Success Story

NDI Afganistan Elections Site Recognized by Tim Berners-Lee at TED 2010

Tim Berners-Lee, the British engineer, computer scientist and MIT professor who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, singled out for praise one of NDI's technology projects in a talk at the Technology Education Design (TED) conference in Long Beach, Calif. The conference brings speakers from around the world to talk about technology, creativity and ways their work can change the world.

Berners-Lee cited www.afghanistanelectiondata.org, an innovative online mapping tool for analyzing election results data from Afghanistan's Aug. 20, 2009, presidential election. The site uses demographic, ethnographic, topographic and security information and also identifies areas that had significant electoral irregularities. Its goal is to make the election data more accessible and transparent.

At the February conference, Berners-Lee spoke about the importance of open data in increasing transparency, safety and foreign aid. "There is an open data movement afoot now around the world," he said. He explained the Afghanistan elections data site as a way of visualizing and segmenting elections data. "This is a mashup of the data which was released about the Afghan elections. It allows you to set your own criteria for what sort of things you want to look at."

Watch the full video below. The reference to the Afghanistan Elections site starts at 3:11.

This project was conducted in partnership with Development Seed, an online communications firm that specializes in data collection and visualization.

Published March 12, 2010

###

NDI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to help people around the globe choose freedom. We believe that free people who have a say in how they’re governed — and leaders who are responsive and accountable to their people — fosters more stability, security and prosperity for everyone. NDI envisions a world where democracy and freedom prevail, with dignity for all.

Footer CTA

Freedom works.
Join the movement.

Donate to NDI