Video Ory Okolloh talks about the success of her Ushahidi software which has been used in several disasters across the world. Ushahidi received support from Hivos and the Omidyar network toward establishing the Innovation Hub (iHub. Lack of seed-stage equity funding and few debt financing avenues have allowed humanitarian organizations to invest in Africa's technology scene, hoping to build on the growing "techpreneurship.
" The U.S. Department of State; Hivos, the Dutch humanitarian agency; the Omidyar network and the World Bank are leading supporters of Africa's technology initiatives through direct funding, competition and grants, among other partnerships. While humanitarian organizations have been known to give "free" money, that trend is changing, with the focus shifting to sustainable options and ways for communities to work without visible donor "hands. " "With few avenues for debt financing available and seed-stage equity almost nonexistent, the odds are often stacked against African startup founders right from the beginning -- having a well-known humanitarian org backing an effort can be helpful in several ways," said Bill Zimmerman, co-founder of Limbelabs in Cameroon.
Hivos Online / Home - Hivos Online, Humanistisch Instituut voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking. SwiftRiver: Curating in an Age of Information Overload. In an age of information abundance, curating meaning is key. 9 months ago that is just what Jon Gosier set out to do as he took over the reins of the SwiftRiver initiative at Ushahidi.
Today he announces the Beta release, and unveils the new website at Swiftly.org. What is SwiftRiver? SwiftRiver Open Beta Announcement. from Ushahidi on Vimeo. “SwiftRiver is an open source intelligence gathering platform for managing realtime streams of data.” Using 5 different tools in the toolbox, you can create a host of useful applications. SwiftRiver lets users: Manage realtime data streams (e.g. Ning_Search: Ushahidi. Ushahidi CrisisMappers. Chaîne de Ushahidi. Beth's Blog: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to. Omidyar Network. Stephen King.
Photo: Eric Millette As a partner at Omidyar Network, Stephen brings exceptional experience in applying media and technology to create positive social impact. Stephen leads the global Government Transparency initiative and a portfolio that includes a broad range of national and global organizations. Many are innovators in the use of technology to help make governments more responsive and aid citizens in holding their governments to account. The portfolio includes: Sunlight Foundation, Global Voices, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, mySociety, New Citizen, Janaagraha and Ushahidi, among others. Prior to Omidyar Network, Stephen served as the chief executive of BBC Media Action, where he led a period of sustained growth that included building programs in more than 40 countries in the developing world.
Stephen is based in London and is a board member of Ushahidi, Global Voices, and mySociety. Profile on TED.com. Integrity Vice Presidency. OPENWORLD - Your Open Source Technology Partner. Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa. Ethan Zuckerman. …My heart’s in Accra. Global Voices in English. Berkman Center. Patrickmeier. Dale Zak (dalezak) Emeka_okafor (emeka_okafor) Timbuktu Chronicles. Africa Unchained. Katrin Verclas (Katrinskaya) A global network of people using mobile techn. Ethan Zuckerman (EthanZ) Geekcorps. …My heart’s in Accra. Deborah Estrin, Women of Vision 2007. Deborah Estrin, Acceptance Speech. CENS: Center for Embedded Networked Sensing. Digital Democracy. Digital Democracy (DigiDem) Mapping the Future of Cities & Education.
The following is a guest post from Mark Belinsky of Digital Democracy.
What does real-time mapping with New York City public school kids look like? Recently, Digital Democracy was invited to work with 120 young people from all 5 boroughs as part of the Department of Education’s “Future Now” program. Having gone through the NY Public School system myself, I jumped at the opportunity to help them innovate. My task was to engage the kids in a conversation about what they’d like to see in the year 2020. Future Now is creating NYC’s Digital Storybook – a citywide youth project about school, community, and dreams. To give the kids a real-life example of the changes that are happening in their community, we built a modified Ushahidi map with data overlays from the NYC Data Mine and Recovery.gov. Our Ushahidi lesson plan builds off of our participatory collaborative learning curriculum from around the world, Project Einstein.
The biggest problem I ran into was spell-check. Future Now NYC using Ushahidi map as platform. Patrick Meier Collaborative Crisis Mapping. Social media in conflict situations - Ushahidi, Twitter and More. What do Ushahidi, Worldbank,EVOKE have in c. They are the organizations where this week’s set of mentors honed their skills and experience!
We are very excited to introduce to you a set of mentors with a rich array of talents and expertise. This group has created a network of grass roots innovators, developed an application to support disaster relief and transparency, worked on every Intel microprocessor over the last decade and led the World Bank’s work in South Asia. Please welcome Anil Gupta, Erik Hersman, Joseph Nsengimana, and Praful Patel to the EVOKE network! Anil Gupta Anil is the Executive Vice Chair of the India National Innovation Foundation, and the founder of the Honey Bee Network.
Erik Hersman Erik is the co-founder of Ushahidi (which means “testimony” in Swahili), a web application created to map the reported incidents of violence happening during the post-election crisis in Kenya. In early 2010, Erik helped launch the new iHub (innovation hub) in Nairobi.