Ushahidi | TechChange | The Institute for Technology and Social Change

This post was originally published on the NDITech DemocracyWorks blog by Lindsay Beck (view original post), a student in TechChange’s recent course at George Washington University. For more information, please consider following @BeckLindsay and @NDITech.

As technology closes the time between when events happen and when they are shared with the world, understanding what approaches and tools are the best solutions to implement in crisis response and good governance programs is increasingly important. During the “Technology for Crisis Response and Good Governance” course, which I took earlier this month offered by TechChange at GW, our class was able to simulate different scenarios of how such tools can be used effectively.

The first simulation we did was on how to use FrontlineSMS and Crowdmap to track and respond to incidents in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Each team was responsible for managing FrontlineSMS, mapping incidents and other information on Crowdmap, and going into the field to get more information and verify reports. Management of the incoming data at this point becomes the highest priority. Designating specific responsibilities to different individuals, and determining how to categorize data (reports to be mapped, questions to be answered by other officials, overly panicked individuals, etc.) helps to more efficiently handle processing a large amount of information during a short timeframe.

The next simulation was on how to use a variety of open source tools and resources to enact an election monitoring mission. While the temptation was there to think about what the tools could do to meet specific aspects of the electoral process, instead it was quite clear that workflow and anticipated challenges needed to be identified first before using these technologies. For example, in a country where internet and mobile phone coverage does not reach the entire population, making sure that outreach is also accomplished through “low-tech” mediums like radio broadcasts as well as distribution of leaflets or other informational materials through local community organizers will reach a wider percentage of citizens. In countries like Liberia, use of “chalkboard blogs” that share community-relevant information could even be leveraged. Tech alone, even more ubiquitous mobile tech, is not sufficient to reach all potential voters.

Using tools during significant political and social moments is useful in attracting the attention of and inform the local and international community. However, local context has to be taken into consideration, particurlarly in countries that discourage citizen engagement and transparency of political processes like elections, can emerge.

Could sending an SMS about violations being committed against members of a community put a sender at risk? In most countries now, a mobile phone user must provide some degree of personally identifiable information (PII) in order to purchase a SIM card, ranging from a name, home address to a photocopy of a passport or national ID card and even increasingly biometric information. Match this with the increasing efforts by governments to curtail use of mobile communications (particularly use of bulk SMS), along with pre-existing insecurities of the mobile network, and it becomes nearly impossible to exchange information securely over SMS, or send them to be reported on a platform like Crowdmap. While encrypted SMS tools like TextSecure exist, they are not available on feature phones or “dumb” phones that are the most widely used internationally nor are they easily deployed for crowdmapping efforts.

When making use of crowdsourcing and mapping applications to track incidents, such as during an election, a large amount of data is collected and can be shared with a wider community. But what happens to that data? Simply putting a map on a governance- or crisis response-focused project does not ensure continuity and sustainability of a project. Instead, defining an approach to make greater use of collected information can help strengthen follow-on activities beyond the event date. Establishing a bigger picture strategy, and then incorporating ICT elements as they fit makes for more effective projects, rather than creating “technology-first” projects that consider political and social considerations after the tools.

For those interested in Technology for Peacekeeping consider taking our online certificate course, Technology for Conflict Management and Prevention, starting July 23rd.

**Disclaimer: These are Asch’s personal views and do not represent those of his employer.

You’ve heard of the 90/10 rule, right? I hadn’t heard the concept, at least, until recently. The meaning, though, I learned the hard way—an ICT-enabled project should be 90 percent planning and only 10 percent digital tool. Not the other way around.

We initiated the Nigeria Security Tracker, an effort to catalog and map political violence based on a weekly survey of domestic and international press, at least two years ago. We wanted to answer the question “are things getting worse in Nigeria?”

The death of Nigeria’s president in office with upcoming elections, an increasingly divided electorate, and an apparent up tick in violence in the north and the middle of the country raised serious doubts about Nigeria’s stability.

