The Web has become an increasingly powerful tool for political, community and social activism, driving national movements such as the Arab Spring movement, and grassroots activity.
One of the most interesting organizations involved in supporting, encouraging and enabling political and community activism is Ushahidi, a non-profit tech company that specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping.
Ushahidi was originally launched as a Web site that helped to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. The Website, which now has more than 45,000 users in Kenya, made it clear there was a need for a platform that could help other people around the world.
At mesh on May 23, we’re excited to have Heather Leson, Ushahidi’s Director of Community Engagement, doing a presentation on how mapping stories is an important tool to connect citizen data and open data to create maps for election monitoring, crisis/emergency response, civil society actions and social protest. Heather will talk about how mapping stories should be also be embraced in Canada.
Tickets for mesh, which happens on May 23 and 24 at the Allstream Centre, can be purchased here – regular tickets are $679, while student tickets are $99.
