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Ushahidi 1100 North Glebe Rd. 22201 http://ushahidi.com Key Deployment Report – March 2011 Author: Sarah George Contributors: Jonathan D. Gosier, Dragana Kaurin

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Ushahidi 1100 North Glebe Rd. 22201 http://ushahidi.com

Key Deployment Report – March 2011

Author: Sarah George

Contributors: Jonathan D. Gosier, Dragana Kaurin

Ushahidi Inc.

Key Deployment Report, March 2011 2

Introduction From the first quarter of 2009 to the present, Ushahidi, SwiftRiver and Crowdmap products have been

deployed in a variety of scenarios such as human & natural disasters, elections monitoring &

observation, tracking incidents of crime and civil unrest, promoting peace initiatives, documenting the

impact of the “Deepwater Horizon” oil-spill disaster, crowdsourcing citizen response to Russian wildfires,

visualizing the urban landscape in Prague and New York City or mapping the disruptions caused by the

London tubestrikes.

To date Ushahidi has received over 7,761 requests to download the software from organizations and

individuals around the world and over 10,521 mobile application downloads. This is a testament to the

adoption of the platform worldwide. The platform is easily customized and localized for use in different

contexts: it receives inputs from multiple sources (SMS, Email, Web, Twitter), provides online data

visualization, and enables users to subscribe to alerts via SMS, Email or RSS.

There are currently 4,980 externally hosted Ushahidi sites that have received more than 50 unique

visitors, 6,462 cloud-hosted Crowdmap instances and 47 sites are hosted on Ushahidi servers. In all,

externally hosted sites have received over 2,102,959 unique visitors and 190,439 reports. Since

launching in August 2010, Crowdmap instances have tracked 539,622 uniques and 35,332 reports. As of

December 2010 sites hosted by Ushahidi had received more than 705,734 unique visitors (600,000

attributed to the Haiti and Chile deployments) and 20,804 reports. There have been more than 11,000

Ushahidi deployments to date (see chart below).

4,017  

4,036  

4,075  

4,111  

4,154  

4,214  4,276  

6,616  

7,346  

7,938  

8,234  

8,771  

9,599  

10,467  

11,442  

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 3

Key Deployments The following report summarizes key Ushahidi deployments from 2009 to present. Each summary

includes key statistics and notes how Ushahidi has helped the organization meet their goals, including

efforts to improve information management, enhance data collection and visualization, and promote

awareness / public participation.

VOTE REPORT INDIA (INDIA)

VOTE REPORT INDIA used Ushahidi for citizen reporting during the Indian Elections in May 2009. The site

received 202 reports with 1326 peak daily visits (May 16th 2009) and over 20,000 pageviews. The

success of the campaign encouraged Emoksha.org and The VoteReport India team to consider using the

platform to track long term issues in India such as local politics and MP accountability.

SHAREK961 (LEBANON)

SHAREK961 deployed Ushahidi for the June 2009 Lebanese elections in order to monitor incidents and

irregularities. Given fragmented and a highly partisan / sectarian social and political environment in

Lebanon, their goal was to create a space for users to post unbiased information about the election and

the political process with the goal of improving transparency and accountability. Sharek961 received

over 200 reports including 140 on Election day and 26 of them by mobile phone. The site ha) 5326 total

page views in month of June from 3,663 unique visitors.

Sharek961 also received significant coverage from the blogging and twittering community in Lebanon,

including approximately 700 retweets and more than 1,600 site views on Election day. As the first

instance of community-based real-time reporting in Lebanon, the campaign kickstarted a movement to

use technology for good governance purposes.

CUIDEMOS EL VOTO (MEXICO)

CUIDEMOS EL VOTO implemented Ushahidi for electoral observation in Mexico in June – July 2009 with

the goal of taking a “snapshot of the electoral process.” Authorities claim there is no fraud/violence

during elections, and they wanted to know if that was true. 1160 reports were received and 335 reports

were approved that were clear violations to the electoral law (289 via web, 11 via SMS, 1 via email and

34 via twitter). FEPADE (the special agency for electoral crime in Mexico) used data from the site to

initiate legal action against the people committing fraud. The site received 43,000 total views.

