This week several members of our team attended the 3rd International Conference of Crisis Mappers (ICCM) that was held in Geneva, Switzerland and we were blown away by the turn out (Follow #ICCM on Twitter). This community has grown substantially over the last 3 years – when we attended the first conference held in Cleveland, Ohio back in 2009 there were about 100 attendees. Now there are more than 400 gathered here discussing crisis mapping and the challenges they face. There are really 3 main things that we keep hearing as it relates to GIS and mapping:

• How to collect and organize data from the crowd around the globe as it relates to crisis
• How to enable action from this data
• How to build, collect, and maintain reference data for crisis

Collecting and Organizing Data from the Crowd

As for the first topic, collecting and organizing data from the crowd, there is a good tool developed by our partner Ushahidi. Ushahidi is a platform that takes crowd sourced information like SMS messages, categorizes them, and displays them on the map as a point or cluster of points showing relevant location. The result of this effort is a point map that begins to illustrate where individuals are vocalizing need or disseminating information.

Enabling Action

While points are a good start, we have been working with Ushahidi and a focus group comprised of both GIS and Crisis Mappers to define requirements for new tools that will support analysis of this data. We have heard the need for spatial and temporal analysis tools within the Ushahidi platform as well as the need for tools to bring Ushahidi data into ArcGIS where analyses can be run.

We are very excited to announce that we have made the first tool available to support these requirements-the ArcGIS add-in for Ushahidi which can be downloaded and quickly added to ArcMap. This add-in allows you to connect to a Ushahidi instance with the API enabled, convert text between languages, and download the Ushahidi data into a geodatabase. This opens up the feed of data being captured in Ushahidi to the rich spatial and temporal analysis tools within ArcGIS allowing users to empower action and inform decision makers using a sound scientific approach. Curious how this might work? At the bottom of this blog is a good write-up of using this tool to analyze information coming in from the current Thailand flooding.

Reference Data

Having this information and resulting analysis is great, but without good reference/basemap data as a backdrop, it is hard to understand the context of any situation. A common theme discussed here in Geneva is the isolated and rural nature of many locations and the lack of base data. While there may be global vector and raster datasets available, they are often either severely dated or at a scale that does not support local action.

One data set that supports crowdsourcing of basemap data is OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM is constructed and edited for all types of use by a global user community, and yes you can join! Crowdsourced basemap data is particularly valuable during a crisis response where current and often high resolution data needs are compounded.

In support of this open source effort, Esri offers a desktop tool for ArcGIS that allows you to join the crowd by editing and publishing to OSM from within ArcMap. This tool also allows you to download OSM data over your area of interest directly into ArcGIS for use in a disconnected and offline environment common in response. You can download the ArcGIS Editor for OSM.

Esri is committed to supporting the crisis response community thru our Esri Disaster Response Program as well as thru the continued evolution of ArcGIS to support the collection, management, analysis, and visualization of data in a collaborative environment. While these tools don’t solve all of the problems we face as crisis mappers, we hope you will find them valuable in your arsenal and as a starting point to a dialogue around enhancements to and construction of additional tools or data. We are already looking forward to ICCM 2012 in Washington, DC!

ArcGIS Add-in for Ushahidi

Getting Started

To get started, first download the Esri Add-in for Ushahidi. Once you’ve installed the Add-in you’re ready to add it to ArcMap. Go to the Customize menu | Toolbars | Customize… located at the very bottom of the list.

In the Customize dialog, click the Commands tab| type Ushahidi in the Show commands containing: text box. You will see the Ushahidi2ArcGIS Add-In listed in the Commands pane.

Drag the Ushahidi2ArcGIS command to any existing toolbar in your ArcMap window. You must drag this command onto an existing toolbar, not just onto the map. You will see a new button with a blue circle icon show up on your toolbar.

Connecting to a Ushahidi Instance

To connect to an Ushahidi instance click on the Download Ushahidi Reports to ArcGIS button and enter the parameters.

