Kenyan mapping tool helps Haiti quake victims

Since many organisations provided other forms of data, says Hersman, he and his colleagues wanted to do something different. “We wanted to build a system which wananchi (citizens) can use to say something,” he says.

In the same vein, Mr Hersman and his colleagues came up with www.hatari.co.ke, which Nairobi residents used to upload video and information following the violent demonstrations over the deported Muslim preacher Abdullah al-Faisal in January.