Company maps reports of violence in Kenya

A Kenyan company has embarked on effective use of information technology (IT) to expose acts of political violence, murder and torture, an official has revealed.

In an interview with our reporters on the sidelines of Mobile Web Africa conference in Sandton recently, executive director of Kenya’s Ushahidi, Ory Okolloh, said her organization was primarily established to expose crisis situations across the continent.

“In brief, Ushahidi means testimony. The name was derived from Swahili language and Ushahidi was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post election fallout at the beginning of 2008.

“This is basically about creating technological platform to enable anyone from around the globe to capture reports by mobile phone, web or email. With time, we would want this to work with other online tools,” said Okolloh.

She said Ushahidi was an open source application which could be downloaded, used or implemented, to bring awareness to regional crisis prevailing on the continent.

Already some countries such as Uganda, war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi and Zambia are tapping into Ushahidi project to improve and track near real-time stockouts of medical supplies at pharmacies.

Even renowned international television channel, Al Jazeera, is reportedly using some of the technology from Ushahidi in its work to expose elements of violence from around the globe