The key parameter to enter is the API Endpoint. This is the main URL to the Ushahidi instance, such as Thailand Flood Crisis Information Map or Bushfire Connect. You also have the option to translate the data (using Bing Translator) for either just the categories or all the incident data. Note that the more you have to translate and the more records you have the longer the time it will take to download and create the data.

Once the data is downloaded it is added to a layer. The tool automatically sets the data to render on Unique Values in the Category Title field and uses the default colors from the Ushahidi instance.

Additionally the HTML Popup set and the description of the layer has been populated to reflect the source, date and time the data was downloaded. This is critical temporal information for Crisis Mappers.

Perform Further Analysis

Now that the Ushahidi data is downloaded you’re ready to perform further analysis. You can look at data over time, limit your focus on specific categories, or do more in depth spatial analysis.

For example if we wanted to get a better understanding of the reports of flooding around Bangkok we can focus on those reports (i.e. just one category of the incidents).

We can then visualize the data as a “heat-map” (by using the Kernel Density tool).

To get more detailed information on the data and to further determine significance of the reports we can use spatial statistics to determine if there are non-random spatial patterns and statistically significant hot or cold spots in the data. To do this we can use the Spatial Autocorrelation and Hot-Spot Analysis tools. The basic workflow is shown here in ModelBuilder:

The results of this analysis are highlighted in blue on the map as areas (1 km^2 ) that have statistically significant clusters of flood reports (in this case 8 to 27 per km2 ). These are the high priority areas that should be focused on first. Then we focus on questions like why are there so many reports in this area? Is there a single authoritative source of SMS feeds on the ground or is there a large group of people that need help?

This is just one type of analysis that can be run in ArcGIS Desktop from Ushahidi data. We are interested in learning more from you in the type of analysis that you’ve run using this tool. Please use the comments section of the tool and let us know how the tool works and what needs to be improved.

*****

Thanks to the ESRI team for creating this valuable plug-in.

At the beginning of March 2011, OCHA HQ activated the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), a self-organized group of structured volunteers, to create the Libya Crisis Map (LCM) early in March of this year to help provide better situational awareness of the unfolding situation on-the-ground. This site and the data were made available to responding organizations with the intention to them improve their operational planning. The site was extended beyond the first month largely based on efforts from OCHA Colombia, volunteers sourced from the UNV online volunteer service, and SBTF members who choose to stay on beyond the official SBTF deployment.

But Why the Collaboration?

The LCM data was being incorporated into the traditional Who-is-doing-What-Where products and info-graphics which were being created remotely by OCHA IMOs [Colombia, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, and South Sudan]. These products were then being printed and shared inside the emergency arena. So, what impact did those printed products have? We rarely try to measure their impact on decision makers but recognize they are necessary in every emergency. So, if the LCM data augmented these products, what measurable impact can we say it had?

The challenge in quantifying the impact of information products in situations such as the Libya crisis is they tend to be incomparable to other situations and may yield very skewed outcomes. For OCHA, the impact the volunteers had on the efficiency of the operations and quality of decisions being made is perhaps more interesting. This impact can be more easily quantified by assessing the effectiveness of the decision makers using the maps as input and compared to their workload in other crisis before the SBTF was put into action. This quantifying research is currently being conducted, but on our preliminary qualitative input we can already see that the SBTF has a significant impact on OCHA’s way of working.

The unexpected impact? How we now work differently.

There are three core areas in this collaboration that have influenced OCHA’s work:

1) Speed: as noted in my blog post on UN Dispatch at the end of March, I outlined how much faster we could produce standard IM products in the early phases of an emergency when working with remote volunteers and/or staff. It was quite stark and significant.

2) Connection / Communication: The information management team in OCHA HQ was quite impressed with how well the always-open, tiered Skype chats worked in collaborating with the self-organized task-team based volunteers. The team has taken this approach and opened our own group for OCHA Information Management Officers [which has really made our internal IM Community of Practice flourish and provide support to each other]. We have leveraged the same approach to help incorporate field-based staff into the development of standard tools and software – something we were rather poor at in the past. As well, when we had one IMO responding to floods in Cambodia, we asked for OCHA IM volunteers and placed them in a dedicated Skype group. We ended up with IMOs from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia and Haiti helping out with the efforts.  The OCHA IM team is really learning how we can leverage remote support and are incorporating these concepts into traditional mechanisms.