By crowdsourcing reports about the election, Cuidemos el Voto was able to identify trends and classify

the most common electoral crimes on a per-state-city basis. For example, they found that violence

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 4

during the election process could be correlated to poverty level. Generally, the poorer the city the more

violent and mapping the reports helped to discover the correlation.

ALIVE IN AFGHANISTAN (AFGHANISTAN)

ALIVE IN AFGHANISTAN launched prior to the August 2009 presidential elections so that people across

Afghanistan could report on the elections and related events through SMS, email, and the web. Their goal

was to empower Afghan citizens to participate in society by reporting on their political process. The site

received 4523 peak daily hits and more than 9000 total pageviews (as of Aug 2009).

The day after the election the site had received over 100 reports including video, photos, and a wide

variety of print content. The map showed good coverage and reports over the entire country. The

campaign benefitted from good traction on Twitter and they received wide publicity from the traditional

press including a mention by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

UGANDA WITNESS (UGANDA)

UGANDA WITNESS visualizes reports on human rights, corruption, and governance issues in Uganda.

They initially deployed Ushahidi during an outbreak of riots in September 2009 and they intend to use

the platform to monitor elections in 2011. During the riots, the site received 92 reports and 6408 hits.

The campaign gained wide recognition and sparked some ideas that have informed Ushahidi's

development, such as improved email and alerts configuration and the ability to adjust the scale of the

timeline.

STOP STOCKOUTS (EAST AFRICA)

Health Action International (HAI) Africa, created the STOP STOCKOUTS! campaign to expose the fact that

essential medicines are frequently stocking out in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Madagascar, and Zambia. They

deployed Ushahidi during Pill Check Week, June 22 – 26, 2009, with the aim of creating a high impact

visualization of data with easy navigation. They received 250 reports, over 37,000 page views and

350,000 hits. Traffic steadily increased after the campaign which is attributed to the limited one-week

time frame and the immediate application of the data at a well-publicized press conference.

ATLANTA CRIME MAP (GEORGIA, USA)

ATLANTA CRIME MAP visualizes publicly available data from the Atlanta Police Department to show

distribution of crime in the city over time. Over 32,000 reports appear on the site which has received

13,318 page views and 4835 unique visitors.

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 5

CONNECTION GEOMAP (GLOBAL)

Survivor’s Connect launched CONNECTION GEOMAP in November 2009 as a space to share critical

information about human trafficking and anti-trafficking activities, engage communities and learn best

practices in the global efforts to fight modern day slavery. In contrast to most deployments, access to the

platform is restricted to service providers, victim advocates and verified organizations.

USHAHIDI HAITI (HAITI)

USHAHIDI HAITI was deployed by Ushahidi within hours after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Two

disaster response experts working with UN OCHA Colombia provided initial insight based on an

earthquake simulation exercise conducted by them in Bogota that had utilized the Ushahidi platform.

The site was immediately inundated with traffic and required 24 technical support from Ushahidi

developers for several weeks. Meanwhile, teams of volunteer crisis-mappers monitored social media and

mainstream news reports and posted data to the site. A situation room was established at the Fletcher

School at Tufts University and the Fletcher team took the lead on managing the deployment and

coordinating other crisis-mapping teams.

Ushahidi worked with the US State Department, InSTEDD, FrontlineSMS:Medic and other partners to

launch the 4636 mobile short code on the Digicel network in Haiti. The short code improved reporting

from the ground by allowing people in Haiti to send free text messages describing their location and

need. However, 90% of the messages were in Creole and required translation. Ushahidi developer Brian

Herbert devised a “mechanical-turk” system to provide for processing of incoming SMS messages,

including translation, geo-tagging and mapping. This “Mission 4636” system was later transitioned to the

Crowdlfower micro-task platform and feeds were provided to Ushahidi and to the Thompson-Reuters EIS

project. Mission 4636 is also the foundation of the Samasource / 1000Jobs Haiti micro-work initiative

that employs local Haitians in the town of Mirebalais to process and translate SMS messages.

