Since that last announcement two years ago, Ushahidi has grown as a team, a community and an organization. We’ve seen the deploying community come up with amazing new uses of the software, multiple translations and this simple idea of changing the way information flows has now become global, with over 20,000 deployments in 132 countries.

We’re now moving into the next phase of Ushahidi, where we’re exploring ways to diversify funding away from our historically private foundation grant funding, by increasing earned income revenue. This includes direct customer revenue through Crowdmap, B2B revenue through SwiftRiver SaaS offerings and continuing our value added services work on custom deployments of the Ushahidi core platform.

With this focus in mind, we’ve entered into a new agreement with Omidyar Network for the coming three years for $1.9m.

Where this funding goes

The foundation of the platform’s overall ecosystem includes:

* Ushahidi Core is the main Ushahidi platform, as well as the mobile apps that support it.
* Crowdmap is the Ushahidi platform running in the cloud.
* SwiftRiver is the initiative of web services that make up Ushahidi’s real-time data handling and verification process

While Ushahidi has had a good deal of success in many areas, we still believe we are only half way up the mountain

Our goals for Ushahidi are simple; to disrupt the way information flows in the world by providing the best tools for democratizing information with the least barriers to entry. Ushahidi’s primary focus is to maintain the core work we do within our open source software, making sure it is always available for free to end-users. This means that we will double down on cloud-based services, improve platform usability, integrate the three products and understand usage and user needs better.

We see the future of Ushahidi tied very closely to Crowdmap as the front-end for millions of users. Then, taking our expertise in crowdsourcing and live-mapping, and mixing that with the tools and partnerships that we’ve put together over the years to create the most powerful and relevant platform for public consumption of real-time, dynamic data in the world.

On the platform side this requires three things; more attention to Crowdmap, a redesign of the user experience and tight integration with the SwiftRiver web services so it can scale.

Organizationally this means tightening the focus of what we do, putting in place a business plan that brings in significant revenue, and increased outreach and broadening of the user-base.

We believe that technology scales and people don’t. some additional team growth will be required, and most of these changes will come from a need to support a growing user base on our hosted systems, where the need for more specialized roles and team members will have the greatest impact.

Most of all, continued support by Omidyar Network means that everyone benefits, as Ushahidi’s platforms allow all of our voices to revolutionize the world.

Sinsai.info received 1st place in the Rakuten Technology Awards.

Sinsai.info was created in response to the earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan in March 2011. Congratulations to Hal Seki and the whole Sinsai.info team. The Rakuten Technology Awards, granted to people who have contributed to evolve various technologies, were given last week at the Rakuten Technology Conference. Rakuten (Rakuten, Inc.) is biggest e-commerce company started at 1997 in Japan. They’ve been supporting the Ruby community and holding the technology awards since 2008.

• Sinsai.info’s blog post with a picture of the award!
• Scan Netsecurity article about the award

Hal Seki presented about sinsai.info and his other response activity – a Hack-a-thon event called Hack For Japan. Currently, he is building a non-profit-organization which aims to run sinsai.info and hack-a-thon events. If you are in Japan on December 17- 18, 2011, consider attending Hack for Japan.

Harrassmap.org: UN World Summit Youth Award for “Power 2 Women!”

Harassmap [Egypt]: Winner under the category of “Power 2 Women!”
Harrassmap.org aims to end the social acceptability of sexual harassment and has an active campaign for women to report issues in Egypt. Women can report via SMS anonymously. The team consisted of: Engy Ghozlan, Rebecca Chiao, Engy Ghozlan, Sawsan Gad, and Amel Fahmy. The award was accepted by Heba Habib.

Zabatak.com: UN World Summit Youth Award for “Pursue Truth!”

Zabatak [Egypt]: Winner under the category of “Pursue Truth!”
Zabatak, a non-profit, is an anti-crime, anti-corruption initiative led by group of young people that aim to fight corruption and to make Egypt safe and free from bribery and corruption. The team consisted of: Abbas Ibrahim, Nagla Metwally, Ali El-Hefnawy, Mostafa Raafat, and Amr Sobhy.

Congratulations to all of the winners. You humble us with your drive to change the world. Thank you.

Thank you to Anna Gauto, ICNM – International Center for New Media for the photos of the Harrassmap and Zabatak winners.

Organizations including TED, Green Growth and individuals like Lester Brown and Vera Cordeiro met the following “7 C’s” Future Quotient (FQ) characteristics: challenging, curious, collaborative, courageous, creative, cross-generational and culturally connected. The 50 Stars highlighted in the report are examples to demonstrate guidelines and inspire action. We recommend that you review the Future Quotient report’s 28 model tools for investors and organizations. These aim to help consider your future innovation strategy and FQ leadership goals.

Future Quotient launch video (55 minutes)

To learn more:, you can:

• Review the Future Quotient website
• Follow @futurequo and #futurequo, and,
• Read the Guardian article on “Why the Economy needs people and businesses with one foot in the future”.

