Dark Stories Human Stories

Today I was talking to some of you about how the aggregated information/communication/sharing between thousands, perhaps millions of fellow beings, is creating the great story of our time. We are certainly living, as the Chinese would say (as a curse by the way) in "interesting times".

The following are some fascinating examples, and the corresponding tools that make them possible.

I chose an 2007 version of the video because it will be more clear how the tool is used. This is a free tool like most of the greatest software on earth today: http://www.gapminder.org/

Another fascinating if much darker statistical rendition is this interactive map of New York

Murder: New York City


This was recently used in India to report on the elections

The above interactive map is part of an open source movement created by USHAHIDI who developed it to help social causes. It is part of a bigger movement called "crowdsourcing" which has become very relevant, specially in situation where the official channels of information are deliberately silenced. Even though it is a free program you do have to get a special permission to use it.

Here is our very own Ushahidi map: