Crowdsourcing in Times of Crisis
Crowdsourcing, what is it and how is it used during times of crisis? I also explore social media mapping and how crisis mapping was used in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Let’s begin by looking at a definition of crowdsourcing. Merriam Webster defines crowdsourcing as “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers”.
In a world where we have become produsers of content, as both a producer and user, mobile camera footage and images captured by citizens themselves tell the true story in times of crisis. This witness generated content is then dispersed on social media sites, aswell as traditional media forms for the rest of the world to see. It is here then that global online communities are created in the form of social media pages or trending hashtags where citizens come together to donate funds so that people who have been struck by tragedy can rebuild their lives.
Ushahidi, which translates to ‘testimony’ in Swahili, was developed in 2008 to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election violence. By integrating SMS, social networking sites and live updates from the web, Ushahidi have created a crowdsourced picture of an event over time so that it can be depicted on a single map; known as social media mapping. However, Ushahidi is different to blogs and citizens posting on social networking sites in that is verified information. It’s powerful features of collecting data, managing data and analysing data in the form of data visualisation have become important in public knowledge response and recovery in crowdsourcing in times of crisis.
On 25thApril, 2015, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck Nepal killing more than 9,000 and injuring over 23,000 more people. The earthquake damaged most of Nepal’s infrastructure leaving hundreds of thousands without shelter or basic necessities. Ushahidi was used to collect reports from the ground which helped direct relief efforts, which involved the deployment of 700 helicopters in the week after the earthquake to rescue people. As there were no formal channels for reporting urgent needs, the Nepalese Army directed people to the Quakemap on the Ushahidi platform which allowed agencies to see what was happening, what kind of relief was needed, where it was needed and was able to verify reports to confirm that aid was being delivered. Crowdsourcing was used as an effective method in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake to aid rescue and relief and without Ushahidi the death toll would have been a lot more with survivors struggling to recover.
The images below show the quake maps during the Nepal earthquake with the second image showing pins where aid is needed.
With its election monitoring, crisis response and advocacy and human rights change Ushahidi makes the future of global crisis look brighter.