An interactive mapping project is revolutionizing the way crises are reported and managed, and is spotlighting the value of citizen journalism. The project, called Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, uses crowdsourcing (gathering information from a large number of people) to map crisis information. This crisis mapping tool has since been used across the world to monitor violence in Gaza, track political unrest in Congo, manage Washington, D.C.'s record blizzard in 2010, help earthquake victims from Haiti to Chile, and in scores of other situations. Digital volunteers around the globe have increasingly contributed their time using crisis mapping tools such as Ushahidi, Sahana, OpenStreetMap, and other Web 2.0 tools to help in emergency situations such as natural disasters. In June 2009, a spontaneous group of self-described "geeks" created CrisisCommons (crisiscommons.org) to advance the use of technology for better crisis management. The volunteers created ad-hoc CrisisCamps to discuss how technology could benefit crisis management in general. These later turned into all day or weekend gatherings, where individuals with only their laptops and power strips harness online tools to take civic engagement to a new level. (Contains 6 notes.)