To date the Haiti deployment has received 500,000 page views and over 200,000 unique hits. 3584

reports were posted to the site. The US Marine Corps, the US Coast Guard, and other humanitarian

agencies used the data feed rom Ushahidi for situational awareness during their response efforts.

However, it proved difficult to close the “feedback loop” and document impact of tactical response.

The Haiti deployment garnered considerable attention from the international media and humanitarian

organizations, and Ushahidi produced a trilogy of videos about the effort. Collaboration with the Fletcher

School illustrated a capacity for universities to mobilize and sustain hundreds of student volunteers and

catalysed the Universities for Ushahidi program. The Ushahidi Haiti project was later transitioned to the

locally deployed and hosted Noula.ht platform.

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 6

USHAHIDI CHILE (CHILE)

USHAHIDI CHILE was launched in response to the earthquake in Central Chile in February 2010. The

Chile deployment received 1213 reports and the site logged 609,841 page views and a total of 426,309

unique hits. The platform was managed by a group of students at Columbia's School for International and

Public Affairs. At first, Ushahidi Chile aimed to support emergency responders and provide affected

communities with real time information about the situation on the ground, but the goal quickly shifted to

focus on the long-term reconstruction efforts. The project brought together volunteers in New York,

Universities throughout Chile, and Chilean NGOs including Chile Ayuda, Action, Sur Maule, and

Recontruye. Recontruye is discussing the possibility of adopting the platform for future use.

PLAN INTERNATIONAL (BENIN & TOGO)

PLAN INTERNATIONAL intends to utilize Ushahidi in Benin and Togo in order to bolster and connect the

existing system for reporting and responding to incidents of Violence Against Children (VAC). After

conducting a workshop with local stakeholders, Plan launched a pilot project in Benin with the aim of

eventually scaling the project nationally and replicating in other countries.

VOTEBIEN (COLOMBIA)

VOTEBIEN aimed to encourage citizen reporting during the Colombian election in March 2010. Official

election monitoring and verification organizations were the audience for their campaign. 61 reports were

posted to the site. 5426 page views and 2203 unique hits were recorded. Most notably, Votebien and

two other groups formed an alliance with La Misión de Observación Electoral (MOE), a Colombian

election monitoring organization, to launch an initiative during the recent Presidential elections.

SUDAN VOTE MONITOR (SUDAN)

SUDAN VOTEMONITOR utilized the Ushahidi platform to compliment paper-based independent

monitoring of the first multi-party elections in Sudan in 26 years. Sudan VoteMonitor was developed by

US based Sudan Institute for Research and Policy (SIRP) and Sudan based Asmaa Society for

Development, in collaboration with other Sudanese civil society organizations including the TAMAM

network, the Civic Forum, and Justice Africa. Over 3,000 independent local poll-watchers were deployed

throughout the 15 northern states and they continuously reported their observations using standard

paper reporting forms that were subsequently submitted to the Sudan VoteMonitor platform.

The site went live on April 10, 2010 with web and SMS reporting in Sudan in English and Arabic.

Elections were held April 11-16, 2010, and a total of 564 online reports were processed from 419

locations covering 26 incident categories. The site was blocked inside Sudan for two days, but response

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 7

was quite strong both inside and outside the country. It attracted wide interest from citizens, a variety of

international organizations active in Sudan, as well as the National Telecommunication Commission.

34,911 pageviews and 7,769 unique hits were recorded.

VOTEREPORTPH (PHILIPPINES)

VOTEREPORTPH was a multi-faceted voter outreach, education and poll-watching campaign that

implemented Ushahidi during recent elections in the Philippines. In the 6-months prior to elections, the

team engaged in a voter education campaign that included demonstrations on how citizens could

participate in monitoring it through the VoteReportPH project.

The VoteReportPH team built an extensive nation-wide network of poll watchers and monitoring

volunteers covering all provinces and reaching almost 80% of all municipalities. Poll watchers sent

reports via SMS to an online system where a 24-hour monitoring team collated and verified incoming

information. Verified reports were published on the website of Kontra Daya, an election watchdog

working parallel with VoteReportPH that supplied a feed to the Ushahidi platform. This SMS-to-Feed

approach was adopted to ensure only accurate reports and no duplicates were reflected on the map.

Web form and twitter reports were also accepted but left unverified until cross-checked against Kontra

Daya feeds. 654 cases of reported election irregularities were documented and verified and the

deployment garnered 19,654 page views and 25,590 unique hits.

ELECCIONES TRANSPARENTES (COLOMBIA)

The ELECCIONES TRANSPARENTES (Translation: Transparent Elections) election monitoring initiative in

Colombia evolved out of an alliance between Votebien, La Misión de Observación Electoral (MOE) and

two other groups. They received over 700 reports in one day during the first round of the Presidential

election, and a total 816 incidents were reported. The site received 67,436 pagev iews and 18,993

unique hits. The organizers noted that follow-up was especially complicated in the context of heated

Presidential elections, and they were uncertain how to handle official election complaints that require

legal actions and direct testimony.

AMATORA MU MAHORO! (BURUNDI)

AMATORA MU MAHORO! (Translation: Elections in Peace) was launched to monitor the 2010 elections

cycle in Burundi. It involved a collaboration of international and local partners including the International

Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the Civil Society Coalition for Election Monitoring (Coalition de

la Société Civile pour le Monitoring Electorale, COSOME), the Quaker Peace Network-Burundi (QPN), the

Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace (Commission Episcopale Justice et Paix, CEJP) and Oxfam

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 8

Novib, with the support of USAID. The project was conducted with the support of the Burundian National

Independent Electoral Commission (CENI).

Reports were submitted by 450 "focal points," or election monitors, based throughout the country. Each

received training in election monitoring best practices and every report was verified in accordance with

international elections monitoring standards before it was made public. Monitors were required to

provide testimony from at least two witnesses or a witness and a media source. Focal points also sent

comprehensive paper reports to IFES each week.

The information collected and displayed on the site enabled Burundians and the international

community to monitor and analyze the election events in real-time rather than waiting for the standard

monthly reports. Between the site launch, April 23rd and June 17th there were 401 reports published to

the site and 2108 unique visitors

OPEN FORESTE (ITALY)

OPEN FORESTE is an experimental effort to map forest information and related local resources with the

goal of involving a wide community of people that deal with forest fires in Italy. Target audiences include

the public and responders. The site has received 3284 pageviews and 587 unique hits. 143 reports have

been posted. The project generated interest from civil protection agencies and local governments and

instigated a simulation exercise. (see below)

LOUISIANA BUCKET BRIGADE (LOUISIANA, USA)

LOUISIANA BUCKET BRIGADE (LABB) launched the OIL SPILL CRISIS MAP to document the human and

ecological impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Also, in response to

the media blackout, they wanted to create a transparent, participatory, localized source of information

for Gulf Coast residents. As of December, the Oil Spill Crisis Map has received 3297 reports, 493,432

page views and 195,460 unique hits.

While they found the Ushahidi platform useful for aggregating and visualizing data, LABB experienced

difficulties in getting people to contribute reports during the crisis. However,the campaign was effective

in identifying critical gaps in EPA monitoring and lapses in provision of social and health services. Also,

LABB suggests there is a greater potential to use Ushahidi for long term monitoring.

ELEITOR2010 (BRAZIL)

ELEITOR2010 aimed to facilitate citizen reports of abuses of the electoral process in Brazil. The project

consisted of a purely volunteer, non-partisan virtual team with zero funding. According to Paula Góes

and Diego Casaes, its creators, the goal of the project is to promote critical and active citizenship and

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 9

engage the voter beyond the day of the election. Four weeks prior to the October 3rd Presidential

election the site had already received over 230 reports, from every state in the country, and from the

most remote areas. By the end of the campaign, the site had received a total of 1285 reports, 130,917

page views and 52,404 unique hits.

HELP MAP (RUSSIA)

HELP MAP was launched during an unprecedented heat wave in Russia that contributed to an outbreak

of wildfires that threatened much of western part of the country, including the Moscow region. Russian

president Dmitry Medvedev declared an emergency situation, and it appeared that the authorities had

significant problems coordinating information and providing prompt assistance to victims of the

wildfires. Help Map was created as a platform to coordinate mutual aid among Russian citizens.

The main purpose of the platform was not to map the wildfires, but primarily build a bridge between

those who needed help and those who wished to help. Categories on the map included “What is

needed” (subcategories: need home, need clothes, need food, need evacuation etc.) and “I wish to help”

(subcategories: I have clothes, I have transport, I have food etc.). The map also displayed “Centers of

assistance” and places where people who lost their homes could stay.

At the peak, Help Map had more than 17,000 unique visitors in one day. The total number of unique

visitors was more than 187,000 and they received more than 1600 messages. Help Map proved the

potential for a network-based project to achieve impact without financial or organizational support. The

team recently launched Holoda.info, a new Help Map, for rural areas to report effects of cold weather.

PAKREPORT (PAKISTAN)

PAKREPORT was deployed as an incident reporting system during the massive flooding in Pakistan with

the mission of sending a ray of hope to affected populations via SMS. Rather than asking victims to

report their needs, the site solicited “observations from people on the ground. The observations were

then mapped. The site received 1145 observations, 52,514 page views and 17,327 unique hits. OCHA

Pakistan and other humanitarian groups reported using the site for situational awareness.

TUBESTRIKE (GREAT BRITAIN, UK)

The BBC created the TUBESTRIKE CROWDMAP to document the impacts of a series of several planned

walk-outs by workers of the London Underground. The project demonstrated that crowdsourcing can fill

a critical gap when “official sources” are inherently biased and traditional “on the ground” is not viable.

The received 20,000 unique visitors during each strike, but the number of direct reports was relatively

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 10

small (98 during the last strike). Most reports came from the twitter #tubestrike hashtag. Overall, the site

received 176,389 page views and 85,656 unique hits.

WONZOMAI (COTE D’IVOIRE)

WONZOMAI was deployed during the presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire. Teams from Ivorian NGO

Akendewa and from the French NGO Internet Without Borders collaborated. The purpose of the project

was to give Ivory Coast citizens a space for expression where they could provide a glimpse into the

general atmosphere surrounding the vote and help prevent tensions. The deployers suggest that the

platform served as a catalyst for twitter conversations surrounding Wonzomai itself, and the elections in

general. They also note the challenge of confronting the culture of defragmentation and dissemination

of rumors via SMS. After the first round of elections, the site had received 118 reports, 3318 page views

and 634 unique hits.

VOTOJOVEN (VENEZUELA)

VOTOJOVEN, a youth organization in Venezuela that has been working to promote transparency and

motivate participation in elections, deployed Ushahidi with the intention of collecting irregularities that

arose in the recent campaign and election. The site received 1064 reports, 16181 page views and 5919

unique hits.

GRASSROOTS JERUSALEM (JERUSALEM)

GRASSROOTS JERUSALEM is an evolving map of grassroots activities and organizations working in the

Jerusalem area that provides a picture of what is currently happening on the ground. The site addresses

multiple issues that range from housing demolitions to environmental projects. On one level the map

aims to give voice to community members, but it also supports activists who are working to improve

quality of life, and it provides data for research into the level of civil society development in the city. To

date, the site has received 43 reports, 6220 page views and 1526 unique hits.

