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Ushahidi (Crowdsourcing Crisis Information)

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Ushahidi (Crowdsourcing Crisis Information)

To develop a web site, map and timeline to organize and display citizen reports from large news events

Date Awarded: 03/08/2009
Amount: $70,000.00
Grant Period: 07/01/2009 to 12/31/2010
Program: Knight News Challenge
Community: Transformation Fund

Mainstream media cannot be everywhere news breaks out. During a crisis, eyewitnesses see things that can add up to a big story. Rarely is there one place to see these pieces and understand the larger picture. This grant will help fill this gap by creating a system where individuals can use their cell phones to send in reports about the news events they've seen. A web site map will collect all such reports. This software will be released as free, open-source code, allowing anyone to use it in any community for "crowd coverage" of major events, planned or unplanned.

We expect this grant to provide insight into events and crises that are happening in real-time by gathering information from the general public via SMS text messages, e-mails and the Web. Ultimately, we expect the visualization of breaking news events to help journalists better understand and explain them.

Project Contact:
Website: http://www.ushahidi.com

Filed Under: Knight News Challenge Ory Okolloh Ushahidi Crowdsourcing Crisis Information