I’ve been tough on Newsweek.com the last few weeks, so I’v actually found a great article on a technology project that originated in Kenya, and has found significant usage across the the globe in all types of crisis situations — Ushahidi.com.
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008
While the Newsweek article is a bit awkward for numerous reasons — it doesn’t focus on the development of the open source project, the grants that sustain it or much else really. However, the article does give the project much needed coverage in the United States, coverage that will help the developers gain both monetary support and more importantly usage and developers. So, here’s a brief bit of the article — and I think the whole article deserves a read, if only to show how technology developed in Africa can affect the world.
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