crowdsourced information about disasters

Ushahidi suggests a new paradigm in humanitarian work. The old paradigm was one-to-many: foreign journalists and aid workers jet in, report on a
calamity and dispense aid with whatever data they have. The new
paradigm is many-to-many-to-many: victims supply on-the-ground data; a
self-organizing mob of global volunteers translates text
messages and helps to orchestrate relief; journalists and aid
workers use the data to target the response.

Ushahidi also represents a new frontier of innovation. Silicon Valley has been the reigning paradigm of innovation, with its universities,
financiers, mentors, immigrants and robust patents. Ushahidi comes from
another world, in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and
innovators focus on doing more with less, rather than on selling you new
and improved stuff.

Because Ushahidi originated in crisis, no one tried to patent and monopolize it. Because Kenya is poor, with computers out of reach for
many, Ushahidi made its system work on cellphones. Because Ushahidi had
no venture-capital backing, it used open-source software and was thus
free to let others remix its tool for new projects.

Ushahidi remixes have been used in India to monitor elections; in Africa to report medicine shortages; in the Middle East to collect reports of
wartime violence; and in Washington, D.C., where The Washington Post
partnered to build a site to map road blockages
and the location of available snowplows and blowers.