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2012 Anvil of Freedom Award |
Estlow Center’s Anvil of Freedom awarded to crowdsourcing organization Ushahidi
By Brenda Gillen
The DU-based Edward W. and Charlotte A. Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media bestowed its 2012 Anvil of Freedom award on the nonprofit organization Ushahidi at a ceremony on Jan. 12 at Davis Auditorium in Sturm Hall. Around 75 people attended the award presentation, including Edward and Charlotte Estlow, for whom the Estlow Center is named. Juliana Rotich, Ushahidi cofounder and executive director, accepted the award.
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, uses crowdsourced crisis mapping to foster citizen journalism. Anyone, anywhere in the world can use the Ushahidi platform to report vital information from cell phones or computers. The information is then uploaded quickly — almost in real time — to maps that reveal where instances of violence, sickness or destruction have occurred, enabling human service organizations to respond quickly.
Ushahidi began with the 2007–08 electoral violence in Kenya. Since then, it has been deployed in crises in Haiti, Mumbai, Japan, Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has helped track cases of swine flu worldwide and chronicled storm-related problems in the northeastern U.S. after Hurricane Irene. Rotich says there have been 20,000 Ushahidi deployments in 120 countries.
“[The award] is a big honor to the Ushahidi team and community and underscores our mission to change the way information flows and to empower people to use whichever devices they have available to bear witness to what is going on around them,” Rotich says. During her speech, she noted that Ushahidi was designed for mobile phone use because, at the time, less than 3 percent of Kenyans had Internet access. |
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2011 Anvil of Freedom Event: Journalism in the Public Interest |
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The 2011 Anvil of Freedom Award event was held on October 11th at the Cable Center. The event honored Free Press, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is working to reform the media. Craig Aaron, the president of the organization was the keynote speaker for the event, which also honored the World Pulse Citizen Journalists and celebrated the release of Adrienne Russell's book Networked: A Contemporary History of News in Transition.
Craig Aaron discusses the importance of net neutrality and what students can do to help preserve it.
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Sheila Schroeder, an associate professor in DU’s Department of Media, Film & Journalism Studies, has tackled the topics of activism and non-violence in her films before. Now she’s looking at the topic while sharing a moment of the University’s history.
“Woodstock West: Build Not Burn” will highlight the events of May 8, 1970, when about 1,500 DU students gathered on the Carnegie Green to publicly mourn students killed in the Kent State shootings and to protest President Nixon’s decision to extend the Vietnam War by bombing Cambodia. |
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