PRAGUEWATCH (PRAGUE)

PRAGUEWATCH aims to offer space for critique and debates on conflicts around the use of public space

and resources both for projects currently under consideration and as a memory-bank of controversial

decisions from the past. The site maps Prague’s controversial cases of urban planning, big development

projects, parks and allotments under threat and alleged cases of corruption and clientelism. The site

creators have posted about 80 reports internally and a growing number of people and NGOs have

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Key Deployment Report, March 2011 11

expressed interest in cooperation. To date the site has received 70,164 page views and 15,263 unique

hits.

VACANTNYC (NY, USA)

VACANTNYC is part of an advocacy effort by Picture the Homeless to promote Intro 48, a bill that would

empower New York City to conduct an annual count of vacant buildings and lots. Picture the Homeless

aims to use Ushahidi to provide an easy way for "everyday people" to get involved in a campaign for

social justice, by providing information on vacant property in their neighborhoods. So far the site has

received 11523 reports, 6220 page views and 1940 unique hits.

JAZAKRALJEVO (SERBIA)

JAZAKRALJEVO (Translation: Me for Kraljevo) was launched after a strong earthquake near the city of

Kraljevo in Central Serbia. Disappointed by the response from government and the media, a few local

volunteers built the site. It quickly became recognized as an unofficial Crisis HQ that gave the public an

easy way to submit data about homes / structures affected and offered a clear image of what response

was needed. The site received 190 reports, 87,676 page views and 23659 unique hits.

ORCIANO2010 (ITALY)

The ORCIANO2010 civil protection exercise organized by the Centro Intercomunale Colline Marittime e

Bassa Val di Cecina in Tuscany, Italy, simulated citizen reports via Crowdmap and activated rescue teams

from their operations center. The exercise was an outgrowth of OPEN FORESTE, an experimental effort to

map forest information and related local resources. The initial project aimed to involve a wide

community of people that deal with forest fires in Italy and generate interest in Ushahidi from civil

protection agencies and local governments.

BUSHFIRE CONNECT (RUSSIA)

BUSHFIRE CONNECT is an online bushfire crisis service presenting real time information submitted by

local community members and emergency agencies. Their goal is to establish a reliable, dynamic and

timely resource for people in fire threatened areas. Currently, Bushfire Connect takes in official

information as RSS feeds, and combines it with citizen reporting through web forms, SMS, email and

Twitter. The site went live in February 2011 after conducting rigorous testing.

HARASSMAP (EGYPT)

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HARASSMAP launched in Egypt on December 16, 2010 with the goal of changing the social acceptability

of sexual harassment in Egypt by providing a safe, easy way to report sexual harassment, conducing

outreach and referrals, creating an online forum for victims and more. 319 reports have been posted.

Attention from international press has helped generate 156,859 page views and 34,489 hits.

U-SHAHID (EGYPT)

U-SHAHID (Translation: You Witness) was used to monitor the Egyptian elections by creating a combined

system of bounded and unbounded crowdsourcing that aimed to engage youth in digital activism. The

site was built on the Beta version of Ushahidi 2.0 (in Arabic) in order to implement features such as the

Cloudvox plugin, a full screen map, Flickr and You Tube intergration as well as a mobile version. In

addition to other features, they created a Facebook plugin to pull reports from the U-Shahid Facebook

page. They note that U-Shahid was an Egyptian project for Egyptians and that all the participants were

aware that their involvement in the project could get them arrested. The site received 2698 reports of

which 2462 (91%) were approved and verified, 62767 page views and 22343 unique hits.

EVERYMAP (AUSTRALIA)

EVERYMAP empowers citizens by the simple act of sharing what we already know. The project is using

Ushahidi for community-based hyperlocal new with the aim of confronting the crisis of disconnection

and powerlessness that comes from disengagement. According to the founder, «Locals can make a

difference on issues ranging from potholes and graffiti to neighbourhood crime, volunteering, road

trouble spots to pedestrian death traps, garage sales and community protests.» The site went live on 17th

of December 2010, after several weeks of beta testing and currently has over 1300 reports across

Australia, mainly in Sydney. The site has already received 50,826 page views and 20,437 unique hits.

