Waiving Ushahidi Basic Plan fees to support COVID-19 response

WHO recently declared the novel coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19 a global pandemic. Over 136 countries have confirmed patients infected with the coronavirus.

In response to the growing need for platforms like ours to surface additional information and support coordination efforts, we want to do our part in making Ushahidi accessible to those who need it.

As a result, for the next 90 days, starting March 17th 2020, we will be waiving full fees for the Ushahidi basic plan, allowing all users to access the full feature set of the platform. Sign up for a hosted deployment here, and use the coupon code 100OFFCORONAVIRUS. For more info on how to use it, here’s our full user manual.

For those who prefer to work off their own servers, you can download the open source code and follow installation instructions here.

Want to contribute to making Ushahidi better? Here’s how.

You can find more useful resources at https://docs.ushahidi.com

While we’re happy to support anyone seeking to deploy the platform to support response efforts, we *strongly* advise that you

Follow guidelines and directives as issued by the local authorities and health departments

Avoid sharing misinformation and fake news

Avoid storing any personal information that is not absolutely critical for your work. Really ask yourself if you need to know something before you ask people for it. For instance, if you do not have a good reason to ask for someone's name or address, don't ask.

Do not store medical information with data that can be linked back to a person, such as people's symptoms and their medical history.

Support existing projects in your area as opposed to starting new ones. Here is a list of some ( not conclusive, but just a few) :-

Anpas (Italy) - https://anpas.ushahidi.io is being run by the Italian Associations of Public Assistance, who are allowing active volunteer associations across Italy to map our all services they are offering in real time. Their goal is to ensure a steady supply of food, medicine and other subsistence goods for citizens who are unable to provide for themselves in this period of isolation.

We’re also in conversation with the team at Safecast in Japan, who expect to launch their Ushahidi instance in the very near future.

There are also ongoing talks with the local tech community in Kenya on how to fill informational gaps e.g from those self isolating. More to be shared soon.

The Govlab has also set up a great resource fielding questions to scientists about Covid-19, and will be announcing more efforts soon so please follow them on twitter.

We will continue to update this list with projects as they come up. Feel free to get in touch with us if you are running a corona-related deployment, or if you have any questions.

Stay safe.(Also published on medium here)