One only has to look at events in the Middle East in recent weeks to understand the role of mobile phones in fomenting change. “It is impossible to silence the civil rebellion in Egypt because access to the internet gives people a voice,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said in a recent speech. “The younger generation will arm themselves with iPhones instead of stones.”Read more

Ushahidi crowdsources information and then uses technology tools to draw attention to problems such as election fraud or to help in disaster recovery. The group's technology engine, which was developed in Africa by Africans, allows for any person or group to create a way to gather distributed information, aggregate it, and then visualize it on a map, timeline, or chart. It is one of 26 companies chosen to be a 2010 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.
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