Two powerful earthquakes in the last two months have brought to light the ability to crowdsource disaster relief and harvest information through social media.
Once such resource is Ushahidi- originally founded in Kenya as a website mapping incidences of violence following a disputed eleciton in 2008, the site proved very succesful with 45,000 users in a country where less than 9% have access to the internet (As of 2009). The software has evolved into a resource for crowdsourced co-ordination directing aid agencies to those who were in need of help and is available as a free to download open source application.
[follow for video... Shame I can't embed on 'wordpress']
Ushahidi’s team of Tech volunteers and aid workers had a Haiti page running within hours of the earthquake striking. They were deluged with responses, a baptism of fire which helped them to put to test the principles of their system against disaster on a huge scale. The staff and volunteers soon found themselves directing the likes of the US state department and coast guard. There is no doubt that lives were saved as a consequence.
Here Ushahidi programmers and volunteers explain more about this remarkable story.
http://chile.ushahidi.com is the page tracking the aftermath and ongoing relief efforts of the catastrophic Chilean quake.
Roberto Candia's photograph of a man with Chilean flag amongst ruins caused by the powerful earthquake.
With each tragic incidence of civil strife or disaster this powerful tool for aid will become more and more prominent.
Ushahidi has been funded in partnership with the likes of the Cisco Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, and are registered as an NGO in the US. You can support Ushahidi if you follow this link.
The disasters emergency committee is an unbrella organisation of charities providing aid for natural disaster victims around the world, it ran a high profile campaign for Haiti and some of it’s members have also commited to a response in Chile.
