Case Name :      Ushahidi

Authors :           Nicole R.D. Haggerty, Alex Jepson

Source :             Ivey Publishing

Case ID :            W14699

Discipline :        Information Technology

Case Length :    09 pages

Solution Sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

As the co-founder of a software platform called Ushahidi, Ory Orykolloh watches the unfolding catastrophic earthquake crisis in Haiti and must decide how her company’s crisis-mapping software might assist international authorities as they move into Haiti to provide help and relief. Ushahidi was developed as an open-sourced mash-up platform combining Google Maps with publicly reported (text-based) incidents of election violence during the Kenya 2007 elections, and thus, the system effectively managed to bypass government censorship. Expansion into other uses during both political crises and a variety of national/international events provided opportunities for growth. Now, with Haiti, Ushahidi’s management team must consider how its software could be used to provide assistance during a catastrophe like an earthquake.