3) Collaboration Platforms: to collaborate with the external volunteers, we had no choice but to accept the use of non-UN standard software [e.g. Skype and Google Docs]. However, the abilities that these modern tools unlocked helped some of our traditionally skeptical staff members realize there are better ways of working.  It has started a culture change [even if slow].

So, you can easily deduce that OCHA is adopting concepts from the SBTF work style. How much of an impact is that?  Perhaps not quantitatively measurable, but could be qualitatively described a “big”.

But, what challenges arose from the use of new technology and the volunteers?

The challenges can be summarized into three categories:

1. Zoom Level. The volunteers tend to want to work at the highest possible zoom [i.e. close to the affected] and we can understand that desire. However, large responding agencies are dealing with multi-million dollar programme spanning across millions of people in countless locations.  Although they are concerned for the individuals, they need information at a different ‘zoom level’ in order to assess, plan and respond. Thus, we need to ensure that there is a way to aggregate the detailed data appropriately for people or organizations working at different zoom levels.

2. Always On. One major benefit of the volunteers, enabled by modern technology, is that they are dispersed around the world resulting in almost 24 hour support. However, the flip-side of that benefit is that the liaison person from the requesting entity can be faced with questions/issues around the clock if structures, messaging and requirements are not defined early. With the task-team structure used by the volunteers in place, we know that OCHA was sheltered from a large number of questions. Still, in the early days, there were a significant number of topics that arose which needed to be addressed. It meant that we had to be connected all the times – from checking Skype over breakfast, to responding to emails while on the bus, to skipping dinner in the evening to review a risk management strategy.

3. Questions. The volunteers are not necessarily experts – and do not pretend to be when they are not. The challenge for the requesting entity is that someone needs to be available to answer hard questions in a very timely manner. In the Libya context, defining appropriate report categories was one of the first and most challenging questions for OCHA to answer and has reconfirmed that standards are needed.

Did ethical questions arise for the UN?

Of course ethical questions arose during the LCM deployment. They were not specific to the UN. In the Libya context, we dealt with three specific issues:

1. Identify. We did not want any information provided in the LCM that could be used to identify the individual who reported.

2. Location. To avoid anyone from being able to pinpoint anyone reporting, the data was generally anonymized to the centroid of the city it was reported from.

3. Do No Harm. Given the situation in Libya was conflict-based, we needed to ensure that whatever we did minimized the chance of causing anyone harm.

Early in the deployment, OCHA made a decision to run two separate websites. The private site would hold all original data and only be accessible to approved agencies. The public site would show no identifiable information and the data would be delayed by 24 hours. Some have argued that two sites were not necessary [e.g. everything private or only have the anonymized public site], but all we can say is that “It worked”.

What is OCHA doing now?

In June, OCHA held a lessons learned workshop with several of the V&TC entities with whom we collaborated with either for Libya or Japan. That workshop pointed towards 9 thematic Communities of Interest (COIs) to be developed to ensure future collaboration can be maximized [see the final report]. OCHA has been pushing these forward in an attempt to get them started and hosted a one-day meeting with the COI leaders prior to ICCM 2011. [Note: originally a Humanitarian Standby Task Force was suggested, but it has morphed to a 'network-of-networks' concept - which will likely be called the Digital Humanitarians - and be designed to receive requests for virtual support and then find the appropriate entities to support those requests]. In the Libya and Japan crisis, OCHA received support from several V&TCs which resulted in some (positive) unexpected impact and we want to continue to explore and understand the possibilities through the COIs mechanism to help maximize the benefit and effectiveness of V&TC engagements with the traditional humanitarian entities.

