Open Innovation Aiding Developing Countries
A recent post covered an Open Innovation Summit in Africa and how modern technology is poised to help spur economic growth in African nations through communication and creativity. Another interesting example of how open innovation is aiding African and other developing countries is the rise of Ushahidi. Swahili for “testimony”, Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company specializing in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping.
The platform is a collaborative project initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. It was a tool that allowed Kenyan citizen journalists to collaborate. When the website grew to 45,000 users in Kenya the developers realized there was a greater need. Now, the interactive mapping tool allows tracking and filtering of geographical and time-related data. Information can be collected via texts, e-mail and webforms. In addition to this core product, they also offer Swiftriver, a product that collects and analyzes real-time data from channels like Twitter, SMS, Email and RSS feeds.
In the summer of 2009, Ushahidi allowed the coordination of information from thousands of Russians to aid in fighting unprecedented wildfires in the country. In November 2010, the platform powered a Serbian website launched after an earthquake hit the center of the country. The site provided an easy way to submit data about each and every house and building affected and a clear image of the work required.
In January 2010 the Ushahidi crisis mapping platform allowed locals and aid workers in Haiti to report incidents such as blocked roads and felled buildings in a geographically precise way. As a result of those grassroots efforts, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the UN Foundation, the Vodafone Foundation and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have come together to investigate the role that grassroots technology groups played in the Haiti earthquake response, and help pave a path for more seamless cooperation and communications between grassroots groups and large aid organizations in future emergencies.
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