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Meet BRCK, “a backup generator for the Internet”

promo-brck

Ushahidi is a team of programmers and mappers who are constantly on the move. From cafes in San Francisco, to the iHub in Nairobi, to working in crisis situations like the Haiti earthquake.  The same goes for our community, a global network of activists, organizers, NGO workers, government personnel, and so many more dealing with these same problems.

Being constantly handicapped with spotty internet access has led us to realize that the way the entire world is connecting to the web is changing. We no longer only get online via desktops in our office. We have multiple, mobile devices which have, for many of us, become the primary means of connecting.

So Ushahidi set out to redesign the modem for the changing way we all connect to the web. We thought it was about time the modem got a makeover.

Continued…

Posted in BRCK, Product. Tagged with , , .

By Rob Baker
7 May 2013

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Crowdmap Public Beta: Get a Demo and learn more

Post seamlessly with no friction. We’ve got a demo and some more ‘Under the hood’ and ‘next steps’ for Crowdmap. Here’s a recording of our Crowdmap Public Beta Demo and Chat.

Brian Herbert and Evan Sims join us to give a demo, talk about Crowdmap and answer your questions.

(Note: There was only a small sound blip for about 30 seconds near the beginning. Then, the sound is great. Hang in until 2 minute mark for the full demo. We promise to share a easter egg too. )

Evan Sim’s blog post on why new Crowdmap on Medium: “One year later…throwing caution to the wind and building a dream.”

Some of the questions we answered:

  • How does this ties in with the ushahidi platform?
  • Is the new crowdmap completely independent from Ushahidi’s code?
  • Is it open source as Ushahidi? Or will it be?
  • Is there a way to filter content on maps through categories or tags like we could on Ushahidi?
  • I work with social projects in Rio’s favelas (poor communities). Are you guys planning an easier version for children / not heavy users?
  • I have a map in Google maps and wanted to know if you all had any thoughts on how to download and then upload the data to Crowdmap.

Feature requests:

1. Google+ Sign In, Facebook login
2. Google+ sharing
3. Custom Icons
4. KML support would be great already. Also opens opportunity to work with government open data

Keep the testing, questions and feedback coming. As Brian likes to say: “We are at the 25% point, we’ll keep iterating based on what you need.”

Stay tuned for more from Team Crowdmap!

Happy mapping!

Posted in API, Community, Crowdmap, Development, Ushahidi, Video.

By Heather
6 May 2013

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Crowdmap Public Beta

Welcome to the new Crowdmap! Every map is a story and every user is a map. You can add posts and create maps with any web-enabled device. Crowdmap is a hosted service for mapping anything on the web, focused on a more social mapping experience with support for multimedia, sharing, and mobile support.


(This video quickly explains maps and posts)

Crowdmap mappers requested greater functionality and flexibility for their maps and posts. Research prompted us to build a robust Crowdmap that is mobile first, post-focused with seamless integration across devices. Compare Crowdmap Classic and Crowdmap side by side on the wiki.

Key Features

  • Responsive. The website will work on any web-enabled device. You can use all the features on mobile, especially map and post administration.
  • Share everything. Your posts and maps are shareable on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere on the web with versatile embed codes.
  • Simplified configuration. We’ve focused on the settings that are most important to our Crowdmappers like collaborators, moderation and map styles.
  • Post independence. All posts live in the Crowdmap ecosystem, ready to be mashed up on any map.
  • Nerded out. 100% of the site is driven by an incredible API that will make developers salivate. We’ll be dropping documentation on this soon.

Crowdmap and Crowdmap Classic will run simultaneously for the coming months so your Classic maps aren’t changing. If you are a current Crowdmap Classic user, you can login to new Crowdmap with your existing email and password. We have more information on how to switch in our evolving User Guide. Creating an new account is easy. Just set up and go! If you need help, our wiki is here for you.

Crowdmap is built on top of a robust new API that will empower developers to create amazing new applications. We will be opening up the documentation and example code in the coming months to allow users to build on top of the ecosystem.

Additional Resources

Your map adventure begins now. Here are some resources to get you started:

Screencasts
Crowdmap Transition FAQ
Crowdmap FAQ
User Guide

Get a demo

Later today we will host a Crowdmap Public Beta Google + Hangout. Hope you can join us!

When: Monday, May 6, 2013 @ 21:00 EDT / 18:00 PDT (Details on how to participate.)

Take a spin on Crowdmap

Questions or Feedback?

We’re as responsive as our design. You can reach us at support@ushahidi.com. Feedback is very welcome as we are continuously making Crowdmap more awesome every day.

Remember, this is a beta! We want you to map stuff and break everything! Let us know what you want to see, what you are enjoying and what you think needs work.

Please use our feedback form to submit bugs. If you’re a little more tech savvy, you can post issues directly on our GitHub issues repository.

We just want to give a HUGE THANKS to all the translators and beta testers for being early adopters. We’re super excited to share Crowdmap which wouldn’t be possible without your help!

Happy Mapping!

Brian, Evan and the whole Ushahidi Team

Posted in Crowdmap.

By Brian
6 May 2013

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Ushahidi version 2.7 – Bamako

It’s that time again when the Ushahidi ninjas package what they have been working on – 2.7 version of the platform. This release is dubbed Bamako!! It is quite a huge one with many changes including some security fixes. (We name all our software releases after cities in Africa.)

Crowdmap Classic users – your deployments have been updated. Brian, Evan and a thousand running hamsters have upgraded all your deployments.

IMPORTANT TWITTER UPDATES FOR ALL USERS (including Crowdmap Classic users): Twitter API has made changes all users(inclusive of crowdamp) to adjust their twitter settings on their deployments.  See this wiki article for instructions.

Mali Mosque, Bamako © John Spooner (Creative Commons)

Mali Mosque, Bamako
© John Spooner (Creative Commons)

(Learn about Bamako, Mali.)

Ushahidi 2.7 includes the following updates:

  • Use OAuth to grab twitter feeds – This is to comply with the new twitter api changes
  • Theming changes – A few things here include handling all css and js through one library, split out the main css i.e themes/default/css/style.css and also added theme inheritance and css/js overriding
  • Revamped reports upload and download  - this includes support for upload/download of reports via xml format
  • More fixes on custom forms
  • Better XSS protection through the use of HTMLPurifier library
  • API fixes
  • Optimization including the scheduler
  • custom alerts fix

See all the github tickets for the 2.7 milestone

Security update

We strongly recommend that you add this Security patch to your deployment. Special thanks to Robb Driscoll for identifying this. See the Software Security Updates wiki article for the patches and instructions.

Thank you

Many hands made this release possible. We’d like to thank these folks and our amazing Translation community for their great efforts.

A special mention for all the work of Neil Horning and the Himalayantechies for their pull request to fix Alerts on Ushahidi. Your efforts will help many in the community.

Testing: Loren Bell, Brendan O’Hanrahan, Rose Kelli Merritz, Sara Farmer, Jaroslav Valuch and Vassilis Chryssos.

Security feedback: Robb Driscoll

Github tickets: Loren Bell, Brad Anthony, @fauners, @Doug Firr, Pablo Destefanis, Kunjan Shah, Scott Stadum, Vladimir Gorets, Aaron Huslage, Tal Galili, John Etherton, Ed Dodds, @Dexterua, @PoPoutDoor, Neil Horning and himalayantechies

Upgrade today!

Grab this baby, take a spin with the fixes and features of 2.7. We will schedule an upgrade day soon to help you get on the latest code. In the meantime, there are upgrade scripts for the different versions.

(Note we are investigating an issue with “upgrading” from inside your deployment. More soon.)

Download: You can pull the code from github or our download page. We recommend testing it out first before loading to your live site. To help you get upgraded here a few wiki pages:

Migrating to a newer Ushahidi version
Upgrading Ushahidi

To help you, here are some upgrade scripts:

Moving from 2.6.1 to 2.7

Moving from 2.6 to 2.7

Moving from 2.5 to 2.7

Moving from 2.4.1 to 2.7

Full 2.7 build

Plugins Compatibility

Plugins are created by community members and, sometimes, the team. The following is a list of compatible plugins for 2.7. If you are using a plugin that is not compatible, perhaps you could lend a hand.

Posted in Code Releases, Community, Crowdmap, Development, Security, Ushahidi, Ushahidi Users.

By linda
2 May 2013

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Weekly: Crowdmap Teaser, Omidyar Report on Entrepreneurship in Africa

In the weekly, we’ve got Crowdmap teasers, a water stewardship Deployment of the Week and are featuring the Omidyar Report on Accelerating Entrepreneurship in Africa.

Upcoming events: This coming week we have a number of Google Hangouts on Research and Software (Crowdmap). Hope you’ll join us.

