Pattrn

Pattrn – Demo Video (2015)

PATTRN is a tool to map complex events – such as conflicts, protests, or crises – as they unfold.

Working as an aggregator of data in different media formats as well as an advanced data visualisation platform, PATTRN enables its community of users to share and collate first-hand reports of events on the ground and to make sense of diffused fragments of information.

Its principle is simple: everything that happens does so at a given place and time. The tool enables its users to build a database of events with space and time coordinates, and to add tags, media, and content to these events. Anyone can contribute data, anonymously. The database can then be explored through an online visualisation platform: while a map provides access to the details of each event, interactive charts and filters enable to reveal patterns across the data. Together, users of PATTRN can thereby create the big picture of an ongoing situation.

Following the launch of the Gaza Platform, pilot project of PATTRN realised in partnership with Amnesty International, PATTRN is currently in use by trusted organisations such as Bellingcat, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Airwars, or Tactical Tech Collective. From January 2016, the prototype version of PATTRN is freely available in open source.

PATTRN responds to new ways of reporting from the front in the digital age. Researchers, developers, journalists, or citizens alike can get involved at pattrn.co