Kenyans go to the polls for the country’s general elections on Monday, March 4. However, any repetition of the post-election violence that followed the 2007 elections is a major concern.

Ushahidi is an open source platform that was initially developed to map and monitor reports of violence in Kenya after the 2007 elections. Ushahidi gained a lot of attention for the innovative way it was able gather reports from citizens by SMS and the web and visualize those reports on a map. It’s since been used in countries such as DRC, India and by broadcasters such as Al Jazeera. In the lead up to this year’s election, the Ushahidi team has launched a new version: Uchaguzi –  which is the Kiswahili word for elections.

If you take a closer look at the categories for reports, the events or incidences the platform will document include: pre-election, positive events, leadership, polling station issues, ballot and results, urgent, dangerous speech and security.

To find out more about Uchaguzi, DW Akademie’s Christine Harjes spoke with project leader Daudi Were.

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