Ushahidi & Cloud+Classroom = Acountability at a local level

Oil Spill Crisis Map highlights early impact of gulf crisis

Speckled with bright red dots, a new online map details first-person accounts of the oil spill's impact on the eastern Gulf Coast. Most of the reports are clustered along Louisiana and Mississippi's shores, and many involve chemical and oil smells hanging in the air. One report from Pass Christian, Miss., says crews were collecting "droves of dead fish" along the beach, while oystermen and fishermen in Empire, La., reported being out of work after fishing regulations were tightened after the spill. "Over a hundred reports have been filed, and we have only just begun to get the word out," says Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which created the map with the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. The map uses an open-source software platform called Ushahidi, meaning "testimony" in Swahili, developed by Kenyan bloggers to track and record post-election violence and also used after Haiti's earthquake. To view the oil spill map, click here. —Todd R. Brown

http://www.businessreport.com/archives/daily-report/2010/may/07/1613/

This is a highlight of how Ushahidi works, already the reports of sightings are rolling in. Enter the age of transparency, the Ushahidi platform has officially negated the corporate spin factor. As the information continues to be compiled, we will likely see many more reports on the Ushahidi platform. Over time technology and the Ushahidi platform will work hand in hand and to be able to solve many more issues in our world, like Corruption, environmental villians and more

here is the link, and a picture. http://www.labucketbrigade.org/