Vote for Ushahidi in the Netsquared Mashup Challenge
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 2:08 PM
The last two months have been eye opening not just for me but for all Kenyans and all friends of Kenya. I have been shocked by some of the nonsensical narrow minded views that swept through the country, and it has to be said, through the blogs. Undoubtedly some friendships will never be the same again as people could not help but show their true colours.
However, the blessing of being so involved in the response to the post election crisis that engulfed Kenya is that for all the nonsensical, narrow minded views that I encountered, for every person I came across who was hell bent on stirring up hate, I would find ten people who would do anything to pull the country back from the brink.
Patriots would put careers on the line, friendships on the line, family relationships on the live and others even put their lives on the line to stand up and be counted as an agent for peace not for division. While some bloggers would announce that they could never take someone from another tribe home to their parents, other Kenyans were busy organising a media event where couples with each partner from a different tribe would publicly declare that they will not be part of any nonsense which insisted they leave their partners to show their loyalty to tribe.
Apart from the personal relationships another trend which warmed my heart was that professionals would rise up and find ways through which they could utilise their professional services to help save the country. A group of writers gathered and formed the Concerned Kenyan Writers coalition which aims to use writing skills to humanise the crisis, the techie community such as Skunkworks offered technical IT and ICT support to the relief efforts, the legal fraternity came up with similar initiatives, the top musicians and producers in the country got into the studios, journalists as well. Bloggers usually wear more than one hat and in each of the other groups mentioned above you will find bloggers.
Some initiatives are blog driven, they were born in blogs and grew in the blogs, were lead by bloggers and publicised by blogs. They are blogger lead and blogger dominated. One such project which I am honoured to work on is the Ushahidi project which was born out of Kenyan Pundit thinking out loud on her blog and Hash hearing those voices and running with them. The site was born on the blogs and brought in to existence by David Kobia, a guy who has been a huge supporter of Kenyan blogs and bloggers, in JUST TWO DAYS. I am yet to hear of another project that launched so successfully, that proved to be so ground breaking that was launched in such a short period of time. Kenyans across the globe showing what can happen with cooperation and commitment.
Ushahidi is the Kiswahili word for witness.
From Hash
Ushahidi.com is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see.
So what’s Ushahidi.com about… (for those who don’t know Kiswahili, ushahidi is the Swahili word for witness). The website was mainly set up to document incidents of violence, lotting etc. during the crisis (and soon to follow - information about ways to help on a micro-level). The website is still very much a work in progress and will be updated as we go along.
We believe that the number of deaths being reported by the government, police, and media is grossly underreported. We also don’t think we have a true picture of what is really going on - reports that all have us have heard from family and friends in affected areas suggests that things are much worse than what we have heard in the media.
We want to continue mapping not only the violence, but also the ‘doves’ or peace efforts happening in Kenya. The last two months have been traumatic to our collective psyche, and we would like to be well equipped to continue this important project. While we will not hide from the trauma of the events; we want make Ushahidi even more relevant to other countries in Africa.
Since the launch of ushahidi the support from within the blogging community and from the main stream media as well, has been phenomenal. I have lost count of the number of radio and print interviews that have come my way because of interest in the project. Now Ushahidi needs your help again. Ushahidi has been entered in to the $100,000 Netsquared Mashup Challenge for further development. This is big in very many ways. It helps secure the future of the project and it helps secure the independence of the project, it allows the project to grow beyond Kenya, it give the opportunity for a powerful and increasingly necessary tool to achieve its potential.
Please show your support for Ushahidi by voting for the project on Netsquared you have to register to vote, registration takes less time than it took you to read this sentence and voting takes even shorter. Help us to drive this project forward. Please read and link Hash’s post on the Ushahidi NetSquared challenge and remember to VOTE!
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Entry Filed under: Kenya, Technology, Ushahidi
9 Comments Add your own
1. Shiroh | March 5th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
So you think i said i would never take another person from another tribe to my folks. If there is one thing i hate is being misquoted. I said it will become increasingly difficult for intermarriages which is true.. I mean why are you attacking me my friend?Anyway i don’t want to sound like i am insulting you as you did but there you have outdone yourself.
2. hash | March 5th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Man, great summarization of what’s been going on Daudi. The good news is that we’re leading the vote count.
It would be good to see a few more comments that help get a discussion going. Does anyone have any thoughts/questions on Ushahidi and the future of the project?
3. Global Voices Online &raq&hellip | March 5th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
[…] asks his readers to vote for ushahidi.com: “I have lost count of the number of radio and print interviews that have come my way because […]
4. Mentalacrobatics | March 6th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Shiroh,
Why do you think this blog post is about you? You have made your views clear on your blog and where I have disagreed with you I have done so publicly and quite extensively in the comments on your blog. I do not beat around the bush or hide my opinion and you can rest assured that if I was commenting on you or on anything to do with your blog I would do so directly and openly, like I did before. It is laughable that you say you hate being misquoted when what you are actually doing is misquoting me, I never quoted or misquoted you in this blog post. It is about the Ushahidi project and that is what I would like the comments on this post to focus on.
5. BRE | March 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
You’ve got my vote Duadi. Ushahidi.com was a great idea and provided an invaluable service to people inside and outside of Kenya to track news from everyday citizens and bloggers about the post-election crisis. Congratulations to all of you in Kenya who worked so hard to pull the country back from the brink. Let’s hope that the powersharing agreement worked out with the help of “Kofi Annan and African Elders” holds and peace returns to all communities across the country of Kenya.
P.S. If you guys win, ask for the prize money in Euros, small denominations. The USD$ is practically worthless these days.
6. BRE | March 6th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I registered at the Netsquared site. I found your project description post for the Netsquared Mashup Challenge 2008 competition (it took a while, but I found it). I think that I voted for Ushahidi.com by clicking on an icon marked “Stars” in the header of the post, but I ain’t sure.
Clear, unambiguous voting procedures for the Netsquared Mashup Challenge 2008 are nowhere to be found on the Netsquared site, and that problem ought to be fixed pronto by the TechSoup.org guys. If I did not vote properly for your project as described above, please steer me to the right procedures at the site so that I may try again.
7. Mwangi - the Displaced African | March 7th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Best of luck to you guys!
8. sci-culturist | March 13th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
fantastic and innovative initiative - i’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed for the ushahidi crew!
might be worth pointing out to your readers that hash’s post gives clear guidelines on exactly where to vote as it is rather unclear…
9. Tobias Eigen | March 19th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hi everyone -
just a reminder that the “stars” we all added don’t count as votes towards the prize. I guess it was the first round of the popularity contest. Now is the time to return to the site and cast your ballot - and we only have until this coming Friday, March 21 to submit our ballots!
I think more African projects and more projects supporting developing countries (and less projects focussed on just US issues!) need to be supported. Please come and vote!
I listed the 10 projects I supported on the Kabissa blog:
http://www.kabissa.org/blog/two-days-left-vote-ushahidi-and-other-important-web-2-0-projects-africa-netsquared-n2y3-mashup-
This includes one focussed on The Disappeared in Latin America - also a very important project.
Cheers,
Tobias
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