This collaboration, amongst others recently, has helped to show OCHA’s IM team that we need to open up our work, our data, and our ideas to external parties very much in accordance with the principles Dan Tapscott outlined in Macrowikinomics: Collaboration, Openness, Sharing, Integrity and Interdependence. We are no longer in an era where good ideas only come from inside our own organization, but rather in a time where we have to be open and ready to receive them from outside.

Participants in November 2011 COI Leadership meeting included: Crisis Commons, Crisis Mappers, Geeks without Bounds, GISCorp, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, HOT (OSM), ICT4Peace, Internews, ISCRAM (Tilburg University), MapAction, Missing Persons Community, MIT Humanitarian Response Lab, NetHope, SBTF, UN Foundation, UNHCR, UN-OCHA, UN-SPIDER, University of Munser, UNOSAT, Ushahidi, US State Department (HIU),  Woodrow Wilson Center, World Vision

]]> http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2012/01/09/the-unexpected-impact-of-the-libya-crisis-map-and-the-standby-volunteer-task-force/feed/ 1 http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2011/08/28/irene-recovery-map/ http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2011/08/28/irene-recovery-map/#comments Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:56:22 +0000 patrick http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=5090 I was gearing up for a trial run of this satellite imagery analysis project for Somalia when my colleague Aaron Huslage decided to launch the Irene Recovery Map. He reached out to various communities for help and many groups  joined him to suppor this efforts. In alphabetical order: CrisisCommons, CrisisMappers, Geeks without Bounds, GIS Corps, Humanity Road, Info4Disasters, Standby Volunteer Task Force, Tethr and Ushahidi. As usual, we organized ourselves on Skype and eventually followed a model similar to that of the Standby Volunteer Task Force.

The purpose of this blog post is to share some early lessons learned on this project. These come directly from my involvement in the project and hence reflect the actions I took over the past 48 hours. Please do add your own lessons learned and observations in the comments section below if you were involved in the Recovery Map. I’d like to categorize these lessons into two areas: Strategy and Technology. Since I personally focused more on the strategy side of the project, I’ll invite my technology colleagues to share their lessons on the tech side in the comments section.

On the strategy side, one important point worth noting is the URL or domain name chosen for the deployment. If the domain name is tied to an existing company or organization, this can make it more difficult to partner with another organization and in particular a media company. The URL necessarily brands the site so the more neutral the title the better. This is why we switched to Irene Recovery Map.

You’ll want to put together a media and outreach strategy earlier rather than later. So recruit colleagues who have strong links with the media and ask them to reach out to their contacts to help publicize the map. Create a Google Doc where these colleagues can draft a short introductory text that they can each use when reaching out. This keeps the messaging consistent. Obviously, make as much use of social media as possible to get your message out.

Another piece of advice on the strategy side is to really think through the purpose of the live map and to find a niche. A generic or vague description is simply not compelling. Think through the comparative advantage that you and your partners have in launching a live map. We didn’t have any partnerships with official responders, for example. So I decided to “rebrand” our efforts and added a new tag line: “For Ordinary People Helping Ordinary People” and added a “Clean Up Efforts” category. In addition, I added a succinct rationale for the project in the text box above the map: “Disaster responders cannot be everywhere at the same time. The purpose of this site is to help ordinary people help themselves.”

On a related note, provide a very simple way for people to understand how they can use the map. We borrowed the graphic below from an earlier deployment (Snowmageddon NY) and added it to the Recovery Map. The point here is not to assume that new users of the map will necessarily know how to leverage the information displayed. Don’t make them have to figure it out. Make it easy and intuitive.

Next, promote the use of smart phone apps as early as possible in the launch of your live map. Publicize these on the home page and provide the necessary links to download the apps as well as a Google Doc like this one on how to make best use of these apps when reporting information to the map.

Finally, make sure you have an “About Us” section. If would-be users have no idea who is behind the initiative, they are far more likely to hesitate in using the site. Be sure to list all the organizations in your broad coalition of partners working on the initiative. This not only recognizes individuals who are working around the clock, it also helps to increase the credibility and trustworthiness of the project.

