BY BEATRICE WAMUYU

KENYA: In the wake of the 2007-2008 post election violence that saw more than 1,000 people killed and 350,000 others displaced, a group of enterprising Kenyans developed an app that has changed the way the world maps and responds to disasters. Ushahidi, which means testimony gathered information from different sources to help law enforcement and disaster response agencies pinpoint hotspots and respond to distress calls.

It was originally a website that helped people report areas that experienced bloodshed in the aftermath of the disputed election.

Now, the software has been used more than 40,000 times around the world in more than 140 countries to identify trouble spots and aid charities, government agencies and individuals to respond to disasters. It has been translated into 31 languages and the translation work is ongoing through volunteers.

It is a free, open source app that allows people worldwide to launch it in moments and start collecting information that saves lives.

Trace dead bodies

It has an impressive list of areas where it has been used to alleviate human suffering. In Syria, where a protracted civil war between rebels and the government has claimed thousands of lives, it has been used to identify trouble spots and rally help.

“Launched just a few weeks after the protests began one year ago, the crisis map is spearheaded by just a handful of US-based Syrian activists who have meticulously and systematically documented 1,529 reports of human rights violations including a total of 11,147 killings,” Ushahidi said of the Syria Tracker in a blog in 2011.

During the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Ushahidi Haiti Crisis Map helped to track people trapped under the rubble, those starving, hospitals that could still accommodate patients and even uncollected bodies. Ushahidi Haiti, which used short text messages, tweets and posts from other social media as well as satellite imagery to map the disaster, became one of the most successful instances where the platform saved lives. It aggregated more than 300,000 reports showing areas where disaster response was required.

Some organisations have embedded the platform into their websites.

Around the world, it has also been used to monitor elections.

The possibilities in which the platform can be used are endless. During the Westgate attack in which at least 67 people were killed, Ushahidi developed an emergency platform known as Ping in which people could find out if loved ones were safe. A second platform helped people to identify blood donation centres. One could easily find out areas where blood was needed most, which areas were easily accessible and which had long queues or were not congested.