Internews Innovation Advisor Presents at the International Conference of Crisis Mappers

At the 2012 International Conference of Crisis Mappers (ICCM) in October, Anahi Ayala Iacucci, Innovation Advisor for the Internews Center for Innovation and Learning, details new techniques to verifying crowdsourced information, including techniques to assess the veracity of the content, the context and the source.

Using an election monitoring project in Ukraine as an example, Iacucci explains that with the verification process they’ve developed, “we’re basically dissecting every piece of information that’s coming in and trying to understand whether it’s reliable information and if we can use it.” A map is used to show all the sources but is color-coded to separate verified vs. unverified information.

Iacucci also presented at the 2011 ICCM, where she discussed innovative information systems and the application of new technologies to media. She says that complexity and diversity of communication flow has led to the need for an innovation center such as the one Internews set up in 2011 and she details some of the pilot programs that the center has conducted.