Assigned Blog #8

This week’s speaker presented to the class via Skype. Patrick Meier is one of the creators of crisis mapping Ushahidi. He also has quit the background including; co-director of Harvard University’s Crisis Mapping and Early Warning Program and thought leader for technologies for crisis and early warning. He is also very educated with a Phd from The Fletcher School, a MA from Columbia University, and is an accomplished author. His theme today was- saving the world one map at a time. 

He started the presentation off by talking about what the crises mapping was like over 100 years ago. They had carries on motor bikes to share information with each other. Radios were much too large to carry around, which is why they had to resort to messengers on battle fields and while responding to disasters or whatever they called disaster response over 100 years ago. He said to best understand today’s mapping technologies we should understand what mapping was like years ago.

Like I said in recent blogs; I can’t believe Ushahidi was developed by a bunch of Pat’s friends in his living room in Boston. When the earthquake struck Haiti, half of Haiti was missing on Google maps. He was able to us crowd source and create the rest of the missing map. He showed us a sweet video to better understand how hundreds of volunteers were able to use satellite imagery to create a detailed open street map of Port of Prince.

He and his friend from Stanford were able to create Mission 4636. They were able to receive thousands of texts pleading for help. A big problem was that a majority of the texts were coming in Haitian Creel. Luckily Pat’s friend was able to gather hundreds of volunteers to translate the messages. There were so many people willing to volunteer their time to translate messages; they were able to translated about 80,000 texts messages. They became so efficient at translating; the turnaround time for each text message was around ten minutes.

Mr. Meier said we could have all the technologies in the world, but without the trained volunteers, none of it would exist. A big part of what he does requires a lot of volunteer help. He also mentioned the stand by task force group and how much of a help they are, and how they train the volunteers to use certain technologies used in disaster responses.   

He also shared this quote with us, I thought it was relevant to the project he created Ushahidi. -

“Having a real time- map, complete with satellite photos, if where everyone at any one moment is almost as good as having your own helicopter”

His question to us was; can there be a technology where multiple people affected or witnessing a disaster are able to share information with others via cell phone, video, or pictures. I also if people around here would volunteer their time much like the volunteers of Ushahidi did, if a disaster struck around here.

Inspired Blog #4

I recently read the article that Dr. Tapia sent to use about the Taliban use Twitter. I wasn’t surprised at all that the Taliban has resorted to using Twitter as source of communication. Think about it, millions of people use the social media network and I am sure it is a very difficult talk to track specific tweets. The opening statement was “Bits of Information- not just bullets and bombs- are in the thick of fighting in Afghanistan.” Basically I think this means that not only are we fighting against weapons but also information.

                At some point the United States forces (probably the CIA) has begun to think that they were losing the informational war on terrorism against the Taliban in Afghanistan. They were able to regroup and fight back with Twitter by “using those brisk 140-character messages to get out the other side of the story.” I guess they were able to resort to twitter and track Taliban members along with other useful information to gain an upper hand in the war on terrorism. A Lieutenant Colonel had said that the Taliban has starting putting out false information, probably to mislead the United States. He said eventually they had to stop fallowing every lead they got until they knew for sure that it was true or they had resources to back it up. The Lieutenant said they now use social media to find information because it is quick and cheap. I am not exactly sure that I would use twitter or any other social media network has a reliable source of information though, couldn’t the Taliban tweet false information to mislead their followers?

                The answer is actually easy, in the case the United States Forces isn’t using Twitter to peruse the enemy. We are simply correcting their false tweets. Here is was is going on; there are several followers to a Taliban tweet group. And this group, for whatever reason, will tweet false information, like they just “shot down an American Helo.” When in fact they never did shoot down a helicopter, so this group from the United States then verifies the information and tweets back saying something like “we have no missing helicopters or reports of down helicopters. There is a group from the public affair office that monitors the Taliban tweets all day so they can respond to any false information that is tweeted.

