If you create a system that successfully decreases or stops conflict, how can you prove that it worked?

That's the problem, and it's a big one. So far what everyone has seen with Ushahidi is gathering information and reports during crisis situations. What we're working towards is something which we believe can be a lot more powerful, that is conflict early warning. It's especially pertinent when you have regions where genocide and mass atrocities are happening (or could happen). What we ask is how can we create a system that helps in the creation of acute warnings of news and alerts around mass atrocities and genocide. Preventive actions will always differ, especially as this is a regional problem that tends to cross the immediate borders of the country that it is happening in. We sit here trying to create a platform, one that is federated and modular, which we hope can become part of a greater ecosystem to help with just this problem. Will we ever be able to prove if it's successful? Probably not. Proof of "decreasing the impact of a disaster" is hard to quantify, but we think it is of the utmost importance to try.