Uwazi is an open-source application that allows you to organise a collection of information and, in the process, reveal previously hidden patterns, relationships and opportunities for action. It is developed by HURIDOCS (Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems), an NGO that, for the past four decades, has equipped human rights defenders with tools and strategies to mobilise information.

In Swahili, Uwazi means “openness,” and it was based on this principle that Uwazi was born. Human rights groups deal with enormous amounts of data, accumulating years’ or even decades’ worth of facts and materials that support the case for change. However, without safe, efficient and collaborative ways of managing it all, many of the insights contained in these collections will remain closed off to the very people who need them most.

Uwazi was first launched in 2017 as a tool to improve access to regional jurisprudence. In consultations with human rights defenders, we had learned that it was difficult for them to not only locate a relevant court ruling, but to also see how it fit into the bigger picture: case documents needed to be connected to the judgment document, which needed to be connected to the deciding judge’s case history, and so on. We thus designed Uwazi as a web-based application for capturing and organising a collection of documents beyond simply its metadata (such as title, author, date published, etc.). Within the substance of a document lies important information and Uwazi enables you to highlight, tag, organise, and relate items to other documents.

But it soon became clear that Uwazi had potential to be much more than just a document management tool. Human rights defenders don’t just work with collections of PDFs and text documents—they also gather troves of information, observations, geolocation points, multimedia files and other data that can be hard to parse in bulk.

We have since expanded Uwazi, creating a database application that is helpful for a wide selection of changemakers, from activists, advocates, lawyers and policymakers who conduct human rights work, to academics, archivists, media organisations and others who work to make a positive difference in the world.

Initial Uwazi development received significant financial support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL). Uwazi continues to be updated and refined on a regular basis by the team at HURIDOCS, which is funded through a combination of grants, payments for services and individual donations.

Our in-house software engineers openly document the development of Uwazi on the GitHub platform. At HURIDOCS, we believe that any technology being developed for human rights work needs to be open source. The open-source software development model embraces values such as transparency, collaboration, inclusivity and community. Open-source development does not guarantee utility or security, but it does facilitate input from a wide selection of people—human rights defenders, developers, security experts—whose expertise is fundamental to a successful product.

Recognition for Uwazi

Uwazi certified as a digital public good

In August 2022, Uwazi was reviewed and found to be a digital public good in alignment with the Digital Public Goods Standard. Digital public goods are open source software, open data, open AI models, open standards and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws, use best practices, do no harm, and help to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Uwazi now appears in the digital public goods registry where it is discoverable as a digital public good and reflected on a growing network of catalogues and aggregated lists of digital public goods.

Uwazi recognised as a finalist in Fast Company's 2022 World-Changing Ideas Awards

In May 2022, Uwazi was recognised as a finalist in the AI and data category of Fast Company’s 2022 World-Changing Ideas Awards. The winners, finalists and honourees in the AI and data category, are all projects that harness the power of data, machine learning, or artificial intelligence to understand the world and empower change.

Uwazi named the winner of the CogX's 2021 Peace and Justice Strong Institutions Award

In June 2021, HURIDOCS has been named the winner of the Peace and Justice Strong Institutions Award at the 2021 edition of CogX, a UK-based festival of AI and emerging technology. The Award recognises HURIDOCS' machine learning work, such as some of the smart features that are available in Uwazi. Among other things, these features can automatically fetch information from an online source, extract the basic elements of a document, and make highly accurate suggestions for how to categorise it.

HURIDOCS selected as a Google AI Impact Challenge grantee

In May 2019, Google announced that HURIDOCS is one of 20 organisations that will share 25 million US dollars in grants from the Google Artificial Intelligence Impact Challenge. The grant was used to develop and use machine learning methods to extract, explore and connect relevant information in laws, jurisprudence, victim testimonies, and resolutions.