Into the Code

Crowdmap’s Public beta release is days away. The community, team and beta testers have been adding content and kicking the tires. While I’m fairly bias, Crowdmap is looking beautiful! Here’s a peak at the Photo View:
Latest photos

We can’t wait to share it you. If you are a Crowdmap Classic, have no fear as both services will run simultaneously. See our wiki article comparing the two Crowdmaps.

On May 6th, Join our Team Crowdmap Google + Hangout on Air to get a demo and ask questions.

****
Reminder that tomorrow is the 2.7 release for the Ushahidi platform. Bugs stomped and more.

From the Community

We always say that a map project is better with local community meetups and programming around it. Well, Great Lake Commons is on the case. Last weekend they held a workshop at the Council for Canadians’ Great Lake Commons Water Forum. Paul Baines and his team have programming plans for the summer to connect water stewardship from the lakes to the map.


Congratulations Great Lake Commons – you are Deployment of the Week

Paul Baines presenting Great Lake Commons

Paul Baines presenting Great Lake Commons


The Map mission:
“To protect and sustain these waters, first we need to strengthen the bonds between the citizens and organizations who care deeply about them. By sharing our care, worry, and wisdom we can multiply our big ambitions. Our relationship with the Great Lakes needs a fundamental shift. The current approach is comfortable diluting pollution, managing risks, marketing resources, and building exclusive playgrounds and vistas. So our second task is to define and practice a Commons ethic. The waters are a shared Commons and should be respected as a gift. The Great Lakes give us life, identity, and a shared duty to revitalize them. Rather than responding, a Commons ethic leads us toward a new vision based in relationships, belonging, and collaboration.”

Great Lake Commons was featured in April’s On the Commons newsletter

Other articles:
Reclaiming Great Lake Commons
New Website Maps what we share around the Great Lakes

(See more Deployments of the Week.)

Research

First up an Event reminder: Our friends from Ihub Research are joining us for an Umati Google Hangout on Tuesday, May 7th.

***

There have been some great articles and research items posted this week.

ON_primary_color

Omidyar released a new report: Accelerating Entrepreneurship in Africa: Understanding Africa’s Challenges to Creating Opportunity-driven Entrepreneurship.

“We are happy to report that a culture of entrepreneurship is growing in Sub-Saharan Africa, with indicators related to entrepreneurial motivations at least on par with or higher than global peers. However, despite these positive signs, the business landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa provides a number of challenges that prospective entrepreneurs must transcend. This report outlines the opportunities and challenges for Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and the key recommendations that we believe will spur the continent forward.”

Ushahidi and our community is fortunate to have support from Omidyar. There are many entrepreneurs working at the ihub in Nairobi and across the continent. It is exciting to see them learn and grow!

***
A few weeks ago the Guardian hosted an online chat about Making ICTs work for Social Justice and Development. Read up on the best bits:

“A tool is only as good as the wider project: Successful projects need a mandate, a plan, a target audience and set metrics before any tool is applied. When people come to me asking about using Ushahidi to map their data, I ask them to prove to me why they need a map, and ask what their offline and online programme is outside of the technology.”

***

Poynter cites Ushahidi as one of the 10 Digital Tools Journalists can use to improve their online storytelling.

***

Imagine our delight to find Dr. Jason Vanhorne has created an online course “Crowdsource Mapping with Ushahidi: Twitter and Social Media” to help you get started on your Ushahidi project. While we were not involved in the project, we hope that it helps you on your journey!

***

George Chamales wrote this brief on Crowdsourcing in partnership with the Wilson Center.

***

Happy Mapping!

Posted in Code Releases, Community, Crowdmap, Development, News, Reports, Research, Ushahidi, Ushahidi Users. Tagged with .

By Heather
1 May 2013

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5 Things to get started on Ushahidi Project

You’ve landed here because you are interested in how to get started. Using Ushahidi or Crowdmap Classic requires a bit more than just creating a map with hope that folks will discover and use it. While a map project can range from tinkering/testing to a full blown project like, Uchaguzi – Kenyan Elections, there are a few key points that will help you get started:

(This video was recorded for the Transparency International (TI) community, but the message is for everyone.)

In the past weeks, we have been making major changes to our wiki to better serve you. A wiki really is a ‘toolkit’ to help folks get started and build successful projects from software. Some of the key pages on how to get started live in the “Ushahidi Toolkits” pages.

Still need another quick list to get started? A few years ago George Chamalas wrote “10 questions you should ask“.

Posted in Deployment, Mapping Resources, Ushahidi, Ushahidi Users, Video. Tagged with .

