The Practical Radical
From Kodak to the Mobile Phone: Urban Data and the Scientific Life
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Mobile Power
This is a repost from the Polis blog with my comments (my comments first, polis blog From Kodak to the Mobile Phone below):
Thank you for this post. I think that the mobile generation with their ever more powerful mobile technologies are changing how we view, analyze and plan our cities. I work with youth in East Africa, and i have found that through the use of mobile phones, which are now prolific throughout the region, we have been able to not only capture images, both still and in video, but use these images to tell the rarely heard story of some of the poorest of the poor. (An example of such a project is http://mobilemovement.tv/)
I have as well found that “photovoice” is an excellent way to allow people to “map” their communities. I have used this technique with youth in North America, through the Growing up in Cities project , and more recently through work with UN-HABITAT on their community mapping project (you can check out a story a wrote for them titled Bridging the Digital Divide .
Tags: Africa, cellphone, data, Growing up in Cities, GUIC, kenya, kibera, mobile, photography, planning, polis. mapkibera, research, UN-HABITAT, Usahidi, visualization
Transparency + Accountability = Democracy, Kenya Style
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Stand up for Kenya - (the Nation, August 3, 2010)
Christabell’s facebook post says it all, a key constitutional referendum in Kenyan is so far violence free, unlike the last trip to the polls a few years ago. In part this is due to citizens (mostly youth!) tweets and posts providing real time monitoring, transparency, accountability … leading to … Democracy.
Uchaguzi (which means “election” in Swahili) is a site driven by tweets and posts. The site provides real-time reporting on what is happening during the referendum in Kenya. Issues such as violence, vote counting, results, and polling logistics are uploaded and mapped on Google Earth. This information then becomes accessible to people locally and globally.
A snapshot from the map on the Uchaguzi site
Some examples of what is being reported
The development of launch site is important for Kenyans and for citizens globally. One has to wonder who might have been elected President of the United States in 2000 if this technology had been around?
If you are interested in this game changing technology go to my (yet to be published, but hey, take a look at the draft) blog post on Usahidi, the platform this site is based on.
Good Luck Kenya!!
Tags: constution, kenya, referendum, uchaguzi, Usahidi
Doug Ragan
practicalradical
The Practical Radical 