Taking an idea that germinated from his experience working with refugee aid organizations, Patrick Oathout developed Uhuru Mobile as his final project for the “Mapping the World’s Refugees and Displaced Persons” group independent study. Uhuru is a web-based interface that allows refugees to submit reports on entrepreneurial activity via SMS messaging, email, a webpage and Twitter. Click here to read the full proposal in PDF. Uhuru is currently available for download through the Ushahidi, the open-source crowd-mapping platform. Update July 17, 2013: The Uhuru App is now available as a stand-alone app! You can download it here for iPhone/iPad and here for Android phones/tablets. (The “View Project” link below takes you to the Apple App Store.)
In March 2012, Uhuru Mobile was recognized at the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) University Meeting. You can see journalist/author Kathryn Schulz introducing Patrick’s project and presenting the CGI award to Patrick in this video starting at 4:20.