Daniel Sato

My latest post on the AshokaTech blog:

On December 7, 2008, incumbent Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a highly contested presidential election with Raila Odinga.  Odinga and his supporters cried foul, and international observers agreed that the election count was flawed.  Violence soon erupted as a reaction to the election news.  In the end, a coalition government was formed, but not before, according to the BBC, “some 1,500 people died in political violence.”

Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is a response to this violence.  According to the Ushahidi web site,

“Ushahidi’s roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis.

The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web – and map them.”

The engine is now available for download and has already been used in a variety of applications.  Some uses in the field include: Vote Report India, a collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections; Swineflu.Ushahidi.com, a site to track the Swine Flu reports coming in from official and unofficial sources; War on Gaza, an Al Jazeera implementation covering the activity happening in Gaza; and the original Kenya mashup, used to track reports of incidents of violence around Kenya.

Ushahidi co-founder Ory Okolloh hopes that Ushahidi “will facilitate wider coverage from the ground much earlier so that people can have a better sense of what is going on (complimentary to mainstream news sources) and a much better sense of where help is needed if it is a crisis situation.”

She was also kind enough to take the time for a short interview, which can be read below:

What systems need to be in place for an organization to utilize Ushahidi?  Are there basic infrastructures/technologies that must exist?

An organization would require hosting space – if they are not able to self-host, they can host with Ushahidi.  They would also require someone with a bit of technical skill for the initial installation – mainly PHP experience.  If they are using the sms functionality, they’d need to have a useable number/sim card and a dedicated phone for the SMS hub (see www.frontlinesms.com for details) There is some help available via the Ushahidi community forum.    In the future we will be working on a much simpler installation process.

What feedback have you received from those using Ushahidi in the pilot projects?

We are still in early stages of testing and it is an ongoing process.   Most of the feedback we have received related to the alpha version of Ushahidi, many of the changes requested have been incorporated into the beta version, which we will now be testing with additional organizations.  Overall, the testers have appreciated the utility of the platform and how easy it was to get up and running.   However, because different organizations want to use Ushahidi for different projects/situations, we found that our basic template has to be a lot more flexible and easily customizable.   Other changes that we have worked on include:  making it easier to import existing data into an Ushahidi instance, allowing the report categories to be customizable, including the abilit to enter latitute and longitude from GPS devices; facilitating information sharing between organziations; and improving the twitter integration.   We also need to work on making Ushahidi instances load faster in low bandwidth areas.

How did you choose which projects would be able to test Ushahidi?

Mostly of the testers are organizations that had already expressed interest in trying out Ushahidi, we have also tried to cover a wide range of issues that go beyond political crisis,  and to ensure there is geographical diversity and diversity as far as the size of the organizations.

As all incarnations of Ushahidi have been for reporting purposes, what systems are in place to measure the accuracy of the reports being filed?

Right now it depends on the administrators to use their judgement to decide what reports to approve and which ones to verify based on their local expertise.   If reports are unverified, they are marked as such.   We have also built in rating mechanisms to allow citizen reporters to build credibility over time (think of Digg for example) and a facility where readers/users can report abuse.   We are also currently working on a data filtering mechanism, see http://forums.ushahidi.com/topic.php?id=18 for details.

What features can users expect in future versions of Ushahidi?

• Simplification of setup and admin UI
• Faster loading of pages in low bandwidth areas
• Better integration with Frontline SMS
• Mobile-based applications
• Simple sign-up and hosting process for users who want to be hosted on ushahidi.com
• Fully-developed plug-in architecture
• Improving the language translation process
• Improving the data-sharing capability
• Improving data security management

How can those interested in your project help out?

They can find out more on our website and our community forums – where we’ve posted a wishlist of things we need help with.   We are always looking for developers to join our open source community.   We could also use help with writing cases studies and working with the testers.

You may be wondering why there are now posts on this blog about social entrepreneurship and technology/invention. A few months ago I learned about a term called gigonomics from former Mercury News Director of Photographer Geri Migielicz. In this age of gigs and not jobs, I now am a contributing writer for the AshokaTech blog. There, I write about social entrepreneurship, funding sources for entrepreneurs and innovative uses of technology for social change.

Of course, this is not the first time that Ashoka has been mentioned on this blog.  I’ve talked about their relationship with the Knight Foundation.  Back when I was traveling in Nepal, I was contacted by Ashoka and given the opportunity to document the work of three of their fellows.  It was through my blog again, I believe, that I caught the eye of Ashoka in D.C., who were looking for photos of Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Mahabir Pun.  This has led to work performing research, serving as a liason between Ashoka and photographers interested in documenting fellows and the aforementioned blog writing.

You can find a link to all of my AshokaTech posts in the sidebar to the right.