And yet many disagreed. The optimists said things were getting better; the pessimists that Nigeria was becoming a “failed state”; and everyone else that Nigeria would continue to “muddle through,” as it had done since independence in the 1960’s.

Measuring levels of violence seemed like it could give us a more precise answer. While the Nigerian press has many shortcomings—lack of journalist training and professionalization, concentration of ownership and coverage in the south—it is relatively free, and there is a lot of it. Also, the presence of major outlets like Reuters, BBC, AP, AFP, and the Wall Street Journal added another layer of reliability. Indeed, some of the best Nigeria analysis I’ve seen comes from open sources. You just need to learn to read between the lines.

Mapping seemed like a useful and visually engaging way to organize our information. But without funding or any programming experience, our options were limited. We experimented with manually pinning incidents to Google maps and embedding on our blog. We tried to pitch Ushahidi to the web department hoping to get programming support, but without success.

Eventually, we abandoned the project–until Crowdmap was launched. Free, hosted on Ushahidi servers, preprogrammed, and simple to set up and use, it made the security tracker possible.

Our Mistake

We designed our research methodology around Crowdmap capabilities. We could include basic descriptions of events, and simple codings as well as details like causalities, but it was labor intensive.

Not until three months later, when we sat down to review our work, did we realize the shortcomings. Putting incidents on a map is useful if you want to see where violence is happening. But less so when you want to know when incidents occurred, or if you wanted to look at trends or correlations over time. (The automation feature of the map, while fun to watch, is not a terribly useful analytical tool.) We discovered it was impossible to look at, for example, the relationship of violence perpetuated by the security services and causalities.

Fundamentally, the project was supposed to be about the information captured. Not the technology. And we had it backwards.

We also discovered a major lost opportunity. Because we tailored our methodology to what could be included on the Crowdmap, we failed to capture other useful information, such as attacks on religious establishments, which only required marginal extra effort.

The Redesign

Given that our project was supposed to answer a particular question that a map alone couldn’t, we relegated the Crowdmap to a component of the project–no longer the driver. We thought more thoroughly about what kind of information we needed, and what we could glean from press reports of political violence.

Fortunately, we had documented all of our sources. So we could return to our original information and recode, albeit with a significant time commitment.

The Way Forward

Despite better planning the second time around, we continue to find shortcomings. We defined one variable, “sectarian violence,” inadequately, which means coding has been inconsistent throughout the project, making it less useful.

We are also vulnerable to technical problems on Crowdmap’s end. When there is a bug in the system, there is nothing we can do but wait for Ushahidi to fix it. (Recently, the site was down for about a week.)

Finally, we now have a year’s worth of information. It’s a huge dataset. And we still haven’t figured out what to do with it. Yes, we can make defensible, conservative estimates of causalities caused by actors like the police or Boko Haram. We can also show any escalation or decline in violence across the country.

But this only scrapes the surface of what our data can tell us. Admittedly, this is a good problem to have. But given the time and resources we have already committed, and the wealth of date we have accumulated, we are constantly trying to balance benefits of the security tracker with the costs of maintaining it.

Asch Harwood is a specialist on Africa at a New York City-based think tank.

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised to reflect corrections submitted by PeaceTXT and Sisi Ni Amani

I’ve long been interested in how new media can play a unifying/integrating role vs. a divisive/partisan one and, in this regard, I came across some interesting information recently on a tool called PeaceTXT that I thought I would share. But, first, some background.

It all started with a meeting hosted by PopTech at Google headquarters in Chicago in May 2010. A group of social mobile leaders—including representatives from Ushahidi and MedicMobile—got together with CeaseFire Chicago, which has a long and impressive history of utilizing “interrupters” to prevent gun violence. The Interrupters is now an award-winning documentary. Based on the premise that violence can spread like a communicable disease from one person to another, CeaseFire uses a public health model that combines science and street outreach to detect violent situations and then applies disciplined strategies to cool the situation down. The question on the table for the exploratory group was what role new technologies could play in interrupting violence. The group worked collaboratively with CeaseFire staff, as well as high risk individuals to gain insights on the “triggers” for violence and, ultimately, developed text messages that could help defuse tensions in the “heat of the moment.”

