The atrocities in Darfur have attained a profound level of immediacy and impact. Until recently, events of this magnitude — incomprehensibly brutal as they might be — received a few seconds mention on a nightly news broadcast, or a couple column inches buried deep in the morning paper.

Today, using readily available Internet innovations, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth are are presenting the Sudanese crisis with unflinching detail that demands global response.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative. Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan.

Wired magazine provides this in-depth profile of the project, which notes that it is proving so effective as a source of information for improved crisis response that it is being embraced by the international aid community:

The initial concept was the brainchild of Michael Graham . . . [who] had an “aha!” moment when Google Earth was released in June 2005. He quickly saw the software’s potential to help humanitarian teams spread information about evolving crises more rapidly.

Unshakable proof that today’s technology is about much more than video games.

Click here for information on how you can contribute to humanitarian efforts in Darfur.