
It’s a tragedy that many of us know more about the prison records of dysfunctional film stars and self-absorbed athletes than we know about some of the wonderful young people who are changing the world for the better. Here is another entry in an ongoing series that I have decided to entitle Emerging World Leaders.
It’s time we take notice of an internet service, Ushahidi, that has taken the world by storm and recognize the contributions of its founders, Ory Okolloh and David Kobia . Ushahidi is an open-source software package that allows users to submit eyewitness reports of conflicts or disasters over their cellphones. The reports are translated into geographical data that pinpoint the locations of events as they unfold in real time. Their innovative project has spawned a new word in the technophile’s vocabulary; “Crowdsourcing.”
Ushahidi is a Swahili word that translates as “witness” or “testimony” and it lived up to its name by mapping reports of violence after a Kenyan election when news of riots and repression were blacked out by government controlled media. Ushahidi also aided rescue and aid crews during the first weeks of the upheaval caused by the earthquakes in Haiti and Chili as well as in many other incidences of crises around the globe. The founders, both Kenyans expatriates – Okolloh, a lawyer and blogger in South Africa and Kobia, a software and website developer in the United States – crafted the basic package in one weekend. From there, with Kobia’s guidance the software was evolved into an evermore robustly adaptable tool whose potential for social impact is exciting the international research and humanitarian communities.
hi!This was a really exceptional topic!
I come from uk, I was luck to seek your blog in bing
Also I get much in your topic really thank your very much i will come later