SMSmap: Two Cities, One event

What a night! Ushahidi and FrontlineSMS co-hosted a joint Sms to Map event in Nairobi, Kenya and London, UK on Monday, November 7, 2011. While time zone shifting prevented us from holding a reasonable simultaneous evening discussion, with shared purpose and some speakers participants heard about stories and lessons learned of using FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi software. Each event included representatives from our organizations as well as community members. From HarrassMap in Egypt to mapping violence against children in Benin to software simulations in Zambia, these two tools have been used together to give voice and collect content for various groups. The SMSMap event in Nairobi featured Anahi Ayala Iaccuci (Internews) speaking about her experiences using both tools for the Zambia simulation. Claire Wardle, BBC School of Journalism, shared her London Tube strike experiences using Crowdmap with London participants. And in London, UK Linda Raftree (Plan International) spoke candidly (and virtually) about what worked and needs work to do more joint projects. Each speaker highlighted some of the collective needs and challenges of navigating the new world of merging SMS to Map including the various software bugs encountered with Ushahidi. More on the Violence against Children, Plan International project: The Nairobi event included a technical demo and the London event included audience discussion groups. Our common goal was to inspire people to talk about their potential projects and meet each other. Both Ushahidi and FrontlineSMS are fully committed to collaborate, provide documentation and other potential events to assist our communities in their endeavours to change their cities and their world. We were delighted to have over 60 people in London and 30 in Nairobi begin that journey with us. Community really starts when you put people with common interests together to build goals and be inspired. The feedback provided by participants is core to each of us improving their experience using our software. More on the event: Liveblogs, twitter, videos, skype presenters and software simulations were all part of our interactive event. Here is a running blog capturing the live media from both cities: Thank you: Thank you to all of those involved in helping us with the FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi 'SMS to Map' event. A special thanks goes to Cast London at Goldsmiths University for sponsoring the London-based event and to the iHub for hosting the Nairobi-based event too. We could not have held these events without this kind support. Thanks to Anahi Ayala Iacucci (Internews Network) and Hamilton Juma (iHub Community Manager) for their excellent hosting of the iHub Nairobi event, Dan Mcquillan (Goldsmiths, University of London) for his amazing support arranging the London event, and of course all of the wonderful speakers including Linda Raftree (Plan International), Claire Wardle (BBC College of Journalism), Linda Kamau (Ushahidi), Sharon Langevin (FrontlineSMS:Credit), Limo Taboi (Ushahidi), Anahi Ayala Iacucci (Internews Network), and Laura Walker Hudson (FrontlineSMS Director of Operations). And, a warm thank you to the FrontlineSMS team for co-hosting the London event with Charl and myself. Florence, Amy, Hussein, Laura and Lisa, it was a pleasure to spend the day with you to make this happen. Very special thanks for Florence Scialom for being the rock of organization for all of us. Here's her post about the event. Thanks to the participants and volunteers for joining us on this adventure to change and connect the world with open source software.