Ushahidi

Ushahidi builds tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories - "a disruptive organization" that is willing to take risks in the pursuit of changing the traditional way that information flows.

"Ushahidi", which means "testimony" in Swahili, was a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Since then, the name "Ushahidi" has come to represent the people behind the "Ushahidi Platform". Ushahidi's roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The original website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones. The current website had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be used by others around the world.

Since early 2008. Ushahidi has grown from an ad hoc group of volunteers to a focused organization. The current team is comprised of individuals with a wide span of experience ranging from human rights work to software development, with a strong team of volunteer developers primarily in Africa, but also Europe, South America and the U.S.