Transcriber: Drew Makepeace Reviewer: David DeRuwe
This is Kibera.
Now perhaps you've heard that every year more and more people
around the world are living in slums like this one.
So in 2011, the Indian government did a count,
and it estimates 65 million in India that are slum dwellers.
Here in Mumbai,
about 40%, at least, of the population lives in slums.
Now, slum dwellers often live without access to city resources:
water, sewage and so forth,
but they also, in a way, live under the radar.
Or, off the map, literally.
And here's a satellite image of Kibera.
It shows it from the sky, so you can begin to see the density of the place.
It's about 250,000 people in two-and-a-half square kilometers.
So why then, as of 2009, was it a blank spot on the map?
So what does this actually mean?
It means if you looked for an online map, Google map, or something like this,
you'd see a blank spot.
And if you asked the Kenyan government for an official map,
it just says "Forest."
What does it mean, in this day and age,
when millions of people around the world are just not represented?
See, we're so used to having quick and easy access to maps
to get absolutely anywhere these days.
We forget that these were actually, for centuries, tools only of the powerful.
They're actually used to lay claim to territory,
and they were forbidden to ordinary people.
So what does it mean now, in today's era,
when people are simply not on the map?
What could it mean if they were actually able to map themselves?
So not relying on someone coming in to do it for them,
but had first-hand access to tools of technology?
Well, we started Map Kibera to find out.
And this is the Kibera map today.
It begins to show just how dense it is, and what's actually there.
See, it turns out that what looks
from the outside
just like a sea of brown mud huts, corrugated metal shacks
is actually a thriving and complex city within a city.
It's actually just too easy to dismiss it
as a problem and an eyesore concentration of poverty
when you don't have any map
to show that people have really created there something fairly amazing:
more than just places to live but a real community and neighborhood.
So how did it work?
Well, in just a few weeks,
my partner and I trained 13 young people from the Kibera slum
to create this map, using hand-held GPS devices.
So the concept there was pretty simple,
but the process definitely wasn't.
A lot of these youth had never touched a computer before.
And yet they were able to learn,
and they were able to do it in just a few weeks.
So to do this, we used a tool called OpenStreetMap.
It's like a Wikipedia for maps.
Anyone can edit the map; anyone can contribute data.
You could go on there right now and add this theater,
but I'm sure it's already there.
And there's a community of thousands around the world who correct any mistakes,
so it's usually quite accurate and up-to-date.
So what did our group end up collecting?
Well, this is a white board
showing one afternoon of data collection and mapping.
I believe there's 28 small, informal schools mapped,
19 public toilet blocks.
But there's also some things that, at least, were unknown to me,
like this is a movie theater, which does exist in a slum.
There's also things like a vegetable farm,
which is sack gardens and so forth.
So many, many things came up on the map
that we, at least, had no idea were present there.
And the group didn't stop there.
Printed maps -
you have to be creative getting online and offline together -
went out into the wider community
and said "You know, is this a good representation?"
So people started adding things, making corrections and changes,
ultimately having discussion about themes that were raised.
So health, security, education for example.
This way it becomes
more than just about the community and a representation of them.
It really becomes a tool for saying
"We are here, this is who we are."
So for a slum used to living in fear of being erased,
including demolitions of people's homes,
this can be powerful on so many levels.
And, really, being on the map is just a start.
It's really the beginning of being able to change
how you are perceived from the outside,
and beginning to have a vision
for the future of what's going to happen with these slums.
So as soon as you start to talk about this basic information,
people's imagination is really sparked
with all kinds of ways of telling a story of what is Kibera.
So some of the young people started working with video cameras
making this online YouTube news channel,
Kibera News Network,
with little videos about what's going on every day and important news.
Others using this site, Voice of Kibera,
actually pinning stories to the map and updating it everyday, even using SMS.
See, in places of real disenfranchisement,
things like blogs, YouTube, even Twitter or Facebook
can be a real lifeline to self-representation
that just wasn't possible before.
Now, we had a challenge though.
We thought, "Well, how can this information
be brought to the next level and make a difference on the ground?"
So real change on the ground still takes hard work and time,
but here's a couple of things that our group has done:
painting the map on walls in the slum itself
showing where dangerous spots were,
and also printing this map for security officials and police.
And they were able to use it
during the last election cycle to place new police posts,
and they also sent SMS from polling stations
on the day of the election,
talking about what's happening at each polling place in real time.
So the young people that participated in this,
they now expect a kind of transparency and information
that was never possible before.
And they'll bring this expectation to the future of their country.
And lately, they've been working on mapping all those informal schools,
and for the first time,
they know that over 50,000 students are being educated within the slum,
mostly outside of this public education system.
So this opens up opportunity for dialogue with parents,
teachers and ministers of education
about the future of schooling those children.
Now, our organization is GroundTruth Initiative.
We've worked in many countries around the world, as well,
and found that these tools can really be useful
to communities that kind of take charge of their digital future.
For example, here in India,
there's other groups working on similar ideas.
This is Transparent Chennai,
so they're actually working, in Chennai, India,
and helping slum dwellers use data information
to advocate for things like waste collection in slum areas
or against eviction.
In fact, the other day,
I was able to visit a slum, not too far from where we are now:
Dharavi.
So it's kind of like Kibera of India.
It's very big, it's very central, it's very well-known,
and yet, it's not on a map online that I could find in a detailed way.
Well, not yet. We're working on that.
And what about suburban slums in Mumbai
which are now starting to surpass the size of Dharavi?
Shouldn't they be represented by more than just this pin?
Said, "Slums."
The government of India has actually said
that they want all the slums in the country to be mapped
by the year 2022
as part of this very ambitious objective of having a slum-free India.
But so far this isn't being done by the real experts: the residents.
So how can they better participate, then,
in envisioning for the future of the country?
So this work isn't easy,
but the tools are there, they're already being used.
It's not just that it's a new way
to collect data information and put it online and use new technology.
It's really that the possibility that technology offers
is for people to be called experts about their own lives.
Now, one thing that I've really seen is the possibility for youth,
in particular, to cross digital divides that might surprise you.
So I'd like to leave you with the story of Joshua.
He's one of the members of Map Kibera,
and he moved to Kibera because of ethnic violence.
He hadn't used computers before,
but he started out making videos online with Kibera News Network,
and now he leads mapping exercises,
he calls meetings with officials to talk about slum issues,
and he hangs out in technology centers in Nairobi
where he never would have felt comfortable before.
You see, young people are increasingly able to cross
these barriers of age, class and more
because they belong to a kind of online global community.
And they're finally able to tell their story
and put themselves on the map.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)