Already we have discussed two innovators who are making the most of algae, both on land and in the sea. Today, algae takes to the air. According to Malia Politzer at the Phoenix New Times, Arizona State University scientists Qiang Hu and Milton Sommerfeld have discovered a way to utilize algae to produce jet fuel.

Politzer writes, “By selectively breeding algae using light, carbon dioxide gas, and nutrients, then removing the nutrients from the algae’s cell, the two scientists have created a strain of super-algae that produces oil at an extremely rapid rate.”

The project, which was ranked 11 on Time’s Top 100 Inventions of 2008 list, is one of 18 projects nominated for a World Technology Award in the Energy (individual category). It has already received $225,000 in funding from Boeing.

According to an August 2008 ASU News article:

The use of algae for multiple applications has several appeals, including:

• Algal oil is very similar to other vegetable oils, but its yield is projected at 100 times that of soybean per acre of land on an annual basis.
• Unlike other plants, algae reproduce quickly without roots and stems, and they never go dormant.
• Algae can remove carbon dioxide from power plant emissions and recover nutrients from wastewater.

Hu and Sommerfeld are the co-directors of the Laboratory for Algae Research & Biotechnology (LARB) at the Polytechnic campus.

Each month the AshokaTech blog features potential fundraising sources for Ashoka fellows and other social entrepreneurs. Today we feature one such resource, and dig a little deeper to explain their selection process.

Co-founded by William H. Draper, III, Robin Richards Donohoe and Jenny Shilling Stein in 2002, the Draper Richards Foundation provides its fellows with $100,000 annually for three years. Along with financial support, Draper Richards provides assistance by sitting on an organization’s board and helping to guide them through their growth from a start-up non-profit to a successful venture.

Draper Richards is highly selective, awarding six fellowships per year to the 400 – 500 applicants. Their selection criteria can be viewed on their web site, along with a list of common reasons why organizations are not considered eligible for funding.

Some reasons include:

• Organization is a program of a larger organization, rather than a stand-alone entity.
• Idea is not unique or is a replication of a program that already exists.
• Idea is unfocused. The organization is trying to solve too many problems or is using too many models and programs to achive its goals.
• Scaling plan is not viable.
• Idea will not create systemic social change.

It should also be noted that Draper Richards will only fund an organization at the beginning of their development. That is, only at some point between its inception and having 501c3 status for three years and with an annual budget of $300,000 or less. If you are currently an Ashoka Fellow and are reading this, that means that you are likely ineligible for this fellowship. As explained by Portfolio Director Anne Marie Burgoyne, “Historically, Draper Richards Fellows are much more early stage than Ashoka Fellows. In my experience, when I look at Ashoka Fellows in the Draper Richards portfolio, they are always funded two – three years after the Draper Richards grant.”

Burgoyne also addressed the requirement that organizations be national or global in reach, stating that if an organization is currently local in scale, “We want to see that growth happen during the life of the grant.” Also, “Better fits tend to be people who, when they start the model say, ‘I want to build a national network. I want to do something that I think will have leveraged impact across multiple locations.’” This would be in comparison to one who starts a model locally and later decides that they might expand nationally or globally. “Those are different thought processes and often are different thinkers that have them,” says Burgoyne.

In planning an organization, Burgoyne stresses the importance of disciplined thinking and disciplined execution. “I just think there is a temptation to try to do too many things or help too many people. When I look at folks in the portfolio who have been passionately focused on a handful of levers in terms of social change and programatic outcomes and things that they measure, they tend overall to be more successful. They raise more money. They impact more people in ways that they can actually look at and point to. And that tends to be the bias of the foundation.”

With a staff of two, Draper Richards is not set-up to be an incubator. As such, they cannot assist with an application prior to submitting (they do not accept re-applications). However, once an applicant is in the pipeline, that is, the 20% of applicants that the staff will communicate with, the staff tries to be as helpful as possible, given time and resource constraints. Burgoyne explains, “If you have a business plan I’ll take your business plan. But if you don’t have a business plan but you can give me two or three pages that describe how your operations work, I’ll take that.” However, with only six awardees each year, “we’re really looking for the people who appear to be able to go the distance and do this work.” For those that are currently in the planning stages with their organization, they do provide links to useful resources including business plan writing, venture philanthropy organizations and general non-profit resources.

To get a better idea of exactly who Draper Richards is, one need only look at the organizations that they have funded. Draper Richards Fellows include; Kiva, the world’s first person-to-person lending marketplace for the poor; Build Change, which builds earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries and changes construction practice so that homeowners and builders continue to build earthquake-resistant houses after Build Change’s intervention is complete; and Komaza, which works to unlock the economic potential of tree farming to generate life-changing income for rural families living in absolute poverty, among others. In total, the Richard Drapers Foundation has added 26 organizations to its portfolio.