                After reading this article part of me thinks it is a little ridiculous to pay a bunch of people to sit in a room so they can monitor and respond to false information the Taliban is tweeting. But then the other side of me thinks that the United States isn’t just monitoring this information so we can correct it, but because we can use the location of the tweets or use some of the information to track certain terrorist or wanted individuals.

                It won’t surprise me to see terrorist use social media networks more in the future now that cell phones and internet is more readily available to them. I think it would be a dumb move on their part to start using more social media networks, making it easier for the United States to fallow them and ultimately capturing them.

Assigned Blog #7

I wasn’t able to make to this week’s class and hear this week’s speaker. So, I decided to blog about what I have read about Edward Granger-Happ and his work. I learned that Mr. Edward Happ is the Global CEO for the Red Cross humanitarian organization. Mr. Edward Happ also is also working with Red Crescent Societies. He has recently helped with humanitarian needs in Haiti. All-together he has over thirty-plus years of professional experience.

From what I have read about in the class blogs, it sounds like Mr. Happ spoke about humanitarian organizations needing invest in more up-to-date technologies, much like the majority of the rest of our speakers. Thus far, all of our speakers have said that humanitarian organizations are lacking in communication technologies. It is difficult for organizations to know who needs help, where they need help, and what exactly they need help with during a disaster. Some people think Facebook and Twitter would be a great resource to allow people call out for help. This might not be such a great idea using these social networks. Like we discussed in the class a couple of times, there are always people who will falsify information to get what they want. For example; if someone’s house is destroyed and they think one of their family members are trapped inside, they could tweet their location and that they have a family member trapped inside, even though they aren’t really sure if anyone is actually trapped inside. If everyone is tweeting they need help, it is almost impossible for the responders to decide who actually needs the help and who is falsifying information. I feel like this type of example is a situation that would automatically rule out using social networks for people to call out for help.

On the other hand, these types of social networks could be used for humanitarian organizations to “check-in” to places. When an organization like NetHope is in a disaster location trying to coordinate response efforts, they tends to be so many organizations in the area trying to help that it seems to be nearly impossible for organization like NetHope to coordinate who is where and what they are doing. With social networks like twitter and facebook, the organization would be able to “check-in” where they are at and what they are doing. This would make NetHope or anybody who is coordinating response efforts jobs a lot easier.

I feel like I got a little off topic about Mr. Happ but I think it is important to know and understand that there are technologies they may or may not be out there that could significantly help the humanitarian organization in their response efforts.  I think the biggest problems are how can people call out for help when during a crisis or disaster? Do you think twitter and Facebook are an efficient source for people to call for help, or do you agree is seems nearly impossible to determine who would actually needs help and who is “crying wolf?”

I enjoyed watching some of the videos of Mr. Happ's channel on youtube. Below is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ehapp99?blend=5&ob=5



Assigned Blog #6

This week’s speaker was Mr. Andrew Alspach who was speaking on behalf of United Nation’s OCHA. OCHA’s main priority is information management, trying to manage information, save lives and reduce suffering in a disaster. He made it clear that he’s job is to coordinate different responses for different situations or disasters, his job isn’t responding to them. Andrew went into details on how managing communication and information for a disaster is their main goal and purpose. One example he gave was the amount of email’s they received during the earthquake that devastated Haiti. He said they were receiving about ten emails every minute. It was part of his job to make sure he knew what people needed, where they needed it, and who was responding. A major obstacle his group had to overcome was the fact that it was difficult for them to translate and understand the language the emails were written in. Thankfully there were many local and remote volunteers willing to dedicate their time and skills to help those who were in need.