By Heather
30 April 2013

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Series: Introduction to Anti-Corruption Mapping


This blog series will focus on anti-corruption and transparency mapping. We’ll post about best practices and feature some of the strategies to connect policy and action with online savvy. Our community strategy is aimed to connect topical mappers to build and learn together. Resources and Research will live on the: Wiki pages dedicated to Anti-Corruption and Transparency

Ushahidians have been mapping corruption as either a category or their whole map mission since we launched. Online reporting via crisismaps of various shades and creeds are well known. Mapping anti-corruption and transparency actions is really a long-tail project. These slow burn projects take tremendous amounts of time and outreach to sustain. We’ve recognized a number of these as Deployments of the Week and included featured blog posts.

Last month I had the honour to meet and learn with Transparency International’s (TI) community at the very successful Speak Up Global event.

Milena Marin is the Data and Technology Coordinator for TI’s People Engagement group. She works with the community of Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers. Transparency International is one of a number of NGOs targeting corruption and transparency issues. They started in 1993 and have chapters in over 100 countries. Their mission: A world in which government, politics, business, civil society and the daily lives of people are free of corruption.

From Milena about connecting our communities to support Online Reporting:

Corruption Map project analysis:

Meeting Diego at OpenGovHub

Meeting Diego at OpenGovHub

How can we support these amazing people who are trying to connect online and offline anti-corruption work? What tools, resources can we make available with our partners? What changes to Ushahidi software should occur to better support their efforts? Well, my first step was to collect as much data about the various mapping projects as possible. This is really a work in progress. I located and reviewed the maps for basic information such as categories and reports. Most of the maps are starter projects or tests. Then, there are the larger more programmatic projects that involve partners, strong mandates and a community. Some of these mapping projects were started by the Transparency International, ALAC members. Others are by passionate users trying to give voice to their community, their world.

Quick stats about Anti-Corruption Maps:

  • Maps reviewed: 28
  • Total reports across maps: 6780
  • Number of categories used across all the maps: 463
  • Country with the most maps: India (3)
  • Projects that are using locations as categories for granularity: 4 – Colombia, Brasil, Albania, Kosovo
  • Map with the most reports: Zabatak (Egypt), followed by Kallxo (Kosovo) and One De Olho Nas Emendas (Brasil)

The Corruption Mapper community have written a number of blog posts about their work. Consider these Use Case examples.

Note: Some maps have a number of civil society mandates beyond corruption. There are also there are election monitoring maps that include “corruption” as a category. These have not been included in this analysis.

More data: Includes map name, website link, country, number of reports, and category names.

Global Visuals: I’ve updated some screenshots of Anti-Corruption and Transparency Maps on slideshare. (Part 1 and Part 2)

Posted in Corruption, Crowdmap, Crowdsourcing, Data, Deployment, Mapping Resources, Reports, Ushahidi, Ushahidi Users, Video. Tagged with , .

By Heather
29 April 2013

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Umati Google Hangout: Monitoring Dangerous Speech

Ushahidi is excited to invite you to join an Umati Research – Monitoring Dangerous Speech Hangout. This is the first in a series of research-focused Google Hangouts.

ihub_research

Join the Umati Google Hangout


Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Duration: 1 hour
Time: 08:00 – 09:00 EDT / 15:00 – 16:00 EAT
Your local time: global time conversion

Register: Umati Google Hangout

Umati Hangout

Review the research

About the Umati research

The Umati (Swahili for “crowd”) project, a collaborative initiative between Ushahidi and iHub Research, monitors “dangerous speech” (hate speech with a potential to cause violence) on new media. Human monitors using a combination of technology platforms currently collect the data from identified online sources and categorize the incidences of dangerous speech into our database. Our hope is that the work of this project will be used to educate the Kenyan public on what type of speech has the potential to disrupt peace and security in the country. Through this project, we aim to create a process that can be replicated in other countries to monitor dangerous speech leading up to pivotal national events, such as elections and referendums.

This Google Hangout will present the project and general trends from the 8 months of monitoring thus far, especially looking at the most recent findings from the March report. The ihub Research Manager, Angela Crandall, and Research Lead, Kagonya Awori, of the project will be available for any questions.

Posted in Academic, Community, Elections, Events, Nairobi, Reports, Research, Uchaguzi. Tagged with , .

By Heather
26 April 2013

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Weekly: Philippines map, 2.7 release & Mobile Updates

We’ve got Code Release updates, code to test, digital security tips from Mexico and a request to vote for Webbies in this Week’s Ushahidi Community Report.