PeaceTXT was launched at PopTech 2010 as a multidisciplinary project to explore the potential of mobile technology to amplify CeaseFire’s proven approach to reducing violence. The collaborative team developed a variety of messages and a mobile campaign fashioned on the same model as “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” on the premise that SMS messaging could be used as a supplementary tool to help CeaseFire interrupt gun violence in marginalized neighborhoods.

Concurrently, those behind PeaceTXT have launched a pilot program in Africa as a next step, and before attempting further work on breaking through the infrastructure hurdles in the United States. Work began with Sisi Ni Amani in Kenya. Sisi Ni Amani (“We are Peace” in Swahili) was founded in July 2010 and developed a model to use mobile phones for peace promotion. Under this model, community members subscribe to a phone number in order to receive free SMS on civic education, civic engagement, and peace promotion. All the messages that go out are moderated and created by local chapters, which consists of vetted local peace and civic education leaders. The network in Kenya was at 10,000, and after the first two weeks of outreach supported by PopTech, it has doubled and is now almost 20,000 strong.

One of the longer-term goals is to cool down violence that may be associated with the elections later in 2012. A lot of election violence in early 2008 in Kenya was triggered through rumors, misinformation, and hate speech. Violent actors utilized widespread mobile technology, and specifically SMS, to spread inciting information and to plan and organize attacks. The problem at the time, added Filderman, was that there was little to counteract negative messages and dispel rumors. The aim this time around is to figure out how to use digital platforms to educate voters, to interrupt violent episodes, and as a tool for reconciliation.

PeaceTXT and Sisi Ni Amani are working together—with support from Poptech—to expand the subscriber base. And the Praekelt Foundation (the platform developer for this project) is also involved. Efforts right now are focusing on developing content as well as making the tool more interactive and scalable. There will be an 8-week test phase beginning on 1 April. CeaseFire staff will also be traveling to Kenya in the summer and the trip promises to be a fruitful two-way exchange. The aim is to see how the interrupter model can be adapted to the Kenyan context and also be used in conjunction with the SMS-based programming.

In short, a lot of groups are working together to explore how to effectively use these new tools to both interrupt violence and build networks for peace. It will be interesting to follow what comes out of these initial experiments … to be continued.

For more information, see an Ushahidi blog posted in December, 2011. (Many thanks to Leetha Filderman, Patrick Meier, and Rachel Brown for their input on this article!)

Zarrin Caldwell is a consultant with Global Dreams Consulting. Her website www.modelsofunity.net examines models that bridge social capital across traditional divides of race, religion, and ethnicity.

Image Source: Ushahidi

Mini Biography

Adam Papendieck has an MPH from Tulane University and a technical background in GIS, Statistics and Information Systems. He is currently the Sr. Program Manager for Technology at the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University, where his role is to leverage appropriate and innovative information technologies in support of research projects, funded Public Health capacity-building projects in East Africa, and crisis informatics activities with the Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. He has worked on applied ICT activities such as the creation of a dynamic web mapping application for the World Vision US corporate information portal, the design and implementation of open source thin client computer labs in Rwanda, the creation of e-learning platforms at African institutions of higher education, various crisis mapping initiatives and disaster analytics activities for the Gulf Oil Spill, Hurricane Katrina and other events. (more…)

After 40 years of rule, Colonel Gaddafi is gone. Reports say he was killed today in a military offensive in Sirte, Libya after a protracted insurgency that was backed by NATO forces. While there is room for a conversation about NATO’s actions, whether they’re an example of Responsibility to Protect doctrine, and normative questions of supporting violence. In the immediate though, history tells us that the more effectively we can help Libya achieve a stable political and economic situation, the more likely we are to see a stable peace. This is an area where emerging mobile technology and crisis mapping could prove valuable to the development and peacebuilding communities.