At one point in Mr. Alspach’s presentation he said they are responsible for gathering, analyzing, and most importantly sharing information about the disaster. This information is disseminated throughout which ever humanitarian organizations are responding or helping. Just like our last speaker Mr. Olafsson for NetHope said, a lot of organizations aren’t willing to share information that would make responding more efficient. Andrew said that information in his line of work is the life and blood of his operations. Not only does it make Andrew and Gisili’s job hard when organizations aren’t sharing information, but in my opinion it is a shame. It’s a shame to think that these organizations are withholding very useful information so they could have an upper hand in their battle for publicity. Andrew said it’s difficult to know when organizations are hiding information, until it is too late. He also said there isn’t much the United Nation’s can do about it; has far as authority or reprimanding the organizations. He said at most they would stop funding the organization if they were purposely withholding information. I personally think laws or some kind of acts should be passed to make it illegal for humanitarian organizations to not share information with each other. The consequences should be more severe, not just a slap on the wrist. A time when people lives are at risk and people are suffering isn’t exactly a good time to be hiding information. Andrew showed some sort of a circular diagram that depicted his job. The diagram revolved around the people he had to deal with and the information he receives. First he had to convince the partners or organizations to share their information. He then has to manage the information and add value to it. Next he had to make sure the partners see benefits for providing information. I was sure if this benefit meant that the organizations see benefits, which I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, or if the people who needed help see the benefits. Finally the last part of the diagram was to disseminate the information quickly, to provide help to who ever needed help.

         Andrew had a lot to say during his presentation about the United Nations and OCHA. I noticed in his presentation and in Mr. Olafsson’s presentation a reoccurring problem. Organizations not sharing information with each other is the reoccurring problem I have been noticing and concerned with. We also discussed this problem in class a couple of times, which is why I decided to blog about it. My question to you is, do you think there should be punishment to the organizations not sharing information with each other?

Assigned Blog #5

Last week we listened to a speaker via teleconference and his name was Gisli Olanffson.  He is the Director of Emergency Management for NetHope and he spoke about the technologies used for emergency response.  He mentioned a few books and frequently references them throughout his presentation.  He also mentioned a book that I was specifically interested in, Wikinomics.  He said the book goes into great detail about how most of the humanitarian organizations were established during the industrial era.  He said that it is time for the older people (like him) to stop ignoring the new social technologies and take advantage them.  These new technologies can be used to modernize response efforts for disasters and crisis.  Mr. Olanffson also said the Wikinomics went into detail about “clusters.”  The book described a cluster model as begin basically different groups that want to help during disasters; groups that provided medical, construction, food supplies, etc.  The problem is there used to be six or seven health organizations that wanted to help and currently there are nearly six hundred of these groups that are offering their help.  The book stated that they need to “cluster” these groups and organizations together to provide a more efficient response.

Most of the presentation was Mr. Olanffson speaking about seven key terms. This first term was innovation and he explained how we need to have new innovated ways to respond to disasters.  Today, we are still using the old ways to respond to disasters and it is important that we explore new technological methods.  One of his examples was about his recent trip to Kenya were 63 percent of the population owned or used mobile phones.  The Kenyans get their food with paper vouchers that cost about $1.60 to print and Mr. Olanffson said they could get rid of the vouchers and use new mobile techniques and it would only cost 6 cents. 

His next key term was collaboration, which isn’t happening between humanitarian organizations and instead is causing disorganization and ciaos during responses.  It is a shame that these humanitarian organizations spend more time fighting for publicity on media networks when they should be spending time helping those who are in need.  It’s a shame these organizations are battling each other while people are suffering.  Openness was the next term Mr. Olanffson described and he stated that “the best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness…”.  I think he does a good job summarizing the terms openness collaboration.  Organizations should be open with each other and share information in order to provide the most efficient response to people in need. 

He also talked about interdependence and had a good suggestion about the clusters of organizations helping.  He said instead of sending separate specialized clusters all over, only one organization should cover a geographical area and then be held accountable for every need in that area.  Integrity was another important term Mr. Olanffson spoke about.  He said it is about doing the right thing when nobody is looking.  So, instead of the humanitarian organizations fighting for publicity when the cameras are around, they should be helping people.  Integrity would be helping people even when the camera isn’t rolling.

Last but not least, he spoke about sustainability.  He compared putting a band aid on a child to managing disasters; if you don’t educate the child on why they got hurt or how to prevent it, it is likely they will continuously need the band aid.  Much like a disaster or crises, if you don’t educate the people who were affected, it is likely you will have to go back and help them again. So, we need to spend time educating people after the fact, after the disaster.