Umati: Monitoring Online Dangerous Speech

The Umati online dangerous speech monitoring project ran over two phases in Kenya, Nigeria and South Sudan. Many of the iHub Research team were involved in the project including Nanjira Sambuli, Angela Okune, Kagonya Awori, Chris Orwa, Sidney Ochieng, James Ndiga, Wambui Kamiru, and a diverse team of online media monitors. This work was useful to better understanding how online content can be monitored not only for dangerous speech but to unearth trends and insights, early warning systems etc. The project became a flagship and led to many similar initiatives in Myanmar, Ghana, and other parts of the global South. The project resulted in open source software shared on github in addition to several publications, trainings, events and public talks.