Help Map (Russian Fires)Crisis Mapping Case StudyAlexey Sidorenko

Prague, March 9th 2011

Prerequisites for Wildfire Crisis in Russia, 2010

1. Unusually hot period;

2. Degraded system of wildfire protection;

3. Almost simultaneous outburst of wildfires in different Russian regions;

4. Raise of activism on the background of government’s inability to cope with the disaster;

What’s the Story of Help Map?

• Idea of implementing digital tools wasn’t new;

• Two persons publicly suggested usage of Ushahidi in their blogs;

• One of them, Gregory Asmolov, proposed to try to install Ushahidi;

• First reaction: “It would take at least a month” (MEH!)

• Second reaction: “This is actually quite easy! THIS COULD WORK!”

• Third reaction: IT WORKS!!!!• Result: Ushahidi deployment in

2-3 days;

Difficulties

• Poor support for Cyrillic fonts;

• Inactive community support -> necessity to fix all the bugs by ourselves;

• Poor documentation / difficult customization of the platform;

• Unexpected high load of the server (10-15 thousand unique visitors daily) -> necessity to move to a new hosting really fast;

Our Main Principles At That Time

• CROWDSOURCING. We crowdsource everything: message moderation, PHP/JavaScript programming, server optimization, server hosting, design;

• TRUST. We trust all volunteers, we don’t have time for background checks – dangerous but necessary;

• CREDIT. We credit everyone who helps us – people need to know and feel that their effort is taken into account;

• NEUTRALITY. we don’t support with any political organization;

Help Map

1.The First Ushahidi implementation in Russia;

2.Stage 1: Monitoring of various sources concerning wildfires;

3.Stage 2: Coordination of volunteers and victims of wildfires;

Information Coordination

• Connecting random initiatives together -> creating synergy;

• Connecting those who asked for help and those who could provide help;

• Providing information on the abilities of private initiatives.

Information coordinationPozar_r

uIgor Cherski

y

Doctor Liza

Russian Church

Volunteer groups

Random Citizen

Initiatives

Work of Coordination Center

• Moderation of reports;

• Monitoring of sources;

• Coordination of the work of remote moderators;

• Site maintenance;

• Phone “Hot Line” maintenance;

• Coordination of help.Фотографии ottenki_serogo

Full cycle of help

Clothes

Transportation

«We have some spare clothes”, Moscow

«I have a car. Mazda 3, I am available to lift people or food to any place in the Moscow or Ryazan region.

Victims

«In Vladimir region we need (August 14, 2010):• Утюги - 50 шт• Тонометр – 1• Глюкометр (+тестполоски) – 1•...»

Help Report

Trip report: we brought food and clothes to …

Weak sides of the project

• Limited information flow from the cell phones;

• Limited number of sources (mostly from the bigger cities);

• Mapping as a process was unusual for some less computer literate users;

• Technical instability;

• Lack of interactivity on the basis of the platform;

• Limited feedback functionality (volunteers and victims couldn’t connect with each other without the help of moderators);

• After the crisis is gone the future of the platform is unstable;

Perspectives:

• Upgrade of the platform to version 2.0 + change of design to our own platform;

• Integration of aerial photographs;

• Information support in endangered regions ;

• Better cooperation with the NGOs

Thanks!

Alexey Sidorenko

• Sidorenko.a@gmail.com

• Twitter: @sidorenko_intl