On the technology side, Ushahidi needs to make an embed map function directly available on every Ushahidi deployment. This is important because having other websites embed the map (particularly media websites) helps to spread the word and extend the credibility of the efforts. Ushahidi also needs to make a wide range of standard icons directly available from the backend of the platform. The shape of the map on the home page should also be modifiable from the backend. In terms of the smart phone apps, Ushahidi should have a feature that displays the download links directly on the home page.

There were at least 3 other live maps (powered by Ushahidi) that were launched in response to Hurricane Irene. One of these is particularly noteworthy given that it was launched by the Office of Emergency Management of New York City. The NYC Severe Weather Map above is thus definitely a first in this respect. We’ve worked with the NYC team over the past few days to make modifications to their Crowdmap and look forward the team’s feedback after the recovery efforts.

Update: We’ve connected the Office of Emergency Management  with Mobile Commons who have set up an SMS number for the map which WNYC and The New York Times are starting to promote. Text IRENE to 877877.

QR Codes, also known as 2Dimensional barcodes, are evolving as part of an emerging trend called ‘the internet of things’ which describes the augmentation of real-world objects and locations with meta-data that is stored in computer networks.

Using some sort of sensing device, usually a camera, a computing device effectively scans a code and decrypts whatever values it might contain. This can be used to store messages, links or small files — to the tune of around a few thousand bytes. If you put a QR code on an apple, you’ve essentially turned that apple into a real-world data storage device.

So those are the basics of what they are, below we’ll explore how they can be used for disaster response.

But First the Checkin

With Crowdmap Checkins, Ushahidi introduced an open source platform for semi-social location sharing. But the value in disasters is simple, the user performs a very quick physical movement to log data as opposed to taking 5 minutes to fill out a report. In other words, it’s quick and relatively frictionless to do. But I don’t want you think so much about location, think about the function. Quick data capture. That’s what checkins offer, and similarly QR codes can be used to do the same.

If you think of the QR code as an abstraction of a function (the act of checking in) then it can play the same role, as well others (because it carries more data). Rather than clicking a button in an application, all a user needs to do is scan the code with a smart device and the hidden data inside is revealed. Not to mention the fact that any physical object can become the storing device for this data.

Assumptions

Now, the consideration of using such technology in disaster scenarios relies upon a couple of assumptions. One, that smart devices are available and in use. Two, that a sufficient data connection is available. Three, that a printing device is available and portable. Four, that security is not a huge concern as a well placed Sharpie marker could completely disrupt your plans.

Potential Uses

QR Codes and the Ushahidi Platform
View more presentations from Ushahidi

Okay so we’ve covered the why and the why not, what about the acute uses?

• Instructions, messages, or media can be coupled with objects as QR or shortcodes
• Triggers a remote process (real-world API call).
• Triggers a process on the device itself.
• Carry information about the device itself.
• Authentication. Code can serve as an identification measure.

Those are a few of the ideas I came up with. The most interesting to me are encoding functions and processes in the code that are unlocked when scanned. More on this in a future post.

I should add that this post is an exercise in thought, and not something we’re actively working on, although It would be pretty cool.

As I have noted in this blog post and this one, the launch of this crisis map for Libya has been a very different experience on the use of the Ushahidi platform in Haiti. But there are at least three other important points worth noting from the perspective of Ushahidi.

First, the Ushahidi team did not need to provide any technical support to the Task Force. Contrast this with the Haiti deployment where virtually all of Ushahidi’s software developers were literally working around the clock for four weeks straight to keep the platform afloat because a considerable amount of customization was required on the fly. This time around, a larger technical community was available to play an instrumental role as the Task Force’s Tech Team: George Chamales, Chris Roblee, John Etherton, Aaron Huslage, Rob Munro and Brian Hogg, for example. The platform was also a lot more robust this time around.

Second, the customizations for Haiti had to be done from scratch. But thanks to the new version of the Ushahidi platform released just a few months ago, the Task Force’s Tech Team was able to use a number of plugins (or apps) like the “Big Map” plugin developed by the Ushahidi-Liberia Team in Monrovia. It turns out that our colleagues at OCHA are using the Big Map interface almost exclusively because it provides the functionalities they need to carry out some comparative analysis of the data, which simply can’t be done from the main map. At this point, a total of seven different plugins have been added to the map, more may be coming in the coming days.

