Crowdsourcing Crisis Management

Crowdsourcing has proven to be more than just tapping the crowd for viewpoints, ideas, and marketing products. After the violence in Kenya that erupted following a controversial re-election of the country’s incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, resulted in 1500 people being killed, crowdsourcing was used to play a pivotal role in crisis information management. Ushahidi, the Swahili word for “testimony,” is a site managed by volunteers that allows citizens and journalists to map incidents of violence and voter intimidation during an election.  Anyone with a laptop, PC, or mobile phone can upload or access this information and pass it on to the relevant authorities and security organisations.

The organisation behind the development quickly grew from a few volunteers  to a specialised group consisting of individuals with experience in human rights legislation and software development. Although it was initially for monitoring incidents in African states it has since been used in the following countries around the world:

• South Africa in monitoring Xenophobic violence
• Vote Report India monitoring recent local elections
• Pak Voices mapped incidents of violence in Pakistan
• AL Jazeera used this during the War in Gaza

In the US, following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, The Louisiana Bucket Brigade (in partnership with the University of Tulane) used Ushahidi for their crowdsourcing efforts. Louisiana residents, relief workers and journalists are invited to use any web enabled technology for stories of how the spill has effected lives and the environment.

Kenya is emerging as a technology development hotspot, a crucible where innovation ideas are pushed to evolve.
Kui Kinyanjui – Business Daily

Whilst this innovoative crisis mapping platform is helping all nations large and small, its eye recently turned towards home with a new deployment that monitored Kenya’s constitutional referendum held on 4h August 2010. Uchaguzi, the Swahili word for “election” was specifically designed to monitor the referendum, with the help of over 50 technically abled volunteers. As usually it crowdsourced the nation’s citizens, using Twitter or through the website directly, to provide any details of post election violence. The elections were held relatively peacefully and to date there have been no reports of violence.