There is already an example of Ushahidi’s mapping platform being used to track the violence and gather data for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The launch of this map was managed by OCHA with volunteers from the Standby Volunteer Task Force. As Patrick Meier explained at iRevolution, this deployment was called for by OCHA with a predefined set of data management processes and a fully trained team of mappers. In this example we see the humanitarian community grasping the value of mapping technology and supporting the systems to make it viable in what was an evolving conflict situation when the map launched in March 2011. You can see the public map here.

Having seen a proof of concept for crowdsourcing in the form of the Ushahidi map, Libya in the post-rebellion stage could be a case study for how mobile technology might be leveraged going forward to develop participatory government, rebuild an economy, and provide the citizenry with decentralized access to information. The high level of mobile penetration means that crowdsourcing tools such as FrontlineSMS could be valuable for gathering and disseminating information about access to health care and justice, as well as supporting participation in governance functions at the local and national levels.

A large part of a successful transition will hinge on the desire of Libyans to develop a system of governance that is right for them with the support of the international community, and mobile telephony is only part of the equation. SMS crowdsourcing and tools such as FrontlineSMS could provide a great deal of value in the transitional process as stability returns to Libya. I’d like to invite everyone to comment and start a discussion about where we see technology fitting into Libya’s development going forward.

Charles Martin-Shields is TechChange’s Director of Special Projects and Simulation Design. He is also a doctoral student at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, where his research focuses on conflict management, technology and analytic methodology. He can be reached at charles@techchange.org and you can follow him on Twitter @cmartinshields.

This past weekend Dr. Michael Gibbons and I taught a 20-hour graduate skills institute at American University’s School of International Service entitled Applications of Technology for Peacebuilding. Students came from a variety of AU programs, including the International Peace and Conflict Program (IPCR) in the School of International Service, the AU Business School, and the AU Law School.

We at TechChange were especially excited about this course, as it allowed us an opportunity to incorporate a variety of new tech-based tools in the curriculum, both those created by TechChange and others. The inclusion of these tools was designed to foster collaboration, allow for course materials to be accessed in innovative, non-linear ways, and to give students an opportunity to participate in hands-on simulations using some of the same tools (e.g. Ushahidi) currently being used by practitioners in the field.

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Google Africa has a new Manager of Policy – Ory Okolloh.

Okolloh, co-founder of the very successful crowdsourcing platform, known as Ushahidi, recently announced that she will be stepping down as Executive Director, and stepping into the new position with Google.

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In his recent article on MobileActive.org, Paul Currion posed the question, “If all You Have is a Hammer, How Useful is Humanitarian Crowdsourcing”. Currion argued that those working in disaster response “…don’t need more information, they need better information.” He argued that Ushahidi’s Haiti deployment was an example of the failure of crowdsourcing to add value to disaster response efforts and ongoing humanitarian work. This pointed critique of Ushahidi and the use of social media in a humanitarian context resulted in an enthusiastic, and sometimes heated, debate in the article’s comments section.

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A couple weeks ago, Nick Kristof published a New York Times article titled DIY Foreign-Aid Revolution and Dave Algoso wrote an excellent critique just a few days later in Foreign Policy. Because this is the internet and two weeks makes it venerable news, I thought about letting it slide by, but it’s been bugging me increasingly since then. This is partly because I have worked both at a small 3 person NGO with a great idea and not much else, as well as a large USAID contractor with hundreds of staff members and millions of dollars in projects, and I still cannot decide which is “better.” But it’s also because I think ICT for development has a unique spot between these worlds, and I think it’s going to change the conversation in years to come.

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I just got back from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM 2010) held at Tufts and Harvard Universities. The conference brought together key members of the NGO community, United Nations Agencies, private sector players like Google and Microsoft, and academics from various institutions. A number of TechChange friends were also in attendance: USIP, FrontlineSMS : Medic, Development Seed, Ushahidi, ICT4Peace Foundation, and UN Global Pulse. Also met some new friends including the folks at Digital Democracy, the Konpa Group and more.

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