FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is behind Ushahidi?
The Ushahidi platform is a collaborative project created by volunteers and managed by a core team. Most of the development team comes from different countries in Africa, including Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Malawi. We also have contributors in the US and Europe. The core team is made up of Ory Okolloh, Erik Hersman, David Kobia and Juliana Rotich who originally started Ushahidi in Kenya in their free time, and have since moved to work on the platform full-time. (Founder bios)
What is Ushahidi?
Ushahidi (meaning “testimony” in Swahili) was originally a website that was quickly developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. The new Ushahidi Platform is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to collect and visualize information, especially crisis information. The core platform will allow for plug-in and extensions so that it can be customized for different locales and needs.
Where has Ushahidi been used, and where will it be used?
Ushahidi was originally deployed in Kenya during the post-election violence in January 2008. Since then the platform has been deployed in multiple locations by different organizations around the world - take a look at the deployments page to see a sample. The new Ushahidi Platform is available for anyone to deploy globally. Since Ushahidi was developed for use in crisis situations, the team hopes to see it deployed and used in disaster and emergency situations around the world.
When will the Ushahidi Platform be available?
The second iteration of the Ushahidi Platform was released in September 2008 for private alpha testing with select organizations, with a private beta version available later in the year for a broader group of testers. You can now download and test the most current iteration of the software at download.ushahidi.com.
Why did you build it?
The core platform is built on the premise that gathering crisis information from the general public provides new insights into events happening in near real-time. It is also expected to help organizations marshal efforts to assist areas that are not well covered in the mainstream media.