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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Ushahidi
Original: Ushahidi | 1189 * 2315px | 1.0 MB
_Ushahidi_ is a non-profit technology company that specializes in developing free and open-source software for crowd-sourcing, visualization and interactive mapping. We build tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers to individuals sharing their stories.
_Ushahidi_ started as an ad hoc group of technologists and bloggers hammering out software in a couple days, trying to figure out a way to gather more and better information about the post-election violence in Kenya in January 2008.
Since then, we have open-sourced the _Ushahidi_ platform and made it available for free to individuals and organizations. The tool is now being utilized by organizations big and small all over the world. In short, _Ushahidi_ has shown what a small team of dedicated people can do, leveraging technology to impact and create change all over the globe.
Some examples of this have been seen in places such as Haiti, where 80,000 SMS reports were received, 3000+ reports thousands published to the map, and hundreds of people helped by local relief groups due to this new source of real-time information. In essence, _Ushahidi’s_ work with partners in Haiti served as the de facto emergency SMS system, connecting those in need with the major relief organizations, including the Red Cross, UN, US State Department and many others.
The platform played a decisive role in Russia during the fires of summer 2010, where the citizens self-organized using _Ushahidi_ to coordinate their efforts. Media organizations such as Al Jazeera, the BBC, the _Guardian_, Internews, and the _Washington Post_ have deployed _Ushahidi_ for various reasons.
Links: http://www.ushahidi.com/
_Ushahidi_ started as an ad hoc group of technologists and bloggers hammering out software in a couple days, trying to figure out a way to gather more and better information about the post-election violence in Kenya in January 2008.
Since then, we have open-sourced the _Ushahidi_ platform and made it available for free to individuals and organizations. The tool is now being utilized by organizations big and small all over the world. In short, _Ushahidi_ has shown what a small team of dedicated people can do, leveraging technology to impact and create change all over the globe.
Some examples of this have been seen in places such as Haiti, where 80,000 SMS reports were received, 3000+ reports thousands published to the map, and hundreds of people helped by local relief groups due to this new source of real-time information. In essence, _Ushahidi’s_ work with partners in Haiti served as the de facto emergency SMS system, connecting those in need with the major relief organizations, including the Red Cross, UN, US State Department and many others.
The platform played a decisive role in Russia during the fires of summer 2010, where the citizens self-organized using _Ushahidi_ to coordinate their efforts. Media organizations such as Al Jazeera, the BBC, the _Guardian_, Internews, and the _Washington Post_ have deployed _Ushahidi_ for various reasons.
Links: http://www.ushahidi.com/
_Ushahidi_ is a disruptive organization that is willing to take risks in the pursuit of changing the traditional way that information flows. The core team is Erik Hersman (co-founder and director of strategy and operations), David Kobia (co-founder and director of technology development), Juliana Rotich (co-founder and executive director).