You can monitor activities, violence, and trends related to the August 20th Afghanistan elections  thanks to a collaborative partnership enabling people on the ground in Afghanistan and others to share their data in real time on an online map.

The Global Development Commons at USAID is proud to be partnering with FortiusOne’s GeoCommons, Google, OpenStreetMap, Stamen, Development Seed, the Synergy Strike Force, and many others who are donating, mining, and mapping data related to the Afghanistan elections. This map is available in real time to anyone with an internet connection, creating an unprecedented degree of transparency. Check out the map and the data available so far, or upload your own data to build it out even more.

The collaboration has been evolving since early spring and was tested two weeks ago at Camp Roberts as part of RELIEF (Research & Experimentation for Local and International Emergency and First-responders) STAR-TIDES. The effort is headed up by Todd Huffman of the The Synergy Strike Force (SSF) and a volunteer on the ground at the Taj in Jalalabad. The SSF is a private volunteer organization comprised of individuals with various technical skills and access to a wide range of social networks that works to support humanitarian relief and stabilization efforts in post-conflict environments.

Todd is currently collecting election and violence data to upload to a portable GeoCommons appliance and overlaying it on the latest NGA imagery through Google’s mobile fusion server. Alive in Afghanistan has powered up Ushahidi’s platform to collect data from mobile phones via SMS. The combination is sharing critical data with the world on the outcome of this historic event.  This open platform is available for anyone to use.

We believe this effort will demonstrate the potential for a new way of documenting events surrounding elections in general, and will be useful in similar situations around the world. For more information on the partnership and the contributions of the many people involved, check out these blog posts: Off the Map, Development Seed, Greetings from Manasquan, NJ, Brain Off,  GeoCommons Afghanistan Elections 09.

Disclaimer: There is no direct affiliation between Alive in Afghanistan and USAID.