Biomass energy plants: see themselves as a cost-effective solution for farmers who need to get rid of dead trees and other woody waste that pose wildfire risks without openly burning them; they also produce energy
Utilities companies: looking for the "least-cost, best-fit" source of energy, don't care where it comes from just that it's reasonably priced
Farmers: need cheap ways to dispose of waste
Technology to dispose of woody waste from almond trees in ways other than open burning or biomass facilities doesn't exist yet, at least at the scale needed for massive almond orchards
Closures of biomass energy plants have forced SJVAPCD to allow more open burning of agricultural waste, which produces particulate matter and contributes to already severe air quality in the Central Valley
Ushahidi, which translates to “testimony” in Swahili, was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election violence in 2008. Since then, thousands have used our crowdsourcing tools to raise their voice.
The app was developed in partnership with Omidyar Network, Cisco, Ford Foundation, Google.org, Humanity United, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Knight Foundation, and the USAID (from the american people).
"Data collection: Gather submissions from anyone, anytime, anywhere"
"Data management: Manage and triage reports with filters and workflows"
"Data visualization: Map submissions and chart what happened"
"Automatic alerts: Receive alerts about changes and update"
"Enterprise systems:Let our team help you build and scale your deployment"
The Ushahidi Ecosystem has aimed to serve people that have limited access to the world, for example, areas around (East) Africa (“hard-to-reach places”). One of the event the platform focused on is the post-election violence in Kenya 2008, whereas people have raised their voice to the world via the handy technological tools.
Most of the partners of the platform (world leading foundations/organisations: e.g. Resilience Network Initiative) have used the tools to increase the access on relevant information in order to assist the citizens/populations that need helps. Furthermore, to protect marginalised communities.
“Anyone can use Ushahidi, but traditionally it has been a tool used by Crisis Responders, Human Rights Reporters, and Citizens & Governments (such as election monitoring or corruption reporters).”
The development of the system was funded by their partners (e.g. Making All Voices Count with $55M). the general publics can donate via Facebook or create a fundraiser for Ushahidi via Facebook.
“Ushahidi provides open source crowdsourcing software for responding to crisis, helping human rights, and increasing transparency.”
For the event of post-election violence in Kenya 2008, map reports are created to flow the voices.
With the mobile apps (iOS/Android) of the system, data collection can gather other’s voice from multiple sources such as SMS, emails, Twitter and RSS. These data can also be managed and formed into visual charts and maps. Other functions such as alerts and customer services are also provided.