Ushahidi

Ushahidi demonstrates what can be done by combining geographically-referenced reports from multiple sources and multiple channels with geographical mapping tools. As free and open source software, the continued development of Ushahidi is done by volunteers and is supported in part by donations.

Since 2088 Ushahidi has been used to monitor elections in India, Mexico, Lebanon and Afghanistan. It has used the DR Congo to track unrest, in Zambia to monitor medicine stockouts, and in the Philippines to track the mobile phone companies.

In El Salvador, RTI worked with Qualcomm Wireless Reach , the United States Agency for International Development, the Municipality of Santa Tecla and the National Civilian Police to develop and implement a new system using 3G technology to collect and share vital crime information in real time.

After analyzing alternatives, RTI selected Ushahidi as the web-based component of the project. Using an open source, system already developed, with several developers around the world eager to assist in its improvent, enabled a quick start and ensured strong technical support. Based on PHP and MySQL, a common product combination for open source software applications, the system is simple for most software developers to understand and modify.

RTI worked with the Usahahidi development community to produce the first complete mobile phone client report crime-related data in real-time for analysis in a joint Crime Observatory.