As the name suggests, if you hear the mentioning of ‘crowd sourcing’ what really comes to someone’s mind is something being done by a large number of people. According to Merriam Webster dictionary, crowd sourcing is explained as a process of obtaining needed services, ideas or content by soliciting large contributions from a large group of people and especially from online community, rather than traditional employees or suppliers. Before I was actively involved in crowd sourcing, African Data initiative campaign, I ever wondered how large tech projects were being financed and the procedures involved.
In my own understanding, Crowd Sourcing is a concept that can spur Africa Economic development by funding good projects and at the same time getting people to understand what is happening around them. It also enables the people behind the project to get various thoughts from the community that is either directly or indirectly affected by the projects. I think this is a bit different from crowd funding which is aimed at only funding the projects. Some good example of crowd funding are: Google raising 11M dollars for refugee crisis in Europe, Kenyans raising money via MPESA pay bills to help victims of terror attacks and even resident in poverty stricken areas, Bring Zack Back Home funding initiative that aimed at raising KShs. 250M to build a spinal injury treatment center in Kenya and, lastly, Face Book and twitter funding on Kick Starter.