The Ushahidi Engine is a free and open source platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or a timeline. Ushahidi’s goal is to create tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories.
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi’s roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phone. This initial deployment of Ushahidi had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for us realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be use by others around the world.
Website: http://www.ushahidi.com
Licence: GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3
Software Version: 2.1
API Interfaces: PHP
Supported Platforms: Linux, Mac, Windows
Support: http://forums.ushahidi.com