the ushahidi platform: crowdsourcing and crowdfeeding
DESCRIPTION
THE USHAHIDI PLATFORM: CROWDSOURCING AND CROWDFEEDING. Anahi Ayala Iacucci Media Innovation Advisor [email protected]. Kabul Innovation Lab Kabul – January 2012. CROWDSOURCING. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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THE USHAHIDI PLATFORM: CROWDSOURCING AND
CROWDFEEDING
Anahi Ayala IacucciMedia Innovation [email protected]
Kabul Innovation LabKabul – January 2012
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CROWDSOURCING
CROWDSOURCING: use the crowd to collect information. The act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call for action. Jeff Howe coined the term in June 2006 explaining that because technological advances have allowed for cheap consumer electronics, the gap between professionals and amateurs has been diminished.
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ADVANTAGES OF USING CROWDSOURCING
Information during a crisis or for early warning systems is as important as food and water
Affected communities know what is going on on the ground in real time
The ability to collect information is limited by the availability of sources of information: more sources, more information
Affected population get engaged in the process because they have an interest in the outcome
Crowdsourcing is relatively cheaper than the use of selected monitoring teams
Crowdsourcing allow for triangulation of information permitting verification and accountability
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CROWDFEEDING
CROWDFEEDING: the need for the crowd to share information with the crowd, ie, not top-down, or bottom-up, but information from the crowd, for the crowd; horizontal communication. The act of sharing information out to a large group of people or community, through an open sharing system. In the same time for the international community it means to share all available information with all stakeholders to allow better decisions to be taken and better actions to be implemented.
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WHY CROWDFEEDING?
Local populations are the first responders on the ground so the more they know, the better they respond
Information increase resilience and is the base for preparedness
The Crowd is always there
Information sharing is the base for a coordinated meaningful response
Local population normally knows what to do and has local copying mechanisms
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: CROWDSOURCING, MAPPING, AND CROWDFEEDING TOOL
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, began as a one-off deployment for mapping reports of election violence after the December 2007 Kenyan elections. Ushahidi is a crowdsourcing mapping system that people to report into the platform by web submission, SMS, Twitter or e-mail. The Ushahidi platform is right now being used in more than 100 countries and 10.000 projects, from electoral monitoring in Burundi to violence in Congo to Early Warning system in the Rift Valley.
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WHAT IS USHAHIDI?
Platform Methodology
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WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH
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Visualization of data on a map
Multiple layersCrowdsourcing from
different sourcesCrowdfeeding
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VISUALIZING DATA ON AN INTERACTIVE MAP
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MULTIPLE LAYERS
The categoriesThe map layersThe static layers
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1ST LAYER: THE CATEGORIES
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2ND LAYER: THE MAP LAYERS
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3RD LAYER: THE STATIC LAYERS
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TWO TYPOLOGIES OF STATIC LAYERS
Points (ex. Fixed points like wells, dams, irrigation systems)
Areas (ex.Agro-ecological regions, risk maps, crop suitability)
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CROWDSOURCING FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES The Ushahidi platform can collect information
from different sources:
• SMS (integration with FLSMS• Web-Submission• E-Mail• Facebook • Twitter• Voice Mail/IVR
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CROWDFEEDING
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TWO EXAMPLES OF USHAHIDI PROJECTS
LIBYA CRISIS MAPHUDUMA
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FEBRUARY 15TH, 2011: LIBYA
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FOR THE FIRST TIME UNOCHA REACHED OUT TO VOLUNTEER TECHNICAL COMMUNITIES On Tuesday 1st March, OCHA reaches out to
Standby Task Force, CrisisMappers, CrisisCommons, ICT4Peace, Open Street Map and MapAction.
A couple of hours later OCHA activated the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF) which quickly launched a Crisis Map of Libya to support humanitarian preparedness operations.
The first mandate of the SBTF was to support OCHA to understand what was going on inside the country
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DAY 6
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4 WEEKS LATER
For the first time since Haiti, the humanitarian community was using new technology, social media and online volunteers for their work
1400 report have been uploaded on the platform and UNHCHR asked to use some of the volunteers to gather YouTube video to support human rights violations
OCHA, WFP, UNHCR, UNHCHR, IRC and the Red Cross were after one month using the platform
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LESSONS LEARNED If you want to work in humanitarian emergencies
you need to work with responders Make sure you advertise your project both with
the local population and with the hum community Have a strategy and a precise goal in mind Make sure you design a sustainable workflow Do not focus on the tool, focus on the outcome Engage civil society and local communities Make local people own the project Give people the possibility to turn your project
upside down Rely on people that have credibility in the
country/community
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HUDUMA: FIX MY CONSTITUENCY
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CHARACTERISTICS:
Done in collaboration with the Open Data Project
Governmental data + citizens data Free reporting system for the citizens Analysis of the data received Monitoring and accountability system of
the money spent by the government
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THE PROJECT IS NOT WORKING…WHY?
No media involved No trust in bw the government and the
people No response No expectations managements Not easy to navigate Not easy to understand Not enough training to people on how to
use it
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HOW TO USE CROWDSOURCING AND WHAT TO BE AWARE OF
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CROWDSOURCING IS NOT PERFECT METHODOLOGY AND IT IS NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY
CROWDSOURCING AND CROWDFEEDING PROJECTS NEED TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION
IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO START WITH A SMALL PROJECT AND THEN SCALE UP THAN THE CONTRARY
NEVER CHOOSE A TOOL AND THEN DECIDE WHAT TO USE IT FOR
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RISK AND PROBLEMES OF CROWDSOURCING SYSTEMS
VERIFICATION
STRUCTURE
IMPACT
SUSTAINABILITY
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VERIFICATION
PROBLEM: when you do crowdsourcing you don’t know who is the source of your information. The risk is to receive and use false or bias information that can affect your work and credibility.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Verification can be crowdsourced too (ex. OpenStreet
Map and Ushahidi) New systems to triangulate information and create
reliability scores (ex. Swift River) Bound and Unbound crowdsourcing is for now the
best solution (ex. Uchaguzi)
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STRUCTUREPROBLEM: people think that a good
tool is enough to make a good project. This is not the case: a tool is only a tool, a good project is much more than that.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Planning and strategy design need
to be always the first step of a project
Crowdsourcing is not immune to its own principle: the best crowdsourcing project is the one managed by the involved population
Sustainability and integration with local systems need to be always taken into consideration
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IMPACT
Information is power, so if you share information you are sharing power. Crowdsourcing projects cannot be detached by their political implications.
Crowdsourcing projects are bi-directional projects: the crowd will always modify and affect the project as much as the project will modify and affect the crowd.
Crowdsourcing projects to be effective need to be adapted to the existing flow of information and information management systems existing in the environment where they are implemented.
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SUSTAINABILITYPROBLEM: If running a long term crowdsourcing
project the big problem is how to make it sustainable. Will people keep reporting on that issue?
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Try to have a free reporting system (have a free
short code or phone number from phone companies)
Give reimbursements to people that reports Make people willing to report, because they can
see the results Engage the crowd and be ready to adapt your
platform to the crowd needs
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CHALLENGES WITH USING USHAHIDI FOR HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
A. Protecting affected communities: Protecting the source (technical security) Protecting the information (privacy) Protecting the impact (local equilibrium)
Possible solution: private instance but will never be 100% safe
B. Verifying the violations/reports Verification of the source Verification of the information
Possible solution: not doing crowdsourcing, or rely on a very strong robust local field presence to take care of verification
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