Using Wikis to Help People In Crisis

What is wiki technology?? SEE: http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

Basically, wiki websites allow pages to interconnect, and users to add and edit content. The first wiki was developed in 1995. Wikipedia is the most famous of all.

The story is about making a “crisis map” by inviting the public to tell where the problems are located. These locations are plotted on a map, which can then be used by everyone on the website. This is what the author means by “many-to-many-to-many": many people give information, many people help to make the map, and many people use the map. In the “one-to-many” paradigm, only one person gathered information, then tried to get it out to many people. Obviously, one person, or even many individuals working alone, cannot accomplish as much as a wiki network, acting together.

Part of the story involved “doing more with less”. Poor people cannot spend nearly as much money as giants of industry like Microsoft or Chevron or even the New York Times. In order to make a system that could be operated by relatively poor people, who were not professionals, the creators of Ushahidi made it use cell phones instead of computers. They used open-source software instead of copyrighted commercial software – that way, everyone could make necessary changes to the software, for various needs. Nobody has to pay to use this software. And the people get more value than they they would have, from a bigger, slower organization.

The article talks about “bearing witness in tragedy”. Ushahidi means “testimony” in Swahili, the main native language of Kenya. That's related to the verb "testify" which means to give truthful and important information, often in court. The one who testifies is called a "witness", and testimony is also called "bearing witness". The author talks about three types of bearing witness that were traditional before. The journalist reports on a war or earthquake “in real time”, or while the action is going on. But a journalist is only one reporter, reaching a limited audence that can do little immediate good. The victim/writer reports on his or her own suffering, but people don't hear about it right away. Anne Frank was a Jewish girl in Holland, hiding from the Nazis. She died in a Nazi death camp, but the diary she wrote while hiding is famous today. Historians write about tragedies long after they have occurred.

All of these types of “bearing witness” are of little use to the people “in real time”, because it takes a long time for understanding of the situation to reach people who can help, and a very long time before the authorities have enough information to act intelligently. By getting a lot of “aggregate, average, good-enough truths” right away, and releasing the information right away to those who can use it to help, the wiki format offers a powerful tool for humanitarian relief.

All of the bold face words can be found in this week’s vocabulary list.