1. Evolution ofthe Sahana Open Source Project III International Meeting onICT for Development Cooperation March 1 stto 2 nd 2010, Gijn, Spain Chamindra de Silva (Sri Lanka) SAHANA, Director and CTO VIRTUSA, Head of Strategic Initiatives, GTO http://chamindra-de-silva.blogspot.com [email_address]

2. Agenda

The Problem Domain

3. The Need for IT for Disaster Management 4. Applying of Humanitarian Principles to FOSS 5. How Sahana was applied for various Governments around the world 6. Designing Resilient Systems in the Environment of a Disaster 7. Partnering in a Diverse Global Community 8. Defining: What is a Disaster? A disaster is a seriousdisruptionof the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material or environmentallosses w hich exceedsthe ability of the affected society to cope using only its own resources Source:UNDP 9. The Historic Trigger: Tsunami 2004 26 December 2004

At least226,000 dead

10. Up to5 millionpeople lost homes, or access to food and water 11. 1 millionpeople left without a means to make a living 12. At least$7.5 billionin the cost of damages 13. Disasters Coordination Who Responds to Disasters? 10s of Orgs 100s of Orgs 1000s 1 Mill Government ReliefLocal Authorities, Police, Army, Fire fighters,+Authorizedcoord + Welltrained +Accountable +/- Big picture relief(e.g. national security) - Procedures create bottlenecks - OverloadedLocal Relief Spontaneous volunteers, corporate village communities, friends and family +first responders + lot ofcapacity +instant aid - not trained - focus unknown - not accountable UN, NGOs Red Cross, OCHA, CARE, WHO, Sarvodaya, etc + focused onpeople +trustedto acceptaid +/- less well trained + accountable - Donor driven - narrow focus / fragmented - sometimes competing Victims Effective Collaboration and Coordination! Relief 14. Typical Coordination Problems

• TracingMissing People

15. CoordinatingWho is doing What Where?

16. TrackingDisplaced Families 17. CollaborativeandliveIncident Mapping 18. AidLogisticsManagement 19. ScalableAlerting 20. DataCollation ,CalculationandReporting 21. AutomatedMessaging to the Public Every Second Counts=> Decision Needs to be made Rapidly 22. Explaining the complexity of DM Well defined ResponseProcess Well defined Information Flows Well Trained Responders Situation Awareness in Normal Emergency Management Information Information Situation Awareness Act Decide 23. Disasters Creates Information Chaos

Government & Emergency Services relief capacity has beenexceededorcrippled

So is their ability to manage information

Ascale of informationthat needs to be gathered and shared is overwhelming 24. Information fromnon-traditional uninitiatedsources means different terminology / processes 25. Decision Makers need to analyze a vast amount of data to respond effectively 26. Coordinating in Disaster Management Multiple Disparate Information Sources Information Overload Large deltato reality Diverse Responders Relief workers,Volunteers Multiple Parallel independent Processes Information Information Situation Awareness?? Act Information Information Information Decide 27. How Does I.T. Help?

Scalablemanagement of information

No stacks of forms, lose papers to manage

DataCollation ,CalculationandReporting

Detailed analysis of data in different forms for different roles

Fewer bottlenecks onInformation Sharing

Empowers responders with Information

Live Visualizationsfor making sense of data

Maps, Charts, Filters, Word Maps, Drill Downs

IT Improves Manageability ( IH x V /M) 28. How Can I.T. Fail in a disaster

Comms aresaturatedor is not accessible

Low throughput environment

29. Workdisconnected Flexibility and fault tolerant

Mobile/Portable,run onUbiquitoussystems

Has to beaccessibleto users/developers

Intuitive, Simple Design, Localized, Customizable

Interoperateeasily with other systems

Support standards (e.g. excel)

30. Thus the Sahana Project

What is it?

Afree & open source portable web tool

31. Modular Sub-applications to address th e commonDisaster Managementprobs 32. RAD platform for DM Main Goals

BringEfficiencies toDisaster Coordination andPrompt Response

33. Facilitate the effectiveinformation exchange between responders and beneficiaries 34. Primary focus is tohelp victims 35. The First Community (Sri Lankan IT)

We just wanted to help our countrymen

We used our skills to provide a tool

Operational model - Chaos

400 IT volunteers

36. 1 stweek 24hr development 37. Major releases almost daily Disparate Applications

Missing Person Registry, Organization Registry, Request management System, Camp Registry

38. The Flow Sri Lanka IT Community Sahana Software Builds Tsunami 2004 IT Community =LSF + LKLUG + IT Industry + AcademiaUrgentRequirements 39. Deployed in CNO, Sri Lanakan Gov 40. Mod 1: Tracking Missing People

Shared Bulletin Boardof lost / found

41. Computer basedsearch heuristics 42. Tracking Family units 43. Analyzing networks of connections TheMissing People Registryhelps track andfind missing, people 44. Mod 2:Whois doingWhat ,Where?

Registryof operating relief organizations

45. Coverageof Services 46. Self-Allocationand Reporting 47. Contact Information TheOrganization Registryhelps maintain data(contact, services, region, etc) of organizationsgroups and volunteers working in the disaster 48. Mod 3: Matching Aid Requests

EstimatingNeeds

49. MatchingAid to Ground Needs 50. Inventories/Catalog 51. Quantities 52. Expirationdates 53. Re-order levels 54. Tracking Allocation TheRequest Management Systemtracks all requests andhelps match pledges for support, aid and supplies to fullfilment 55. Integrated GIS / Mapping Mappingof

Hazards / Incidents

56. Shelters (IDPs) 57. (field) Hospitals 58. Organizations 59. Responders TheShelter Registryhelps track data on allshelters setup following the Disaster 60. Lessons Learned at end of Phase I

IT was invaluable to address the coordination problems in a disaster

61. The is a lot of capacity you can harness from yourlocal ICT communityfor disaster response BUT

Try NEVER to build a disaster management system from scratch during a disaster!!

