Activist Mapping

Erik Hersmanerik@ushahidi.com

Stuff I’m Excited About

geotate.com

AfricaMap

http://africamap.harvard.edu

buglabs.net

diydrones.com

Kenya Elections 2007

Getting from here

To here

President Mwai Kibakiincumbent

Raila Odingaopposition

Ethnicities vs Election

Media Blackout

traditional media blogs/social media

Ory Okollohkenyanpundit.com

Our Goals

• Create a way for everyday Kenyans to report incidents of violence that they saw

• Create an archive of news and reports around those same events

• Show where the majority of the violence was happening

Building It

• Detailed geospatial data is hard to come by in Africa

• How much should it be web-based in a mobile phone culture?

• Mobile phones - getting a full report in 140 characters is not easy

• What data points do we need?

Ushahidi Calendar27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 27

Jan. 10 - 75% of Kenyan bloggers write about Ushahidi

Jan. 12 - MSM pickup: BBC, NPR, Guardian, etc...

violence

idea, production, launch blogging and media

Jan. 3 - The idea of Ushahidi

Jan. 5 - Ushahidi discussed

Jan. 9 - Ushahidi launched

Jan.10 - Added functionality (RSS, SMS, etc...)

Jan. 6 - Ushahidi prototype

Jan. 22 - Ushahidi blog addedJan. 26 - Ushahidi timeline feature

Jan. 10 - Kenyan SMS shortcode partnership

Dec. 27 - Kenyan ElectionsDec. 27 - Dec. 30 - Period of uncertaintyDec. 30 - Jan. 1 - Media blackout

Lessons Learned

• The importance of mapping accuracy

• Data poisoning - what happens when your antagonist starts using it?

• Verification is difficult

• Clarify why it was created and make that inescapably obvious

• Create a feedback loop to end users

david kobiaory okolloherik hersmanjuliana rotich

On Activism

Activist AntagonistIssue

It turns out activists are just everyday people, most with limited technical acumen.

Global Activist Maps

Crisis in Darfur - http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/darfur

Sudan ICC War Criminals - http://www.wantedforwarcrimes.org

Global Voices Online Censorship - http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/maps

Tunisia Prisons Map - http://kitab.nl/tunisianprisonersmap

Bahrain Land Rights (PDF) - http://elijahzarwan.net/blog/?p=268

Chicago Idealist Network - http://www.chicagoidealistnetwork.org/2007/03/spaces.html

Operation Murambatsvina (Zimbabwe) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Murambatsvina

before after

Sokwanele “All Breaches” - http://www.sokwanele.com/map/all_breaches

Green Peace - http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/whaling/great-whale-trail/map

Planet Action - http://www.planet-action.org

I Love Mountains - http://www.ilovemountains.org

Mapping for human rights violations

vs

Mapping for activism

(activists are not the authority)

Think about how you can use your skills to helpin a cause that is important to you

Thank You