Crowdsourcing Ushahidi’s Further Development (we need your help)
We’ve entered Ushahidi (background story here) into the $100,000 Netsquared Mashup Challenge for further development. We’re really excited about this opportunity for a number of reasons.
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First, we’d love to get experts involved to help us with planning and development work.
Second, if you go help vote up our application (LINK), we have a stronger chance of being selected. Going and voting for us at this point is the biggest help you can be at this point.
Third, even though the crisis in Kenya appears to be over (thank God), we’re continuing to build out Ushahidi in order for it to be used in future crisis related situations around the world.
Here’s their explanation of the challenge:
This year’s NetSquared Conference will bring together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe.
Those “people” are you — members of the NetSquared universe working on behalf of communities everywhere and the technical experts who care about these issues.
If we’re successful, we’ll learn something about cross-sector collaboration, meet new and interesting people, and build a unique gallery of Mashups that citizens, schools, and community-based groups everywhere can learn from, replicate, and build upon.
So, there you have it. Head on over to Netsquared, register and vote. I know it’s a hassle to have to register before you vote, but we would greatly appreciate it if you did. Better yet, if you’re interested in helping to extend Ushahidi even further, let us know!
Let’s see if we can make a global product out of an African initiated project…
[update: I've had a couple emails and messages asking where to vote. Once you're logged in, you should see the following. Just click the + sign.]
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
[...] we can stand to win up $20,000 for development. Show your support by voting for us. Details are here. As Hash says lets see if we can make a global product out of an African initiated [...]
Hi Hash,
I will vote for you as soon as they approve my registration and we will spread the word as well about voting here.
I think I might have just missed in Miami. You were at FUWA and I was at We Media conference. If only I knew, I would have stuck around a bit longer.
Cheers,
Lova
Expect my vote to come through shortly. Best of luck to y’all!
[...] Finally support a great African initiative that rose out of the Kenya post-election violence: Ushahidi. You can do so by visiting this post written by the White African [...]
I’ll be voting too!
I’ve used Ushahidi in my lectures and plan to incorporate it into a course on Media and African Politics
Mwananchi, Lova and Mwang – Thanks so much for voting, it’s greatly appreciated.
You are welcome. Put a post up on your website if you guys need anything more from us.
As soon as I’m approved, you have my vote! Looks like you’re running away with this competition.
[...] a chance to win up to $20,000 for development. Show your support by voting for them. Details are here. Voting is open until March 18, 2008 so vote early and spread the [...]
[...] to read this sentence and voting takes even shorter. Help us to drive this project forward. Please read and link Hash’s post on the Ushahidi NetSquared challenge and remember to [...]
Hi everyone,
Ushahidi is an amazing project and its awesome that they’re getting so much press in the Mashup Challenge competition. For those out there interested more generally in conflict issues and East Africa, I wanted to share a little bit about our Mashup Challenge entry: Assetmap.org/uganda. You can read more at http://www.assetmap.org/uganda
The question behind the project is this: with peace on the horizon after 20 years of war in northern Uganda, and the big NGOs soon heading off to other war zones, who is going to support community organizations and northern Ugandan civil society as it transitions to peace time?
By mapping information about ongoing community-led philanthropic partnerships in northern Uganda, assetmap.org/uganda helps American citizens aggregate their resources to support post-conflict transformation.
We hope to facilitate collaboration among American donors and volunteers by providing a digital tool that:
•maps project locations so you know who’s working where
•tags information about the specific issues projects and organizations seek to address
•links tagged and mapped projects to the facebook and LinkedIn profiles of participating donors or volunteers
If you’re interested in supporting us, please visit and vote for us here:
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/assetmap-org-uganda
Thanks!
Nathaniel Whittemore
Director, Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement
http://www.mycge.org
globalengagement at gmail
[...] This is different than the original time we asked for your help. We found out that was only to give us stars, but that vote doesn’t [...]
[...] Mashup Challenge that gives us a chance to win up to $20,000 for further development work. Your support helped us get the most votes going in, so now it’s up to us to win over the conference [...]
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