[2] It uses the concept of crowdsourcing serving as an initial model for what has been coined as "activist mapping"[3] – the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geographic information.

Ushahidi allows local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the Internet, creating an archive of events with geographic and time-date information.

[5] The Ushahidi platform has been used by the United Nations Department of Field Services and Peacekeeping,[6] in response to the Haiti Earthquake in 2010,[7] to monitor the Nigerian elections in 2011,[8] by the Obama Campaign for America 2012,[9] by the Nepalese army to respond to the earthquake of 2015,[10] in and by local activists groups such as Humanitarian Tracker to monitor violence in the Syrian civil war[11] and HarassMap to help women report on sexual harassment.

[12][13] Successful deployment of crisis mapping applications like Ushahidi benefits from careful attention to how the technology fits into the relevant cultural settings, and focusing on realistic goals.

[22][23] Rather than filling out submission forms online, checkins allow Crowdmap users to expedite data entry to their deployment, focusing first on location and adding more detailed information later.

It was born out of the need to understand and act upon a wave of massive amounts of crisis data that tends to overwhelm responders in the first 24 hours of a disaster.

[31] Ushahidi (Swahili for "testimony" or "witness") is a website created in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election (see 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis) that collected eyewitness reports of violence sent in by email and text-message and placed them on a Google map.

[37] On 23 December 2010, Ushahidi Co-founder and Executive Director Ory Okolloh announced that she was stepping down from her role to become Manager of Policy for Africa at Google.

[43][44][45] The post election violence in Kenya was the subject of a Harvard Humanitarian Institute study and mentioned in a Berkman Center report.

[52][53] The Chile site is co-managed with the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in the United States, supported by Chilean Americans.

[54] On 3 May the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB) publicly released the Oil Spill Crisis Map, the first application of the Ushahidi platform in a humanitarian response in the United States.

[citation needed] In the wake of winter storms, The Washington Post and the web development company PICnet used the software to create a site mapping blocked roads and other information.

[58] Though OpenForeste did not completely achieve his goals, it showed importance for two reasons: (1) unlike previous instances, the platform was utilized in absence of an acting crisis or emergency to collect, map, share and spread information in order to manage future and potential emergencies, thus joining the awareness of the possibilities of Web 2.0 and a different approach to natural risk prevention;[59] (2) it brought to Italy the knowledge and potential of Ushahidi, crowdmapping and social use of crowdsourcing, which was then used in following years in several instances, both private and public, especially from local Civil Protection structures and based on the new approach to the Ushahidi platform (see here a non-complete crowdmap of Italian Crowdsourcing Projects).

[63] On 2 March, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) requested that the Standby Volunteer Task Force be activated for Libya.

[64] The Task Force's Tech Team set up a password protected Ushahidi platform almost immediately and several days later launched a public version at OCHA's request.

[65] In July 2011, Giuseppe Calamita[66] had created the first crowdmap to monitor a WIMAX/LTE Internet Service Provider to answer the issues not due to the ISP (jammer, etc.

A published article in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics by Catie Snow Bailard & Steven Livingston showed that, "Controlling for a number of factors, we find that the number and nature of crowdmap reports generated by citizens is significantly correlated with increased voter turnout (by 8%) in the 2011 Nigerian presidential election as a result of providing officials with improved information about the functionality of local polling stations.

Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL), a volunteer organization, set up a platform to collect and manage data from crowd using Ushahidi.

The systematic process defined by Kathmandu Living Labs volunteers marked a path in utilization of crowd sourced data by implementing agency like Nepalese Army.

[77] The New Yorker covered the story, saying: "Now Shaun King, a writer for the Daily News, is working with the open-source software company Ushahidi to create a map of post-election intimidation.

The aim is to raise awareness of politically motivated violence and help people stay safe, report it to authorities as needed, and create a database of such incidents.

[89] Ushahidi released a second statement on 17 July 2017 detailing the chronology of events, showing that the incident occurred on 19 January 2017 and was reported to the board on 4 May 2017, and that on 5 May the accused was placed on temporary leave, given due process, and an investigation was undertaken.

[90] Angela Kabari came out publicly on 20 July as the victim in a Medium post detailing a 6-month ordeal and called for the resignation of the entire Ushahidi board that consisted of David Kobia, Erik Hersman, Juliana Rotich and Jenny Stefanotti at the time.

Her statement to the board when she reported the matter included an un-notarized transcript of the recording of the incident and claimed an earlier occurrence the previous year.

In her post, she said she encountered 11 other victims some of whom were current employees of the organisation and that the board members were aware of Daudi's misconduct in separate incidents spanning 10 years, however, no others came forward.