Happy 2014 from the Ushahidi team. We're back from the holidays, and hope that all of you had a good break.

Deployment(s) of the week

This week, we recognise two deployments highlighting human rights violations and promotion of equality in the Middle East and in Asia. Middle East Domestic Help Abuse Reporting allows concerned global citizens, human rights organizations, and abused migrants to report, document and share incidences of abuse of immigrant domestic workers by their employers in the Middle East.

Being LGBT in Asia is a joint analysis undertaken by UNDP and USAID together with grassroots LGBT organizations and community leaders to understand the challenges faced by LGBT people in Asia.

Events

We're hosting the first Ushahidi developer call of the year on 28th/29th January, 2014. Depending on your timezone, join us, and hear about all our tech plans for the coming year, and how you can get involved. Recordings of all our past developer calls can be found on our wiki. Here are a few more events to look out for:

• • The Google Crisis Response team will be doing a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) this Friday 1/17, 1-4PM EST. Learn about the team, and ask any questions you might have.
  • The Open Knowledge Foundation is hosting an Open Data hangout on January 21st, 2014

"Get Ready for #OpenData Day!" Hangout w/ @daeaves @HeatherLeson @beatricemartini @OKFN on Jan 21. Join! http://t.co/gwHRoTtMmL #ODD2014 — Open Knowledge Fdn (@OKFN) January 15, 2014

• For Nairobi based folks, there's a Javascript User Group meetup at the iHub on 14th January 2014

Opportunities

Who's hiring?

• The BRCK team is looking for an awesome electrical engineer based in Kenya to join the team. Do you fit the bill? Apply NOW!!!
• Ushahidi has a number of open positions. Join our awesome team!

Apply for CGI U 2014!

1 more day to submit your #CGIU 2014 application! Get last-minute inspiration from past CGI U commitment-makers: http://t.co/ggaItxifKu #tbt — CGI U (@CGIU) January 16, 2014

Deadline is January 17th, 2014(TODAY), so, hurry while you still can ;)

Into the Code

Ushahidi v2.x

Towards the end of 2013, many of you had sent in a number of pull requests for bugs and features, and it's only fitting that a bug fix release of the platform is made. In this regard, Ushahidi v2.7.2 is set for release on 28th January, 2014. Here is a list of issues tagged under the 2.7.2 milestone. A code freeze of the develop branch will be in effect by tonight, January 17th 2014, to give way for testing. We'll share the testing site and doc within the course of next week

Ushahidi v3.0

Did you miss our announcement about the release of an Alpha version of 3.0 in December? Have a look :). We've updated our roadmap to reflect some of our timing changes as we work towards releasing the beta version in the next few weeks. Do join us on the next community developer call on the 28th/29th Jan 2014 for more updates from the team :). Rock on :).