AFTER Kenya’s disputed election in 2007 Ory Okolloh, a local lawyer and blogger, kept hearing accounts of atrocities. State media were not interested. Private newspapers lacked the money and manpower to investigate properly. So Ms Okolloh set up a website that allowed anyone with a mobile phone or an internet connection to report outbreaks of violence. She posted eyewitness accounts online and even created maps that showed where the killings and beatings were taking place.
Ms Okolloh has since founded an organisation called Ushahidi, which puts her original idea into practice in various parts of the world. It has helped Palestinians to map the violence in Gaza and Haitians to track the impact of the earthquake that devastated their nation in January. It even helped Washingtonians cope with the “snowmaggedon” that brought their city to a halt this year. Ushahidi’s success embodies the principles of wikinomics.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Schumpeter: The wiki way | The Economist
