Respond, Reuse, Recycle

1. Respond, Reuse, Recycle Technology response to Humanitarian Crises - learning how to crowdsource efficiently

2. 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

3. Humanitarian Technology Information 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.

4. 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

5. Humanitarian Technology Communities Sustain: 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

6. Community Roots Barcamp.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

7. 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...

8. 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.

9. 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

10. CrisisCommons.org

11. Haiti Earthquake • Earthquake January 12th 2010 • Response within hours: CrisisCamps around the world • OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi, Sahana, CrisisCommons, NGOs, Haitian diaspora, Haitians working together

12. 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

13. Haiti CrisisCamps

14. CrisisCamp London

15. Handling “too little information”: Maps

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. Other Crisis Responses since January Chile 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

20. 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

21. 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.

22. CrisisCommons Lessons Learnt Not 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

23. RHOK

24. 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!

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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!

29. How to get involved Give 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

30. The End Points 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?