Ushahidi and Awaaz.De - Imagining the Possibilities for Expression and Access

[Guest blog post by Tapan S. Parikh, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley and Chief Scientist, Awaaz.De] One of the most impressive aspects of the Ushahidi platform is its ability to engage ordinary citizens in mapping and disaster response efforts. By using SMS as a reporting and data collection medium, Ushahidi empowers individuals without access to the Internet to contribute information using any mobile phone. My research group at UC Berkeley focuses on designing user interfaces and technology platforms that allow populations currently underrepresented on the Internet to easily and cheaply author online content, using technology and skills that they already possess. One such group is small farmers in the developing world, who have unique knowledge and skills related to sustainable agricultural practices and natural resource management. In our work with small farmers in India, we found that they rarely use SMS - preferring to use voice communications due to its increased expressivity, accessibility and flexibility of input across languages with varying scripts and vocabulary. (India also boasts the cheapest voice airtime rates in the world, making the cost trade-off between voice and SMS negligible). This basic insight led Neil Patel and I to develop Awaaz.De, a content management and social media platform for small farmers and other underrepresented groups to author and share voice content. Awaaz.De lets users to 1) ask questions and receive responses, 2) submit their own observations and experiences, and 3) receive targeted notifications and advice, all via voice messages delivered to their mobile phones. A web-based dashboard is used by community moderators to curate and categorize user submissions, facilitate sharing of knowledge and disseminate targeted information, while creating a home-grown database of users and local-language voice content. A more detailed description of how Awaaz.De works can be found here. Our discussions with the Ushahidi team have led us to brainstorm a number of ways that the two platforms could be used together. At the simplest level, Awaaz.De could let citizens submit voice reports to the Ushahidi platform; allowing for wider and more expressive participation, especially for users with limited literacy or ability to compose text messages in a non-native language. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) prompts could be tailored using Awaaz.De’s survey authoring capability to obtain specific information from reporters. Incoming messages could be categorized immediately via touch-tone input, or by using crowd-sourcing techniques that have been developed by the Crisis Mappers community. Thinking further ahead, Awaaz.De’s ability to dynamically route messages, and to support asynchronous voice discussions, could be used to respond to citizen reports, and to curate conversations around them, furthering Ushahidi’s role in facilitating deliberation, participation and accountability within disaster response and community advocacy efforts. The Awaaz.De and Ushahidi teams are both excited about the possibilities that the two platforms can offer together. Both projects are open source and also offer hosted deployment options, further lowering the bar to experimentation. We feel that combining voice with maps is a natural extension of both platforms, and would wholeheartedly encourage further experimentation along the lines discussed here, or along entirely new lines altogether! Do not hesitate to contact the Awaaz.De or Ushahidi teams via e-mail or Twitter to discuss the possibilities.