Third, Ushahidi the company did not get confused for a humanitarian or human rights organization, which happened in Haiti. We made it very clear that this was not an Ushahidi Inc project, as the tweet below attests. Remember, the Ushahidi platform can be used to map all kinds of events and infrastructure, not just conflict. Check out this Burger Map of the US if you don’t believe me.

If you’d like to help out with the crisis mapping efforts in Libya or future crisis mapping efforts, please follow this link. The Task Force is composed of skilled professionals, including humanitarian professionals who are new to crisis mapping. If you have no experience, you will get hands on training from the most experienced volunteers. This is a great way to learn new marketable skills and help the world at the same time.

Finally, it is worth noting that the success of this deployment has a lot to do with the fact that the Task Force already had trained volunteers on standby and clear processes as well as workflows. In other words, the Task Force has worked hard on getting the non-technical requirements addressed rather than focusing exclusively on the technology. As Chris Blow, a long time friend of Ushahidi’s put it in a previous post, the Ushahidi platform is only 10% of the solution.

I can definitely say that the field of crisis mapping has come a long way since the Haiti deployment. Why? Because we are focusing on people and processes first (all the other stuff) and technology second. As the technology gets easier and easier to use, the success of an Ushahidi deployment will fall increasingly on how well groups fare with all the other stuff they need to do to make their project successful.

As director of crisis mapping at Ushahidi, I catalyze crisis mapping efforts, share best practices and lessons learned, catalyze volunteer technical communities like the Standby Task Force, and interface with the humanitarian, human rights and media communities. This experience is particularly insightful for Ushahidi, we get important feedback on what works and doesn’t work, both on the technical and non-technical side. The lessons we learn from these deployments allow us to provide even better services to organizations we formally partner with. This is becoming increasingly important given our stated strategic goals for 2011.

During a crisis situation, groups looking to use Ushahidi often need additional support beyond the software itself e.g. paying for hosting, supporting volunteers, SMS costs, etc. To this end, we’re engaging with GlobalGiving to help fund such groups.

What is the Global Giving Open Challenge?

“The Challenge is for participants to generate donations for their projects between September 1, 2010 (0000 hrs, EDT) and September 30, 2010 (2359 hrs, EDT).

Any project that is able to meet the challenge threshold of raising $4,000 from at least 50 separate donors will be invited to stay on at GlobalGiving. These projects will be eligible to continue receiving donations from the general public, private and corporate foundations through GlobalGiving and take advantage of GlobalGiving’s fundraising tools and services. “

Why the Ushahidi Rapid Response Fund is needed

Ushahidi needs a rapid response fund for deployments in response to major crises. The ability of groups (often volunteers) to respond quickly is considerably slowed as a result . While the technology itself is free, funds are needed for the non-tech side for instance, to do media outreach, to disseminate information by SMS, to set up a free short-code, to pay for a hosted server, and provide a space and some food for volunteers to work.

Examples abound for this type of work, including most recently the work by volunteer groups in Pakistan with the floods, the Mozambique riots and in Russia with the fires. Many times these groups don’t need very much money, it’s free software and volunteers who run it. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t costs that slow their response down though, and our goal is to overcome that challenge.

In a hot-flash crisis, every minute counts. We appreciate your assistance with this fund.

You can also help by spreading the word to people you know who can help (buttons are found here).

Random Hacks of Kindness Nairobi Kenya RHoK

Welcome to the iHub. This place was created for hackers to come together and make cool stuff. As you can tell, it’s brand new with construction still under way. However, we’ve had a fair number of events happen here.

I can say that I’ve never been so proud as to hold an event here as I am of this one. You represent the spirit of everything that the iHub and Ushahidi stand for.

Jessica Colaco and Linda Kamau lead the Ushahidi and iHub teams for this event. They, along with David, Joshua, Lillian and Angie put this together and will be available to you over the weekend for any questions.

