Technologies

Here are the technologies that we are working with or exploring in the Design Center. If you have an interest in working with any of them in the context of solving problems for Kosovo’s youth and children, get in touch with us! We may be able to set you up with an intership or research opportunity, and if not, we’d love to just have a chat.

Ushahidi

is an open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. The Ushahidi platfrom is crowdsource mapping tool, which allows gathering of crisis information from the public in near real-time. It has a web form for reporting details as well as allowing the user (anyone on the Internet) to pick a point in the map of a point that the information is related to. At the Innovations Lab we have adopted this platform to map Kosovo Youth Resources (i.e. NGOs, Youth Centers, Student Councils, Peer Clubs etc.). At the moment we have mapped as many youth resources as we could gather information from, but, in the future we aim to realize the crowdsource mapping component of Ushahidi to a greater extent. We have done a number of customizations to the default installation of Ushahidi, among which the most important are:

  • Creating Custom Reporting Forms based on the different types of Youth Resources;
  • Displaying information submitted through custom forms and fields to all visitors;
  • Allowing user to choose type of map (Google Map or Open Street Map);
  • Displaying a tag to show whether the location of the youth resource is precise or not;

RapidSMS

is a tool build be the UNICEF Innovations Team in New York. RapidSMS is an open source tool for data collection through mobile phones, i.e., Short Messaging System (SMS). The information sent through SMS can be presented on the web as soon as it is received. RapidSMS is in particular useful for data collection in geographically remote areas with limited infrastructure to send information to a central place (database) in a fast way. Anyone with any type of mobile phone that supports SMS-es can interact with RapidSMS. Administrator can export, visualize or view the collected data through the web. RapidSMS is written in Python and utilizes the Django framework.
We use RapidSMS for Birth Registration, Smoking Violations and accination reporting from remote health facilities in Kosovo, but also for any other type of reporting or data collection from locations where there is a lack of Internet infrastructure.

Django and CodeIgniter

are web frameworks that exemplifiy the Model-View-Controller software architecture pattern. Django is Python-based whereas CodeIgniter is PHP-based. MVC facilitates quick development of high-performing, elegant Web applications and uses the principle of DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). Moreover, the frameworks come with many build features (e.g. object-relational mapper to define data models, admin interface, URL design, template system etc.) that allow one to create applications with less code for intensive deadlines. Django calls itself the “web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.”
 

Maps

At the Innovations Lab Design Center, we work with many geo-based technologies. Because maps in Kosovo are generally not of the desired standards, some of our work involves putting more information on maps such as OpenStreetMap. Even in major cities of Kosovo many of the institutions that deliver public services to citizens are not findable on maps.
 

Other

We are also interested and have/will/intend to use the following technologies: JavaScript, OpenLayers, Open Street Map API, J2ME, XForms, ODK

If you share our interest and/or are proficient in using them let us know by writing to: designcenter [AT] kosovoinnovations [DOT] org