Ismail Farouk scooped the winning prize in the “individual” category of the Highway Africa New Media Award 2007, for his website Soweto Uprisings – www.sowetouprisings.com, which he describes as a “Google maps mash up”.
Ismail Farouk scooped the winning prize in the “individual” category of the Highway Africa New Media Award 2007, for his website Soweto Uprisings – www.sowetouprisings.com, which he describes as a “Google maps mash up”.
Ismail collaborated with web developer Babak Fakhamzadeh to create the Soweto Uprisings website, which has been voted the most innovative in Africa. It features a seamless coalescence of Web 2.0 applications, which results in unique coverage of the 1976 student uprisings in Soweto – an iconic event in South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.
The Soweto Uprisings website is unique in its graphical representation and coverage, using maps, photographs and blogs to record the routes and identify important landmarks passed by protesting students on 16 June 1976. This is a day etched into the memories of many South Africans, by Sam Nzima’s famous photograph of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying Hector Pieterson to the Phomolong Clinic, where he was pronounced dead. The website re-visits the exact spot where this famous picture was taken.
The website is the result of rigorous research undertaken by Ismail who spent months walking the streets of Soweto interviewing struggle veterans to emerge with a comprehensive picture of the events that culminated in the June 16 protests. He chronicles much of this background in a blog that can be accessed via the Soweto Uprisings website.
Ismail’s research resulted in the identification of six different routes followed by students and activists on June 16. Each of these has been documented on the Soweto Uprisings website, bringing a wonderful variation to conventional knowledge about the day’s events. There are many forgotten facts and untold stories that materialize in this mapping exercise.