Thursday, December 3, 2009

Omidyar Boosts Crowdsourcing Effort

Redwood City-based Omidyar Network, the investment firm of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, said today that it has invested $1.4M in a crowdsourced, news source and platform started in Kenya. Omidyar said the grant went to Ushahidi, a group which develops a crowdsourcing platform and website which allows citizens to report and share information. The site was an outgrowth of Kenyan post-election violence in 2008, and ties text messaging, email, and web forms with a map mashup and timelines. Ushahidi means "testimony" in Swahili. Omidyar said that Ushahidi is being used by NGOs and media organizations for monitoring elections in the Congo, India, and Mexico, as well as tracking availability of medical supplies in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia.