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.
Like Mr. Meier said, it is very important for us to understand what crisis mapping was like back then for us to understand and appreciate what it is like today. I cant even imagine what it was like one hundred years ago when the radios were too big to even carry so they had to send messengers most likely on horse back to convey to messages to the people they were trying to get in contact with. And who knows if that messenger would even reach the person in time or better yet even alive if it was in a time of a disaster or a war. Today, we are so reliant upon technology that we forget what it was like back then and we should be more appreciates of it. We take way to many things for granitite now a days. Crisis mapping has evolved so much over the years its almost like night and day. But this is not just with crisis mappings, its with all our technologies. Just think, how many things do we use today that we would use one hundred years ago? Almost nothing besides the basics of living. Another things that we were fortunate to have was Mr. Meier speak with us. He is probably the most qualified person we could have spoken with about crisis mapping. I mean, him and his friends created Ushahidi in his friends basement. How amazing is that? He also like you said, stressed the importance of volunteers. He urged us to get involved in any way possible and stressed that without volunteers, non of this crisis mapping would be able to take place. The world needs these people and we are grateful to have them. Who knows were we would be today without great volunteers that work countless hours for no pay and ask nothing in return. They are the true heroes.
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