In 2023, Ushahidi—a Kenya-based non-profit technology organization—was selected to participate in Dataminr’s AI for Good program to develop and deploy its first AI models. Ushahidi sought to improve its Uchaguzi crowdsourcing platform, boosting efficiency in processing, translating, and classifying large volumes of election-related public data. Through collaboration with Dataminr’s AI researchers, Ushahidi was able to achieve this goal, ensuring better usage of election-related data to drive actionable insights for safe and fair elections in Kenya.
More than a year later, we caught up with Angela Oduor Lungati, Ushahidi Executive Director, and Daniel Odongo, Ushahidi Director of Product, to discuss their learnings since the first AI deployment, how they’ve adapted the AI models for different use cases, such as disaster preparedness and the fight for climate justice, and more.