You and your organization can also contribute and consider the Future Quotient MindTimeMap.

Thank you to JWT and Volans for including Ushahidi. Ushahidi users and deployers collaborate around the world. We would like to recognize all their efforts to action change.

eMazingira: “electronic” plus “mazingira” (Swahili for “environment”)

The eMazingira Environmental Campaign is an application build on the Ushahidi platform which enables citizens in Kenya to report environmental related cases such as deforestation via their mobile phones through text messaging. Once these reports are mapped on an online portal for public viewing after verification, they are automatically directed to the relevant environmental bodies in the country for action. All this is aimed at enhanced environmental conservation and ownership of the process by citizens.

The solution is developed by BTI Millman Limited based in Nairobi and came about as a result of the company’s desire to use their information technology skills in environmental conservation. They were convinced that there was a need for a platform that would enable the citizens to actively participate in environmental conservation and take full charge of its state with special regards to safeguarding it for the future generations. They were able to submit a proposal to the Kenya ICT Board and were awarded a grant to develop the solution in November 2010. The beta version of the eMazingira Solution is currently operational and is available on www.emazingira.org. The goal as a company is to impact society through the use of technology.

Can you help sponsor the eMazingira team?

To attend the Award ceremony, the eMazingira team will need USD 6,000 to cover travel expenses from Kenya to Austria and within Austria for three project team members, as well as all other expenses during the 4 day stay in Austria excluding accommodation charges which the Award organizers have offered to provide. If you can assist, please contact Dunstan Machoka of the eMazingira project team at dunstan at btimillman dot com.

About the World Summit Youth Award

The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) is a follow up activity of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and its action plan towards the year 2015 to help bridge the digital divide and create a sustainable information society. The WSYA selects and promotes best practice in e-content and serves as a platform for young people from all UN member
states who use Internet and Mobiles to get action on the MDGs. It demonstrates young people’s potential to create outstanding digital contents and serves as a platform for people from all UN member states to work together in the efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

They work to:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Learn about the World Youth Summit Awards:

World Youth Summit Award 2011 winners
Follow @youthaward (twitter)
Youth Award Website

[Thanks to Dunstan Machoka of the eMazingira team for assisting with this blog post]

The organizations being honored today are:
SODNET – Social Development Network (Kenya) For the work on Uchaguzi Kenya, and Huduma.info
Pamoja Media – Joshua Wanyama (Kenya) For the Wildlife Trackers Deployment
Citivox – Oscar Salazar (Mexico) For Cuidemos El Voto
Small World News – Brian Conley (Afghanistan and Bahrain) 3 deployments for elections in Afghanistan and in October 2010, elections in Bahrain
Digital Democracy – Mark Belinsky (USA)
Emoksha – Selvam Velmurugan (India)

The “Official Ushahidi Partner” Badge is awarded to established organizations who have a demonstrated track-record of excellence in deploying the Ushahidi platform. The “Trusted Developer” Badge is awarded to software developers who have clearly shown their expertise in customizing several Ushahidi platforms. What do these Badges mean for us and what do they imply? They mean that those awarded with said badges are an extension of the core Ushahidi team. They are close colleagues, respected professionals and all around team players. Receiving a Badge implies that these individuals and organizations are Ushahidi experts.

What do these Badges mean to our official partners and trusted developers? For organizations, the “Official Ushahidi Partner” Badge means that we refer potential clients to them first if these clients operate in the same country/region and/or if they focus on a sector that our partners excel in. For our colleagues with “Trusted Developer” Badges, this means we fully endorse them to clients looking for software expertise in the Ushahidi platform. We thus hope they display these badges prominently on their websites, blogs, etc., and link back to the respective blog posts on Ushahidi (to serve as authentication).

In this blog post, we announce our first two recipients. The first is an organization that has not only customized the Ushahidi platform multiple times over the past year, they have also deployed the platform in some of the most challenging environments we’ve seen. Our first “Official Ushahidi Partner” Badge goes to our Egyptian colleagues, the Development and Institutionalization Support Center (DISC), for their outstanding U-Shahid project. DISC customized and deployed the platform for last year’s Parliamentary Elections, during the civil resistance in early 2011 and continue to launch platforms in support of democratic transition efforts in the country. They are also training others in the Arab region on how to use the platform. We are thus very pleased to award our colleagues at DISC with our first Official Ushahidi Partner Badge!

The first recipient of our “Trusted Developer” Badge is no stranger in the Ushahidi community. He has been engaged in the community for almost as long as the Ushahidi platform has been around. He first deployed the Ushahidi platform in Afghanistan back in 2009 and has helped customize a number of other platforms since. He also played a pivotal role in the transition of the Ushahidi-Haiti Project to the Haitian software company Solutions. More recently, he spearheaded the Universities for Ushahidi (U4U) Project with USIP and worked with our team to set up the foundations for our new community site. He has continuously been a team player and has always sported a smile even during the most challenging projects. He is obviously an excellent software developer as well. Our first “Trusted Developer” Badge thus goes to our good friend and colleague, Rob Baker!

