Young Africans put technology to new uses

In an e-mail to Africa Renewal, Erik Hersman, one of Ushahidi’s co-founders, affirms that the “only goal was to create a

simple means for ordinary Kenyans to say what was going on.” The idea, he adds, was “to democratize information in what

was a very closed media at the time.”

Juliana Rotich, another Ushahidi co-founder, shares that view. Yet she notes the limited impact the platform had within

Kenya at the time. No communication campaign was designed to help people learn about the platform. Those who used it were

mostly people already connected to the Internet regularly. “We were not able to reach a critical mass of people in the

country, partly because we did not get much local awareness,” Ms. Rotich told Africa Renewal. “But at the same time, it did help since no one threatened to shut us down.”

          

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