Thank you for coming.

Pothole theory

Think of this when you build: you care about the pothole on your street, not the one 3 streets over. What fits your needs? What makes sense? What would you and your friends use?

That’s what we did right here in Kenya 2 years ago with Ushahidi. Ushahidi, as we all know means “testimony” in Swahili. It’s a simple web-based platform that allows anyone with a phone, email or the web to send in messages about what’s going on around them in a time. We call this crowdsourcing crisis information.

Here’s a video of how it worked in Haiti recently.

Ushahidi Haiti from Ushahidi on Vimeo.

There’s a problem definition for Random Hacks about human sensing. If everything else looks too simple, take a look at it, and then at SwiftRiver, built to solve some of these same issues.

What is RHoK?

Some of you don’t know quite what to expect today, tonight and tomorrow. It kind of sounds cool, but really, what is this whole thing about?

Let me tell you.

It’s not just you. We’re just the Nairobi pod of this global event that brings together almost 1000 programmers, designers and geeks from 6 nations: Australia, England, Indonesia, Brasil, America and of course Kenya.

It’s not just you. You’ll be teaming up with others in this room to come up with simple solutions to complex problems. A lot can be done in 48 hours, imagine what you can do with a few other people just as dedicated as you are.

It’s not just you. The problems you’re solving are for the world. The best apps and hacks are those that effect millions of people. Because, at the end of the day, Random Hacks is about solving big global crisis and disaster problems, using the power of technology.

You might think that you’re just laying down a simple line of code. This isn’t the case.

You are building applications that saves lives, speed recovery and something that just might make the world a better place.

Problem Definitions:

• WeHaveWeNeed Application
• Information Sharing/Situational Awareness Application
• Haiti AMP
• Coordinated Response/Diaspora
• People-Finder
• Credibility of the Human Sensor
• Near Real-Time UAV Imagery Processing
• CERTS
• The money tracker

The Drawing Together Campaign

(Thanks to Nathan Felde for these banners and buttons to be used to help spread the word about the mapping campaigns and get this data out and open)

“Drawing Together” seeks to enlist a community of interest for Haiti, to create maps, of the people, by the people and for the people, using the tools and resources of ushahidi.com and azarask.in/projects/haiti.

Challenge

Prior to the earthquake Haiti was already in dire need of vital information about its people and resources to better govern itself and plan its future. Adequate maps of school and clinic locations were not readily available, even to policy makers.

An atlas / catalog / directory of information, services and resources is needed; a shared reference document with which to mediate a common understanding of local and national goals, activities and priorities.

Response

Our belief is that maps with immediate value to relief workers can be enhanced, improved and enriched to have an ongoing and increasing value across a broader scope of Haitian interests.

Lessons drawn from the conversations this mapping generates can inform and enable collaborative work for years to come in building a just and sustainable society, culture, economy and ecology in Haiti and beyond.

Need

The initial and growing community mapping the crisis created by the January 2010 earthquake is a valuable resource for this continued mapping of the needs and resources of Haiti.

Just as this recent crisis has drawn people quickly together to share in drawing a map of an epic calamity, our hope is that many more people will draw inspiration from that work and continue to enrich these maps to increase our shared awareness of Haiti’s longer term needs and resources.

Call to Action

We solicit engagement from all interested in Haiti’s success to join in community with this nation and its diaspora to begin this important task.

More graphics:

The past 20 hours have been sad, exhausting and inspiring. Sad for obvious reasons. Exhausting because many of us have been working straight through with no sleep. But inspiring because of the incredible community of Crisis Mappers.

