Ushahidi – Crowdsourcing Crisis Information

by Jon Thompson on October 15, 2008

In spite of my grumpiness and swearing off of all things IT there are still projects and people out there that warrant attention.  Ushahidi is a site that aggregates crisis information in Kenya and South Africa.  It got it’s start during the Kenyan election violence earlier in the year.  It seems that it has evolved into a general crisis board which people can post to from their mobile phones, email and web.

I am actually a bigger fan of Ushahidi’s creator, Erik Hersman, who is an incredibly talented and creative individual.  I follow his White African and a massive fan of Afrigadget which should be required reading for those of us stateside.  Erik has some great posts about the recent MobileActive ’08 conference in South Africa which was attended by Twitter/Fire Eagle folks Evan and Blaine and InSTEDD people.

Please keep an eye the evolution of Ushahidi and anything else Erik is currently involved in.  Also, be sure to tune into Afrigadget on a fairly frequent basis.

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