Mikel MaronJesse Robbins

Disaster Tech

We want to teach you how to make cool to technology save lives.

(Hopefully you to actually go do it!)(Hopefully you to actually go do it!)(Hopefully you to actually go do it!)

Pattern: Disaster Tech Innovation

Disaster

Ad-Hoc Adaptation

Championship

Iterative Improvement

<breathe>

Hurricane Katrina

‣ 1800+ Dead

‣ Millions displaced

‣ $81+ Billion in Damage

turning this

into this

Ad-Hoc Adaptation:

Many Using GmapsMany Using Gmaps

http://twitter.com/nateritter

ARC: “Take the I-90 bridge...”Jesse: “The bridge is destroyed”ARC: “but Google says...”ARC: “but Google says...”ARC: “but Google says...”

Problem: Google Maps isn’t Realtime

http://twitter.com/nateritter

Post KatrinaPost Katrina

20072007

20072007

Champion:

OpenStreetMap (OSM)OpenStreetMap (OSM)

Iteration:

UN considering OSMUN considering OSM• UNJLC Interagency Humanitarian

Common Service

• Building UNSDI-t from the top down

• But now considering OSM for lightweight, open bottom up collaborative mapping

Pattern: Disaster Tech Innovation

Disaster

Ad-Hoc Adaptation

Championship

Iterative Improvement

<breathe>

San Diego Wildfires

‣ 900,000+ Evacuees

‣ 500,000 Acres Burned

‣ 1500+ Homes Destroyed

Ad-Hoc Adaptation:

Nate Ritter’s TwittersNate Ritter’s Twitters

http://twitter.com/nateritterhttp://twitter.com/nateritter

Ad-hoc Adaptation:

American Red CrossAmerican Red Cross

http://twitter.com/redcross

Champion:

InSTEDD - SMS GeoChatInSTEDD - SMS GeoChat

Iteration:

InSTEDDInSTEDD

Working with traditional Disaster Agencies to build new tools.

Distributing work as Open Source

<breathe>

Boxing Day Tsunami

225,000 Dead

Boxing Day Tsunami

225,000 Deaths

Preventable with existing technologies

Ad-Hoc Adaptation:

JRC Tsunami Model

USGS GeoRSS earthquake feed

EU Commission lightweight tsunami propagation model

GeoRSS polygons republished

Ad-Hoc Adaptation:

JRC Tsunami Model

Champion:

GDACS: Global Disaster Alert & Coordination

SystemSystemSystem

http://www.gdacs.org

Iteration:

Pending.Pending.

Will these technologies save lives?We won’t know until they do... or don’t.

saving lives means

losing liveslosing liveslosing lives

<breathe>

anti-pattern

Anti-Pattern

Disaster

Ad-Hoc Adaptation

Championship

Iterative Improvement

Ad-hoc Adaptation:

Tenacious SearchTenacious SearchDistributed of Aerial Imagery for Search & RescueImages put into Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing tool.Possible hits sent to experts for review.

Source: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray_lost

Champion:

none.none.

Public now believes that this is easily repeatable.

Iteration:

Steve Fossett SearchSteve Fossett SearchInadequate training for volunteers.Many false positives.People called SAR teams directly which hindered search.

Anti-Pattern“In hindsight, I wish it hadn’t been there, because it didn’t produce a darn thing that was productive except for being a giant black hole for energy, time and resources. There may come a day when this technology is capable of doing what it says it can deliver, but boy, that’s not now.”

- Maj. Cynthia Ryan

http://www.humanitarian.info/2007/11/08/the-perils-of-the-distributed-approach/

New Champions:InternetSAR

InternetSAR

New Champions:InternetSAR

InternetSAR“ABSOLUTELY UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES are InternetSAR.org participants to report objects found in imagery we provide directly to search authorities. [...] The reason for this policy is that our systems are set up to manage and filter reports for search teams and those who bypass our reporting system can actually impede the efforts of search teams.”

<breathe>

Pattern: Disaster Tech Innovation

Disaster

Ad-Hoc Adaptation

Championship

Iterative Improvement

Be Champions

you don’t choose the moment...the moment chooses you.

You only choose how prepared you are when it does...

-Chief Mike Burtch

Mikel Maron - mikel@mapufacture.comJesse Robbins - jesse@oreilly.com