Ushahidi

Announcements

  • New Version of FrontlineSMS – upgrade from 2.5 to 2.6
  • Wearables in Aid and Development
  • This week, 3/30 – Vision Documents due today
  • This week, 3/30 – Ushahidi overview
  • Next week (4/6-4/10) – Present Vision Documents to Partner Organizations
  • Next week, 4/6 – Freedom Fone overview

Vision Documents

Let’s take a few minutes to share a few of your Vision Documents.

Ushahidi

Ushahidi means “testimony” or “witness” in Swahili.

What is it?

Ushahdi is a Company.

Ushahidi is a platform.

Ushahidi is open source software for information collection, visualization & interactive mapping.

Who uses it?

Types of Maps

A Quick Demo

Here’s an example Ushahidi instance we can try out.

Main UI

  • The Map
  • The Timeline
  • Reports

Admin UI

  • Dashboard
  • Reports
  • Messages
  • Stats
  • Addons
  • Settings
  • Manage
  • Users
  • Help

The Apps

Challenge

  • Break up into your groups.
  • Download the appropriate app onto each team member’s phone.
  • Configure your app by inputing the ushahidi.smithandthompson.net map address
  • Optionally configure your app by inputting your contact information to be included in your reports
  • Have every team member submit at least one report, try sending a picture or video with your report
  • Try submitting a report online through the form on ushahidi.smithandthompson.net
  • Try submitting a report by sending an email to ushahidi@smithandthompson.net
  • Try submitting a report through SMS by texting to 267-536-3902 (Twilio number) or 856-571-9434 (Huawei dongle)

Assignment

Vision Document

  • Revise your Vision Document based upon the feedback given in class or through email
  • Get together with your group and create a ‘master’ Vision Document to serve as a Design Brief/roadmap for your project concept
  • Email me a link to your master Vision Document and I’ll post it to your partner organization’s Parter Page on the class blog.
  • Prepare to present your Vision Document to your Partner Organization next week (the week of April 6th)

Design Notebook

  • Create a new Design Notebook page and label it “Regional SMS Providers for “, the country name of your partner organization and today’s date.
  • Create a list of cellphone companies that service your partner’s region – these are the companies from which you may need to secure sim cards.
  • Create another list of Twilio alternatives for your team to consider using for your project that will give you access to local phone numbers.
  • Keep in mind alternatives can be “cloud” service providers like Clickatell, 3/4g GSM modems like the Huawei e173, or a cell phone with a local sim card using FronlineSync or SMSsync
  • Each team should identify one (or more) computer(s) upon which to install FrontlineSMS, and acquire one or more 3/4g GSM modems. Double check the FrontlineSMS device compatibility database to make sure you get devices that are known to work with FrontlineSMS.

*Assignments are due before class begins on Mondays. Be prepared to present your work in class for discussion.

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