On behalf of the entire Ushahidi Team, we would like to expresses our sincere thanks and gratitude for the significant contributions that both DISC and Rob Baker have made to the Ushahidi platform and by extension the Ushahidi community. Many, many thanks to both of you!

The “Runet Award”  is sponsored by Russian Federal Agency of Mass Communication . It is defined as the national award that granted for significant contribution to development of Russian Internet and has been dubbed “the Internet Oscar.” The ceremony of Runet Award took place in center of Moscow and was covered in live broadcast by Russian state TV.

The award was received by the head of the “Help Map” Moscow based coordination center Anastasiya Severina and two co-founders of the project – Alexey Sidorenko and Gregory Asmolov. A number of volunteers and activists who worked with “Help Map” also attended the ceremony and joined the celebration.

Gregory Asmolov thanked the award committee for the prize and said that first of all the award belongs to thousands of volunteers who took part in fighting wildfire and providing help. The “Help Map” demonstrated that Russian network society is not a passive audience, but it has an active core with high degree of social accountability. Gregory also thanked the worldwide network of amazing volunteers: software developers, moderators and coordinators who worked with “Help Map” and promised that the platform will continue its work and modification.

Granting the “Runet Award” to “Help Map” has special value since it is the first time when the award was given to networked organization. The regulations of the award say that only a recognized organization with a budget can take a part in competition. As consequence, according to the rules of the award, the “Help Map” project couldn’t even be considered due to its networked nature. However, at the last moment the award committee decided to make an exception and allow “Help Map” participation in the competition.

In sum, the “Help Map” participation and achievement is a symbolic precedent. It is the first time that the most prestigious Russian Internet state sponsored award recognizes that network society can be as important as traditional hierarchical organizations. To some extent this strategic shift is even more important than receiving the award itself.

It should also be mentioned that while almost no one knew about Ushahidi in Russia a few months ago, today Ushahidi is often mentioned in discussions among the Russian Internet experts, the NGOs and the e-government communities, while the number of Ushahidi based projects continues growing.

Huge congratulations to the Help Map Team from everyone here at Ushahidi!

Ushahidi wins the Weblog of the Year Award

I’ll say here what I said there yesterday. Ushahidi’s blog is an extension of the community. Many of the blog posts here are written both by our team and by those who use Ushahidi all over the world. A lot of time is spent writing and coming up with the blog posts to educate and share the experiences of how to better crowdsource information in very trying times.

The list of winners from the different languages and categories was stunning. I had a chance to speak with a couple of the other winners and was struck with just how fortunate we were to win this award, as any one of them could have as well.

A big thank you to Deutsche Welle for putting this event on and honoring us with this award. An even bigger thank you to the Ushahidi community that earned this award with us.

Asante.

It is a great honor for the Ushahidi team that our blog was selected as The best of the Weblogs by Deutsche Welle. The announcement was made on the 19th at the Re:Publica social media convention in Berlin. David Sasaki of Global Voices spoke there, you may read his excellent piece on Technology and Transparency on his blog.

We would like to thank the jury for selecting us, and we shall be adding this cool badge to our site.

PS: Its been a hectic couple of days for team as we met for our annual meeting and even got an award from Bill Clinton at CGIU.

We have more in store as we continue to collaborate on making our platform better. There will be some exciting news to share in the coming months, and you bet we shall continue to blog this incredible journey that began in the Kenyan blogosphere.

We are honored (and absolutely thrilled) to be recognized as one of the 2010 class of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers.

The selection process is quite rigorous with 26 companies being selected from more than 300 applications from around the world. Other members of the 2010 class include Twitter, ESolar, and Collabnet,.

To be selected as the Tech Pioneer, “a company must be involved in the development of a life-changing technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society. In addition, it must demonstrate visionary leadership and show all the signs of a long-standing and sustainable market leader – and its technology must be proven. Previous Technology Pioneers include 23andme (2008), Amyris Biotechnologies (2006), Dr Reddy Laboratories (2001), Google (2001), Gridpoint (2008), Kaspersky Lab (2001), Mozilla Corporation (2007), Nanosolar (2007), Recyclebank (2009) and Silver Spring Networks (2008).”

I feel that above all things, this award speaks to Ushahidi’s potential – something that keeps members of the Ushahidi team and community working hard around the clock to fulfill – working to have an impact; working to demonstrate that a world-class platform can grow out of Africa; working to maintain our model of being open and responsive; and most importantly working to build something that has staying power.

So we will take a brief moment to revel in the news, but we are also very that the recognition we have received to this point is only part of journey – we now have to make sure that we do not disappoint and continue to focus on the very important (dareIsay monumental tasks ahead).