Ushahidi has today launched iOS and Android apps aimed at bolstering is mission to empower anyone to gather reports from anywhere, anytime.

With support for offline data collection — including videos and photos, the firm says the apps will help people quickly complete surveys from their smartphone in any location, with or without an Internet connection.

The app saves data that contributors collect with it, including detailed GPS location data, and sends the report to the appropriate Ushahidi deployment once it can be reached.

“The mobile app is easy to use and is a long-awaited addition to the solution. We would definitely use it for our crowdmaps on safety in public spaces,” D’Silva said. “We look forward to further developments from Ushahidi to help organisations like ours to use technology for good in a very economical manner.”

One such user is india’s Safecity which crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces and Women Speakers List which collects the profile and location of women who contribute to speaking panels.

The new Ushahidi for iOS and Android will streamline her effort to manage and contribute to multiple deployments by providing a menu to quickly navigate between them. And a simple search-by-name tool makes it easy to add them.

Ushahidi helps users build custom surveys, import data from third-party services (like SMS and Twitter), share it publicly in a map or timeline, and triage response with their teams.

Once added to the iOS or Android app, a deployment’s survey data is available to explore in both map and timeline views. The firm says a forthcoming release this spring will extend support to deployments that are installed on third-party servers.