UN OCHA

UN OCHA (United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) in Colombia has used

Ushahidi in two separate Earthquake Simulation Exercises, in October 2009 and November 2010. The

2009 simulation demonstrated the value of visualization and report verification and raised the idea of

creating a private password protected version with restricted information along with a public version.

In 2010, one of the objectives was to assess and test the ability of the Standby Task Force of crisis

mapping volunteers to provide real-time mapping support for search and rescue and humanitarian

operations. The exercise received very positive feedback from OCHA as well as from the response teams

involved, and identified areas for further development of cooperation and coordination among Ushahidi

volunteers and traditional emergency response actors.

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QUEENSLAND FLOODS (AUSTRALIA)

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) launched the QLD FLOOD CRISIS MAP in response to

severe flooding in Queensland. The emergency site was initially launched using Crowdmap but was

quickly transitioned to a privately hosted site when traffic proved overwhelming for the Crowdmap

servers. In addition, the project utilized other products in the Ushahidi eco-system such as SwiftRiver,

Sweeper and SMSSync. The site received 99,772 reports, 469,744 page views and 202,607 unique

visitors, a possible indication of the potential to encourage participation through partnerships with

mainstream media organizations.

CHRISTCHURCH RECOVERY MAP (NEW ZEALAND)

CHRISTCHURCH RECOVERY MAP was deployed within hours after the earthquake. The project put into

practice many of the lessons learned from large-scale deployments in Haiti, Chile, and Pakistan, utilized

previously established workflows and protocols and benefitted from the pool of trained crisis mapping

volunteers including the Standby Task Force. In addition to submitting reports, public users were

encouraged to find their location on the map and provided with a link to ask for help from the Student

Volunteer Army. The Sydney Herald noted that the site relieved pressure on official emergency services.

The site received 1729 reports, 284,829 page views and 127,993 unique visitors.

UN OCHA (LIBYA)

In response to turmoil in Libya, UN OCHA requested that the Standby Task Force deploy a password

protected crisis map and later a public LIBYA CRISIS MAP. The map reflects social media, mainstream

news, and official situation reports and does not include a mechanism for direct reporting. This

deployment demonstrates that it is possible for crowdsourcing campaigns to “plug-in” to the existing

humanitarian response network, and shows the continuing evolution of the volunteer technical

community since Haiti. 697 reports have been posted to the public map (after a 24- hour embargo). The

site has attracted 24,044 unique visitors resulting in 58,978 page views.

SINSAI. INFO (JAPAN)

The 9.0 earthquake, subsequent Tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan have triggered the launch of

SINSAI.INFO. While the crisis is still in very early stages, the site has received over 4000 reports, 144,974

page views and 61,500 unique visitors. For the first six days following the quakes, Sinsai.info mapped a

new report every 3 minutes.

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Statistics from Recent Deployments:

Number of Reports Total Page views Total Hits

Sinsai.info 4,000 144,974 61,500

Libya Crisis Map 697 24,044 58,978

Christchurch Recovery Map 1,729 284,829 127,993

Queensland Flood 99,772 469,744 202,607

EveryMap 1,300 50,826 20,437

U-Shahid 2,462 62,767 22,343

HarassMap 319 156,859 22,343

VacantNYC 11,523 6,220 1,940

Prague Watch 80 70,164 15,263

Tubestrike Crowdmap 55 174,518 84,654

PakReport 1,140 49,895 16,133

Help Map (Russian Fires) 1,600+ 187,000+ -

Louisiana Bucket Brigade 3,297 493,432 195,460

Elecciones Transparentes 815 67,436 18,993

Eleitor2010 230 130,917 52,404

Ushahidi Haiti 3,584 500,000+ 200,000+