Here’s what been happening in the community:

• Ushahidi launched a Haiti deployment
• Mikel Maron at OpenStreetMap launched this Wiki
• Andrew Turner at GeoCommons is updating CrisisCommons
• Our friends at Sahana have set up a Development Team
• Sahana has also set up a Wiki here
• Our InSTEDD friends set up a GeoChat instance
• Our friends at MapAction have deployed a team
• Einar Bjorgo at UNOSAT is keeping us posted on imagery

InSTEDD is also working on getting +46 numbers for GeoChat, the Emergency Information Service (EIS) and Ushahidi. InSTEDD is also in Santo Domingo deploying EIS. Sahana is exploring the possibility of integrating GeoChat based on some work they did at Camp Roberts a few months ago. InSTEDD is also looking to start testing a Sahana/Mesh4X sync. There are several dozen other ongoing efforts but hard to keep track.

http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/index.html
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/help
http://crisiscommons.org/wiki/index.php?title=Haiti/2010_Earthquake#Data

I first heard about the major earthquake around 7:30pm (Boston time) last night and immediately called David Kobia to get an Ushahidi deployment out. I have five close friends from The Fletcher School who have been in Haiti over the past two weeks and it wasn’t until midnight that I finally got word that they were alive.

What happened between 7:30pmm and midnight was inspiring. We went live with a basic deployment within half an hour. I called Chris Blow and got in touch with Brian Herbert. They both worked with David to continue the customization.

I then reached out to our colleagues with the International Network of Crisis Mappers (CM*Net), and their response has been superb. We’ve had over 50 emails back and forth, sharing data, maps, local contact info with regular updates.

Our colleagues from UN OCHA/Colombia were invaluable in helping us identify the appropriate indicators as were many others on CM*Net. OCHA had just carried out an earthquake simulation exercise using their own customized version of Ushahidi so were fully ready to go. They worked directly on the admin side to help us push forward. So many thanks to Jeffrey Villaveces and Luis Aguilar.

At around 3am, our Nairobi team took over with customization and we had an 8am all team meeting to assess the current deployment and evolving situation in Haiti. We now have an international number up for SMS and are working with our colleagues at InSTEDD and at CM*Net to set up a local number as well.

On a personal note, it’s just been remarkable to see so many of the organizations who participated in the International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM) collaborate so pro-actively together. It was also somewhat surreal when someone from Haiti signed up to CM*Net and in their bio wrote:

“I’m in Baudin, Haiti right now ( 18.307606° -72.709935°) so won’t have cell phone service until it comes back but can be reached then at 509-3-823-6859 or michael.ritter2@gmail.com.”

I quickly added Michael to the CrisisMappers Google Group and he has been providing is some valuable information since.

Reports

Note, we’re getting a fair number of Twitter messages, but not all of them are useful reports at this time. Mobile networks are down, so the SMS reports are almost nothing. Web-based reports that are coming in seem to be of good quality, as are the few email reports we’re getting.

Special Thanks

We’re getting slammed by a bunch of traffic on the site. A big thanks goes out to Jonathan and his team at Cartika Hosting who have helped us stay up all along, have migrated servers for us and spent hours on the phone. Thanks guys!

Organizations helping to get the word out about the Haiti site:

Wall Street Journal
Google Relief
Clinton Foundation
UNDP
Cartika forums
Washington Post
Global Voices
ReliefWeb
The Guardian
New York Times Lede blog

Being a developer on Ushahidi has meant that I’ve spent most of my time behind the computer, writing and perfecting new code. It was great to have the opportunity to engage with the people who are involving Ushahidi in their projects. Organizations as big as the UN and the World Bank and as small as an activist group in Phoenix, AZ have seen the value that Ushahidi can provide. Without performing a scientific survey, I came to the conclusion that roughly half of the participants at the conference are either looking at or have already implemented Ushahidi as an integral part of their projects.

In a traditional non-profit, fundraisers will fundraise, marketers will market and developers will develop. While it’s difficult to break down these roles entirely (a fundraiser may not be able to write software), Ushahidi does its best to give core staff and volunteers a wide range of responsibilities. For instance, we are encouraged to engage the public through our blog, IRC chat and forums, regardless of our position. Beyond virtual conversation, we are also given opportunities to interact face-to-face with the people who will ultimately be operating with our software in the field through conferences like ICCM. These interactions with our customers help to give us software developers a better understanding of how our software will be used in the field.