# Synthesis example 1

## Jo Doe, Exiled journalist

**Date conducted:** 12 November

**Date sent to Design:** 12 November

**Who is the user?**

* Name: Jo Doe
  * Forced to flee out of ethiopia 6 months ago — journalist
  * social activist, journalist, blogger
  * in sweden now in a refugee camp seeking asylum
  * walked to library for this call
* Organization/Project name: Betu
* Organization industry: Citizen journalism
* Organization location: Ethiopia via Sweden (refugee)
* Role/responsibilities in the organization: Independent project
* Size of organization (number of employees): 1, with 3 potential volunteers
* Est. budget of org: $0

**What problem are they trying to solve?**

* Overall mission of the organization
  * bring to light abuses about human rights in ethiopia
* Specific problems they are trying to solve
  * using social media to teach the people in ethiopia about the oppressive gov’t. 
  * 2nd next to syria in terms of number of journalists who have fled from the country
  * hoping to contribute something on the platform to bring awareness to issues

**Who from the org uses (or would use) the Ushahidi platform?**

* Which roles within the organization would be interacting with the platform and in what capacity?
  * This is an independent project being started by 1 person. There are 3 potential volunteers to help, but he will be managing everything.
* What are those roles’ responsibilities?
  * Find data sources, manage incoming data and bring awareness to project

**What is the current process for solving this problem?**

* at the moment, just using an online news website (blog) where he aggregates the news from all over the country and all over the world about this
* never been exposed to a platform like this

**What do they expect this platform to do for them?**

* trying to link in Facebook and twitter, mostly twitter — has found the “youngsters” use this because  the idea of citizen journalism is still in infancy

**What is the value of this tool to their organization?**

* He really doesn’t have any money to pay, but this would be invaluable to him.
* If no numerical value is placed on it, have them describe the value

**Key positive comments from user:**

* generally extremely excited to use this platform. Thinks it can make a huge difference in bringing awareness to the oppressive ethiopian government.

**Key negative comments from user:**

* Needed a full walk through
* we hadn’t approved him for a grassroots application. \*note\* -- this is because we asked him for more budget, not understanding the full story. We thought they were 4 swedish bloggers. not the case.