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Respond, Reuse, Recycle. Technology response to Humanitarian Crises - learning how to crowdsource efficiently. Crisis Commons. “Local volunteering for global crisis management and disaster relief”. Global grassroots network - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Respond, Reuse, Recycle
Technology response to Humanitarian Crises
- learning how to crowdsource efficiently
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Crisis Commons
“Local volunteering for global crisis management and disaster relief”
Global grassroots network
of technology professionals, domain experts, translators and first responders
collaborating
to improve technology and practice
for humanitarian crisis management and disaster relief
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Humanitarian TechnologyInformation gathering, coordination and sharing to assist in
humanitarian crises
Goals: • Get crisis responders and communities the information
and help that they need before, during and after a crisis
Outputs: • Maps. Mash-ups. Alerts. Information links (including
translators and sneakerware). Expertise. More people found, fed, sheltered, connected, empowered etc.
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Humanitarian Technology Communities
Crowd Informers
• CrisisCommons
• Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
• Sahana
• OpenStreetMap
• Louisiana Bucket Brigade
• The Extraordinaries
• CrisisMappers.net
NGO/Local Coordinators
• UNOCHA - reliefweb
• CDAC
• Diaspora
Tool Developers
• RHOK
• Aid Information Challenge
• ICT4Peace
• Ushahidi
• OpenStreetMap
• Sahana
• CrisisCommons
• InSTEDD
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Humanitarian Technology CommunitiesSustain: OSM, Sahana, Ushahidi
– Communities built around specific software– Tool & information coordination during crises– Continuous tool development
Surge: CrisisCommons– Information support for specific crises, e.g. Haiti– Build new tools for specific crises, e.g. Oil Reporter– CrisisCamps – Continuous (people, process, tool) development for future crises
Innovate: Hackathons– RHOK = competition to create the ‘best’ crisis response software– AIC = creating audit trail for UK/UN/World Bank aid funding– 1 or 2-day events
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Community RootsBarcamp.org• ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn
in an open environment.• intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from
participants who are the main actors of the event
Hackathon• “collaborative computer programming… many people come together
to hack on what they want to, how they want to - with little to no restrictions on direction or goal of the programming”
Crowdsourcing and citizen journalism• Lots of people (communities) helping individually with a larger task
Agile open-source, open-data development• fast, accessible, efficient community coding
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
How it all started...2004 onwards: OpenStreetMap and other tools being used in US, UK...
Late 2004: Sahana developed in Sri Lanka after Indian Ocean Tsunami. Then used in Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia...
2008: Ushahidi developed in Kenya to map citizen journalist reports of violence after Kenyan elections. Then used in South Africa, DR Congo, Gaza, India, Pakistan…
June 2009: CrisisCommons founded in Washington DC after a tweetup by a group of technologists and communications professionals who wanted to use their skills to help prepare for and react to crisis situations – both at home and around the world
2009: CDAC formed after a discussion in a bar...
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
How Haiti Changed Everything
Late 2009• First CrisisCamp spawns RHOK and Aid Information Challenge• RHOK0 produces People Finder• First Aid Information Challenge - overseas aid data starts to be
available• UN, CDAC, CrisisCommons etc all plan to develop information
strategies and crisis response communities during 2010
Jan 2010• Haiti earthquake. Everyone ‘just does it’• Massive and coordinated crowdsourced response - lives saved
through tweets, texts and up-to-date maps• Massive not-very-coordinated on-the-ground response
July 2010 - Reflection and consolidation. Collecting lessons learnt and working out where to go from here.
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
What makes a suitable Crisis?
• Issues– Too little information: Haiti maps– Too much information: Tweak the Tweet
• Infrastructure– Local infrastructure is overwhelmed: People Finder– Some information channels exist: SMS, USBs to Haiti
• Stages– Mitigation: landslide predictor– Preparedness: OSM worldwide– Response: Ushahidi– Recovery: Haiti Amps Network– Sustainability: CDAC, Karl and Carel’s project
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
CrisisCommons.org
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Haiti Earthquake
• Earthquake January 12th 2010 • Response within hours: CrisisCamps around the world • OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi, Sahana, CrisisCommons, NGOs, Haitian
diaspora, Haitians working together
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
What does a CrisisCamp do?
Connects peoples’ skills & time to improve crisis information tools and responses
This supports:• Crisis affected communities• Organisations in the field (international NGOs, local organisations)• Crisis communities (Ushahidi, OpenStreetMap, Sahana etc)• Organisations in the space (mapping, telecomms etc)
A CrisisCamp links people who want to help with places that they can
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Haiti CrisisCamps
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
CrisisCamp London
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Handling “too little information”: Maps
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Handling “too little information”Telecommunications team
• Kept comms going to/from/in Haiti
Ushahidi
• Connected people in need with emergency responders, via the US team
• Biggest moment: lots. Guiding responders to people who would otherwise have died.
We Have, We Need
• "Craigslist" of self-identified needs and requests by non-profits assisting in Haiti relief operations
• Built in days
• Biggest moment: getting generator fuel to a hospital 20 minutes after they tweeted for help
Haiti Hospital Capacity Finder
• Listed free beds in field hospitals
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Handling “too much information”
People Finder
• Provided a single place to look: who’s missing, who’s looking, how many
• Input from databases, SMS, tweets, info handed to NGOs
Information for Radio Broadcasts
• Searching for and organising news about Haiti
Tweak the Tweet
• Adding tweet codes to reduce the information overload
• Feed into Ushahidi and Sahana
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Moving from “them and us”
Empowering anyone with a phone to report and request information
• Haiti project 4636 - SMS to volunteer to Ushahidi link
Breaking the language barrier
• Language projects and Haitian Diaspora
• Connecting translators to locals, coordinators, responders
Reconnecting local information infrastructure
• Information for Radio Broadcast
• Karl and Carel’s Project
Connecting low-bandwidth users to global information sources
• Low-bandwidth ReliefWeb projects
• Low-bandwidth Ushahidi
• Low-bandwidth CDAC
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Other Crisis Responses since JanuaryChile Earthquake
• CrisisCommons Chile team responded
• CrisisCommons Argentina and Columbia helped
China Earthquake
• Chinese Diaspora responded with camps and translation
US Oil Spill
• Louisiana Bucket Brigade used Ushahidi instance
• US team developed Oil Reporter app
Icelandic Ash Cloud
• UK team started news and twitter watches
Response watches that didn’t turn into crise responses
• Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Preparing for Future Crises
Expert support to crisis coordinators
• CDAC website reviews and prototypes
• UNOCHA Reliefweb reviews and low-bandwidth prototypes
Preparing information for crisis-prone areas
• Populating CrisisWiki with information useful for crisis responders
• Populating OpenStreetMap
Cross-Community development support
• SahanaPy software development
• Ushahidi software development
• London expertise provision: User Experience and low-bandwidth software
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
CrisisCommons Lessons Learnt• Have your infrastructure ready. In the beginning was organised chaos: 30
camps, 8 countries, 5 languages, 2000 campers, 10000 translators, one project list and one country in serious trouble.
• Do what you can with the resources you have. Camps picked projects from the list - which emptied quickly. Not all of these projects were completed. Or started.
• Check if it’s been done before. PeopleFinder replaced 8 main databases. People redid map sections because the updated areas weren’t tagged (now fixed).
• Coordinate. Real-time coordination is important but neglected. It’s difficult across timezones and languages: we needed a dedicated operations centre but didn’t know what it was.
• Load up on leaders. Our bottleneck was project managers. The virtual camp was difficult to maintain without a dedicated leader.
• Timezones confuse almost everyone. A simple “what time is it in” spreadsheet saves a lot of pain and missed-by-an-hour meetings.
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
CrisisCommons Lessons LearntNot all projects made it. Common causes were:• No end user buy-in. You can build it, but they won’t come if you
don’t involve them. Especially true for local communities.• No team, or no team buy-in. Leadership matters, and projects need
both people and management.• Short-term team. It’s difficult to sustain long-term development.
When the adrenalin wears off, people drift away.• Implementation too slow. Be agile: build something, build it fast, get
it used, get feedback, repeat.
Many projects did make it• Partnership is key: sponsors, users, developers, communities• Good business analysis and systems engineering are key• Ownership and leadership are key• In a crisis, speed matters more than beauty
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
RHOK
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Using those Lessons Learnt: RHOK
RHOK reused CrisisCommons experience in coordinating and running world wide projects, camps and experts
Projects
• Prepared in advance: did up-front business analysis on real-life NGO and local problems
• Reused CrisisCommons project experts, e.g. UAVs and Haiti Amps Network
• Reused Haiti connections to provide subject matter experts
Infrastructure
• Reused CrisisCamp organisers for RHOKs in Sydney, Washington etc
• Reused CrisisCommons structure for RHOK wikisite: built in 1 day
• Ran continuous operations centre – watching RHOK information feeds– Linking RHOK0 to RHOK1 teams (PeopleFinder), country to country (Turquilt,
People Finder, wikis) and team to team– Used a timezone spreadsheet!
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
RHOK to CrisisCamp
• Tools for Haiti
– PeopleFinder tool was built in RHOK0
• Help with aerial imaging problems
– not enough high-res data for OpenStreetMaps
– OilSpill data explosion
– Turquilt project: UAV video mosaicing solution
• Help with CrisisCamp Projects
– Nairobi effort and expertise on Haiti Amps Network
– CrisisWiki interface improvements… and many others
• Tool innovation
– Landslide prediction software
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
What still needs to be done?
Tools
• Big gaps in NGO coordination and situation awareness
Preparation
• Handle UK crisis information vulnerabilities
• OpenStreetMaps for crisis-prone areas
• CrisisWiki entries for everywhere
Organisation
• How to efficiently build and maintain the tools needed in future crises
• Without stifling innovation and the OpenSource spirit
• How to keep this local but global
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
What Next for the Communities?
OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi, Sahana etc
• Well established technology communities
• Already global
• Already building strong links e.g. to GrassrootsMapping and UAVs
GrassrootsMapping, Louisiana Bucket Brigade
• Good models, but no UK equivalent - can we build one?
CrisisCommons CrisisCongress 15th July 2010
• Idea: CrisisCommons as ‘surge’ coordinator
• Idea: CrisisCamps to prepare people for local crises
• Idea: continue VirtualCrisisCamp “3 hour tasks”
• Idea: RHOK as ideas generator for CrisisCommons
• Choice: continue or stop London CrisisCamps
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
Volunteer Skills Needed
•Programming•Telecommunications•Mapping•User Experience•Communications & PR•Translation
•Local knowledge•Relief work experience•IT project management•Facilitation and admin•Enthusiasm•Making tea!
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
How to get involvedGive some free hours
• http://www.crisiswiki.org/
• http://www.theextraordinaries.org/
• http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/
• http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/
• AIC, RHOK, CrisisCamp events
Help develop tools
• Ushahidi: http://www.ushahidi.com/join
• Sahana: http://wiki.sahanafoundation.org/doku.php
• OpenStreetMap: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Develop
• CrisisCommons: http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/
• Others: http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Other_Crisis_Relief_Communities
Get help and tools• http://cdac-haiti.org/en/ - information response community
• http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Crisis_response_tools
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/ @crisiscamp [email protected]
The EndPoints to take away• It’s not “us and them” anymore, it’s “us and us”• You can help - or hinder - from anywhere. Your choice:• Getting the right information to the right people at the right time saves
lives• Overwhelming people with information doesn’t• Sometimes your tech skills can help people you’ll never meet,
immediately and in ways you couldn’t imagine• Sometimes it takes longer, but it’s no less valuable
Thank you for listening• Any questions?