Ushahidi

As the co-founder of a software platform called Ushahidi, Ory Orykolloh watched the unfolding catastrophic earthquake crisis in Haiti and had to decide how her company’s crisis-mapping software could assist international authorities as they moved into Haiti to provide help and relief. Ushahidi was developed as an open-sourced mash-up platform combining Google Maps with publicly reported (text-based) incidents of election violence during the Kenya 2007 elections; thus, the system effectively managed to bypass government censorship. Expansion into other uses during both political crises and a variety of national/international events provided opportunities for growth. With Haiti, Ushahidi’s management team had to consider how its software could be used to provide assistance during a catastrophe like an earthquake.