Why Ushahidi is a great example of new journalistic start ups
Ushahidi, is an open source platform for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories, a tool for collecting, managing, and visualizing data and makes it easy for people in any part of the world to disseminate and collect information about a crisis. It was first developed during the aftermath of the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008, today the technology is used all over the world.
By using the platform users could submit reports by text message, e-mail, or Web postings, and the software aggregates and organizes the data into a map or timeline. In this way, data can be collected from anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Ushahidi’s innovation is that the open-source crowdsourcing tool overlays field reports on maps, providing critical and often life-saving data during emergencies.
The word «ushahidi» means testimony in Swahili. And this is exactly the importance of this software. Authentic and indirect testimonies of users, for what happening around them. This platform, changes not only the way that social media faced a crisis but also the way that journalism works. Gathering, processing, and dissemination of news, and information to an audience is the simplest way of journalism but also the most important, authentic and usefull.
Web tools can help people respond to crises. Ushahidi, is a practical application of this option. And this is the reason why MIT, included Ushahidi into the 50 most disruptive companies for 2015!
Find our presentation at: http://www.slideshare.net/myrsinizarda/usahidi
