Tech Blog

Twitter to the rescue in Kenya
Police official uses and teaches villagers about Twitter to quickly solve local problems Kenya is riding a social media wave - it has the second largest number of Twitter users in Africa. And while it is already popular in the cities, the social media network is expanding beyond, now helping to make connections much further afield. In some towns, like Lanet, where police official Francis Kariuki uses the social media tool to alert the 28,000 locals about goings-on, it is quickly becoming a lifeline. For the video on this story, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/05/...
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Pollit for connect with constituents in emergency situations
pollit is a new tool designed by California-based InSTEDD (Innovative Support To Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters), an organization that produces open source software to help humanitarian organizations to help improve health, safety and development. The goal of pollit is to makes it easy for NGOs to connect and engage communities in planning and monitoring of community programs and policies. Using only a mobile phone and a computer, Pollit allows organizations to poll constituents using text messages from any text-capable cell phone. Pollsters just need to create a poll using Google Forms...
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Frontline SMS
Frontline SMS is a technology that enables Ushahidi. Using mobile phone or computer, it allows users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones. It is used by non-profit organizations to reach specific groups of individuals within a target community, enabling them to: run an awareness raising campaign, launch a competition, administer text-based surveys and keep in touch with fieldworkers and staff. This technology is being used in Egypt to support the HarassMap sexual harassment mapping technology. It is also being used by ‘Plan International’ to strengthen...
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Ushahidi
Ushahidi is an open-source, mapping tool that allows people to use mobile phones or computers to submit reports – anonymously in some cases – on a particular issue. It is used for a variety of reasons and in widely different contexts. Here are a few examples of how Ushahidi has been used successfully used across the globe: • Ushahidi was originally developed and used in Kenya to map the violence that spread across the country following the 2007 election. It was used again in 2010 as Uchaguzi to monitor the results of the constitutional referendum. • Egyptian’s are using Ushahidi to report and...
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