Deployment of the Week

Congratulations to our deployment of the week from the Philippines. The upcoming mid-term elections are on May 13, 2013.

Vera Files - Election Monitoring in the Philippines

Vera Files – Election Monitoring in the Philippines

Into the Code

Ushahidi Community Developer call

This week’s Ushahidi Community Developer call was rocking with a Crowdmap Demo. You can download the audio track to hear the latest in development, including an amazing project update from Argentina.

Ushahidi core: v2.7

Testing is already ongoing for v2.7 of the platform. Jump in to help!

The release moved to May 2nd, 2013, to give room for more testing and time to work on bug fixes

Key Dates:
Community Testing: April 18th – 25th , 2013
Bug fixing: April 26th-29th , 2013
Crowdmap Updated with new code: 29th -April 30, 2013
2.7 Release: May 2nd, 2013

Ushahidi 3.0

API work is still ongoing. Alpha release scheduled some time soon. Jepchumba has also been working on some fantastic mockups for v3, based on work done by Gabriel White, which we’ll share with you all soon!

Mobile

Henry has been working hard to fix github issues posted on the Ushahidi Android app. He’s also Polishing up on some UI/UX design changes for the Ushahidi Android App. OSM/MapBox support is also expected for the next release.

Ushahidi iOS 3.4 was submitted to the App Store including a fix for bug parsing media types. Thanks Dale!

SwiftRiver

It’s all systems go for the SwiftRiver community event to be held at iHub Nairobi tomorrow. We’re working on recording this for the virtual folks (Google + Hangout on Air). Remember, there will be a larger online event on May 11th, 2013. Team swift is also working on documenting the installation process for swift.

Luis Hernando Aguilar, Community Leader, visiting with Angela Odour

Luis Hernando Aguilar, Community Leader, visiting with Angela Odour

Community Voices

Did you see the Community Update for April 2013? We’ve summarized all things Ushahidi for the past month.

Mapping in Mexico

“A new survey of 102 journalists and bloggers in 20 Mexican states shows nearly 70 percent have been threatened or have suffered attacks because of their work.”

Jose Luis Sierra has lead a number of map projects in Latin America. See his latest project about protecting journalists in Mexico. He wrote an important guide: Digital and Mobile Security for Mexican Journalists and Bloggers.

Can you lend your Webby vote for : The Power and Pitfalls of Big Data?

The Power and the Pitfalls of Big Data from Ford Foundation on Vimeo.

This video features Ethan Zuckerman (Ushahidi Board member) and includes a screenshot of Reclaim Naija (election monitoring for the Nigerian Elections.)

Articles of note

Socialbrite mentioned Ushahidi in their piece: “Is your nonprofit using responsive mapping?”.

Crowdsourcing is not so new.

One last thing, did you know that SEPTEMBER has been renamed MAPTEMBER? Well, start saving your coins to get to the UK for some big mapping events.

Happy week!

Posted in Code Releases, Community, Corruption, Crowdmap, Deployment, Development, Ushahidi, Ushahidi Users. Tagged with .

By Heather
24 April 2013

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New Crowdmap coming May 6th

We’ve got some exciting news for our community: the public beta launch of our new Crowdmap product is now just two weeks away!

 

products

Crowdmap is re-launching on May 6th as an entirely new, hosted service for mapping anything on the web, focused on a more social mapping experience with better support for multimedia, sharing, and mobile support. All of this built on top of a new, robust API that means developers can create not just plugins but entire applications for endless ways to interact with each other.

We invite you to join us on this mapping journey. For the past month, beta testers have been playing with the new tool to help us improve this service. Software development began a year ago and our internal team has been tinkering with it for months.

Your current Crowdmap.com deployment(s) will continue to function as it always have. All current features, logins, users, data, and especially the URL — none of this will be lost or made unavailable to you and your users in the transition to our new product. You will also retain the ability to manage these deployments under what we’ll be calling “Crowdmap Classic.”

Please stay tuned for more! Leading up to the official launch, we’ll be providing more information about the new product and the transition between Crowdmap and Crowdmap Classic, including the following meetups to speak directly with the Crowdmap team:

We’re all very excited to see what you do with this new service. For more information about the upcoming launch, please visit the new Crowdmap website. If you have any questions, please read through the FAQs on our wiki or don’t hesitate send us an email at support at crowdmap dot com and we’ll get back to you.

Brian, Evan, and the Ushahidi team

Posted in Crowdmap, Product.

By Rob Baker
23 April 2013

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