62. Inspired the Second Phase of Sahana Objectives

Build ascalabledisaster management sys

63. Develop Sahanaapplication framework 64. Develop Initial set of core applications 65. Make it Open Source and take itglobal LSF Core team was funded by SIDA for one year 66. Sahana Phase II LSFTeam Sahana Phase II FOSS Software Builds A Global Need(2005) LSF Team = Techies and FOSS EnthusiastsRequirements + SIDA Funds 67. Alignment to Humanitarian Values

Freely Available to deploy

No discrimination on access (Red Cross CC #2)

68. Ability to leave technology behind (RC CC #6) Rapid customization to actual needs w ith code

L10N and integration (RC CC #5)

69. Building local capacities & self-reliance (RC CC #6) Open system =>Transparentand trustworthy

Better acceptance than foreign proprietary systems

Countries/NGOs can collaborate to develop

Get the best minds from the world to participate in building the software

This should be aglobal public good

Build on each others work by including it in project

CalledHumanitarian-FOSSorH-FOSS 70. An FOSS License is not enough

Just delivering it under an Open Source license is insufficient to make it a global public good

YOU ALSO NEED

To build arich communitysupporting it

71. Governintellectual property& Processes 72. Make itaccessibleto newdevelopers 73. Provide channels to getuser feedback 74. Initial Development Model

LSF: R&D Open Source Non-Profit

75. Lightweight Software Engineering Project team with Open Source community participation and advocacy REASON

Had to deliver on a timeliness and deliverable of a funded SIDA project

76. We had to have an initial complete app to attract community participation

e.g. Open Office, Mozilla

77. The community + FOSS cycle LSF +Global Community Sahana Software Builds & Refines Attracts & Grows 2006 78. The Community Spreads Coorporation:Emergency Management / Humanitarian, Academics, UsersandFOSS Developers

• Academia:UoColombo (SL), UoMoratuwa (SL), Trinity College (US), Uo Maryland (US), ISCRAM Public / Non-Profit:BHEPP,NYC, LSF/SF Private:IBM,Respere, AidIQ

79. Community Creates More Modules 80. Innovation from the CommunityPortable App Portable Devices + Synchronization SMS / Geolocation / GIS Standards 81. This cycle spawns new communities LSF +Global Community Sahana Software Builds & Refines Attracts & Grows 2007 Spawns 82. Lessons Learned at end Phase II

Open Source is a fantastic vehicle for global collaboration on innovation

Common multi-lateral problem domains

Theopen source communitycoupled with thehumanitarian spiritis a tremendous catalyst

The meeting of two powerful volunteer communities

BUTBazaar development can be Chaotic

• Different cultures, standards, motives

83. It continues.. forged in the fire Sahana Community Sahana Software Builds & Refines IncidentorDire Need Attracts & Grows UrgentRequirements 84. Some Incidents we Responded to

Gov-NADRA, for Asian Quake inPakistan 2005

Officially deployed and integrated to NADRA (Pakistan Government) to track all victims

Gov, Mudslide Disaster inPhilippines 2006

Officially deployment to track all victims with by Philippines Government + pre-deployment

Yogjarkata Earthquake,Indonesia 2006

Deployed by ACS, Indonesian Reliefsource

NYC prepardness inUS2007

New york city evacuation management

Gov, Earthquake,Peru 2007 85. Gov, Shizuan Earthuake inChina 2008

Deployed by Police to reunite families

Sahana Downloaded overs 25,000 times 86. Some Deployments Screenshots 87. Sahana Variants in Haiti Right now 88. Lessons Learned on Deployment

An influentialRelief partnersis key

On the ground knowledge of needs

Buildresilientsystems (=> simple, flexible)

Or prepare for situations of failure

Support popularStandardsfor sharing data

Excel will prevail as a standard

89. Partner to prevent silos of data Create spaces foronline collaboration

IRC, Situation Room Blogs, Mailing Lists

90. Sahana Foundation is formed - 2009

501(c)(3) non-profit foundation

Regulated by US laws for non-profits

91. Membership based organization (meritocracy) Global Governance of the Sahana Project

Manage Intellectual Property

92. Officially represent and sign partnerships 93. Provide a vehicle for funding Sahana 94. Manage Public / Private Partnerships Manage multiple Sahana Projects

SahanaPy, Sahana L10N, Sahana Standards

95. New Sahana Projects: SahanaPy

SahanaPy

Python

96. CRUD / REST 97. Standards 98. DVI 99. Hospital MS 100. Food RP 101. New Projects: Sahana Translation

Open Collaboration

Translator community

102. Disaster terminology Languages

Sinhalese, Tamil

103. Spanish, Chinese, etc 104. French, Kreyol 105. Domain variants (NIMS, Humanitarian) 106. New Projects: Sahana Standards

Building on W3C EIIF XG

A pilot to explore domain

107. Disaster terminology Standard Areas

GIS Standards GeoRSS, KML, etc

108. Alerting Standards CAP, TSML 109. Domain Standards PFIF 110. In Conclusion

Sahana was and continues to beforged in the fire(it keeps it very real)

111. TheFOSS benefitsalign to humanitarian values very well 112. Sahana is NeutralA-Politicalproject to promote international partnership on FOSS DM solutions 113. Collaboration is key to Resilience In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed-Charles Darwin Disasters don't respect CountryBoundariesorJurisdictions 114. Let's Cooperate! Join us in taking Sahana to the next level Join the Sahana Global Community! http://www.sahanafoundation.org [email_address] [email_address]