Tuesday, October 9, 2012

FREE PEACE TECH NOW!

  The FREE Peace Tech Solutions Inventory awaits!

 

For Immediate Release:

percentforpeace.com
Peace Maker News world wide
by
Terry Milest
@T.Milest

Sept. 2012

 

Open-source technologies are playing a pivotal role in helping non-profit organizations around the world to advance their mandates in innovative ways. These tools can variously help with visualizing data on specific issues, empowering citizens to act together on a common issue, communicating and organize community stakeholders, warning communities about potential problems, soliciting community input on new initiatives, etc. While these are not inherently "peace technologies," they can help be powerful tools that help to empower communities and promote social change anywhere.

Ushahidi

- http://www.ushahidi.com
Ushahidi is an open-source, mapping tool that allows people to use mobile phones or computers to submit reports – anonymously in some cases – on a particular issue. It is used for a variety of reasons and in widely different contexts. Here are a few examples of how Ushahidi has been used successfully used across the globe:
• Ushahidi was originally developed and used in Kenya to map the violence that spread across the country following the 2007 election. It was used again in 2010 as Uchaguzi to monitor the results of the constitutional referendum.
• Egyptian’s are using Ushahidi to report and map incidents of sexual harassment and violence through HarassMap
• In Haiti, it was used to help report and plan for the crisis that followed the earthquake in January of 2010. This helped to save the lives of many people under the rubble.
• In the Sudan, Ushahidi was used to monitor the results of the independence referendum.
• In India Ushahidi has been used as an elections monitoring tool.

FrontLine SMS

- http://www.frontlinesms.com
Frontline SMS is a technology that enables Ushahidi. Using mobile phone or computer, it allows users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones. It is used by non-profit organizations to reach specific groups of individuals within a target community, enabling them to: run an awareness raising campaign, launch a competition, administer text-based surveys and keep in touch with fieldworkers and staff.
This technology is being used in Egypt to support the HarassMap sexual harassment mapping technology. It is also being used by ‘Plan International’ to strengthen both local and national reporting of trafficking and violence in Benin. It was used in Burundi to support peacekeeping during the 2010 elections in Burundi.

Freedom Fone

- www.freedomfone.org
Freedom Fone is a platform that enables automated, interactive, two-way, audio information to be shared through mobile phone networks. Freedom Fone is accessible, user-friendly, low-cost, scalable, global and does not require Internet access for users or callers. It targets ordinary mobile phone users and takes advantage of IVR: Interactive Voice Response or audio voice menus. This means that it can be used to reach and collect information from people who are illiterate, who do not speak the same language, and who have longer messages to convey. Other functionality includes SMS, Polls and Leave-a-Message.

MxIt

- http://www.MxIt.com
MxIt is a free tool that allows users with even very basic mobile phones to do much more, including chatting to individuals or groups find people who share common interests, gain access to more information inexpensively, conduct transactions, and more. It is being used by organizations such as South Africa’s Cell Life to access remote communities towards improving access to information and to improve communications with people affected by HIV/ AIDS.

CiviCRM

- http://www.civicrm.org
CiviCRM is a free, web-based and open source relationship management solution designed specifically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-profit and non-governmental groups. CiviCRM is a powerful contact, fundraising and eCRM system that allows user to record and manage information about their volunteers, donors, employees, clients, vendors, etc. It further enables organizations to track and execute donations, transactions, conversations,
events or any type of correspondence with each constituent and store it all in one, easily accessible and manageable source.


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