CorruptionNET - crowdsourced citizen reports exposing corruption

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1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

We will build an open-source mobile platform that crowdsources anonymous incident reports and real-time infographics.

2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

Conventional crowdsourcing platforms, like Ushahidi, require Internet access for full functionality. This excludes many individuals in Africa. Our platform uses the MXit social network, so we can reach individuals who don’t have conventional Internet access.

3. Describe the real world challenge that you are trying to solve for African media [50 words]

Why buy a good or use a public service that hurts ordinary people like yourself? The platform will help individuals document and share their experiences so that people can make informed consumption and voting choices.

4. How and why will your solution work? [100 words]

The platform gathers structured incident reports from MXit users, as well as unstructured text and multimedia. It encrypts and anonymises reports to protect confidentiality – vital for reporting related to corruption, election monitoring, healthcare, and other privacy-sensitive subjects.

5. Who is working on it? [100 words]

Nimi Hoffmann, a South African social science graduate student at Oxford, and Andrew Saxe, an engineering graduate student at Stanford.

We are approaching encryption experts to assist with anonymisation and data protection.

Since the majority of MXit users are between 18-25, we aim to partner with socially conscious hip hop musicians and graphic artists to help deliver the social message of the platform by creating compelling musical and graphic memes that can be shared by users.

We are looking to work with social entrepreneurs who have already built MXit apps to guide the user interface development.

6. What part of the project have you already built? [100 words]

The first application is for corruption reporting in South Africa. It is aimed as a complement for Corruption Watch, a South African NGO, which provides a centralised online interface for submitting reports.

7. How would you sustain the project after the funding expires? [50 words]

Requested amount from ANIC: $10 000. This will allow us to develop the second iteration of the application with improved encryption and multilingual support. We will be able to hire a cryptographer and translators for the major languages of southern Africa.

Expected amount of time required to complete project: Date of completion: March 2013

Total Project Cost: $10 000

Name: Nimi Hoffmann and Andrew Saxe
Organization: University of Oxford and Stanford University
Country: South Africa and the United States