Ushahidi by Far My Favorite

He started off very interesting by talking about the history of communicating.  He touched on how soldiers communicated during World War I, and how the radios were extremely large for soldiers to communicate so they referred to mirrors.  Then he jumped all the way to Ushahidi being used in Haiti.  Then he showed how it was created in his living room and the director of FEMA said Ushahidi was the most comprehensive map available. 
They started getting people from all over the world to help map all the information coming in about the situations on the ground in Haiti.  He then said Google Maps didn’t have half of the capital of Haiti so they used Open Street Map.  Then he showed an animation of the process of creating the map, very impressive.

They got Mission 4636, because they contacted Digi-Cell for a free SMS code so people could text Ushahidi.  They then got a whole bunch of people to help translate the messages from Creole to English, so they got over 1200 volunteers.  I liked that they looked at the correlation of text messages and damage caused by the earthquake, and there is a strong correlation. 

I extremely enjoyed how he used case studies to see how things were done during the aftermath and the response to what happened in Haiti.  Then he touched on some of the studies that were done by other people after the Haiti earthquake.  One very interesting one was the locations of cell phones right before the earthquake compared to after to see the movement of the cell phones as crowds move. 

Overall I have to say that this presentation was my favorite in the series.  I liked the whole initiative thing the group took to start helping out with Haiti.  It was definitely a humanitarian effort for sure, it was caring for people you will most likely never meet.  However, they had a huge impact on the whole humanitarian community because even the UN made references to the maps Ushahidi was using.  THE UN PEOPLE, the UN ended up using the techniques and technologies that were used by non-profit organizations in future disasters.  Imagine that people the UN stepped out of their old comfort zone to help people and holy smokes it worked. 

This impressed me, this being Ushahidi, by far the coolest thing ever.  Check out this video that illustrates the mapping project/process that was possible by yours truly Ushahidi. 

Check this out! Sorry the video is not embeded but watch this.

This was all done because of some initiative people in a living room took.  Awesome what people can accomplish in so little time.   

Edward Happ Blog Post

I would like to thank Edward Happ the Global CIO of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Chairman of NetHope.  Take a look at his website and look at some of the videos he has linked to at the bottom of his page.  I found his lecture to be the most interesting so far in the series of guest speakers for SRA 397A.  I feel that he was more effective than the first two speakers.  He was effective because he used life stories, but he should have tied a lesson to that story.  I feel that these speakers are yes qualified in their respective fields, but they are not good teachers.  I just learn stuff that we go over in class, this is my biggest criticism of the speakers we are having come in to talk.  I do get a lot out of these speakers, it’s just not something we didn’t really talk about in class before the speaker series started

One part of his lecture that I liked was when he talked about the Eight Information Challenges in need of dire solutions.  He talked about how the following topics that needed solutions:

Relevance- is it actionable?

Verification and Authentication- is it true or is it a hoax?

Duplication- Has this already been dealth with?

Access- Do the most vulnerable have the tools?

Privacy- is confidentiality respected? Security risks?

Expectations- are we creating unrealistic expectations?

Impact- converting data into aid delivery?

Proximity- understanding new proximity dynamics

I find that some of these are repeat issues from earlier classes and speakers but I feel that this has more direction as to where the solutions need to be made and what needs changed. 

I believe that Verification and Authentication is very important to responding to disasters because you don’t want to send man power to help someone and that person is not there.  This can be solved by having a lot of man power on the ground but that is difficult to organize sometimes well it seems to be a trend with disaster response. 

Duplication is another really big issue because you don’t want to try to redo something that has already been done.  Like my dad and grand father always told me and still tell me, Do it right the first time so you don’t have to do it again.  Something like that so you don’t have to redo anything because it is a waste of time and resources. 

Impact is critical because you have to be able to translate data you are receiving into aid.  How you do that well I believe that is a good project idea I think I will claim this idea as mine, so if you read this don’t take my idea.  I believe that if you want to give aid, you have to be very quick in the turn around from the time you receive the message or information until the time you translate it (if applicable) until the time you dispatch aid workers. 

Andrew Alspach: Where Good Ideas Come From!

I found, Mr. Andrew Alspach to be a very interesting individual who comes from a farm in Ohio.  I will forgive him for being an Ohio State fan.  I liked that he didn’t go right to college, something I almost wish I didn’t do so I figured out what I wanted to do with my life instead of figuring it out as I go through college. 

I think it was very ironic the story he told about how he interviewed with the Peace Corps and they denied him because he didn’t have a college degree.  However, they said if they have a special skill set like a beekeeper there would be a place for him in the Peace Corps.  Well low and behold; he was the beekeeper on the farm he grew up on.  Then he went on to become part of the United Nations (UN).

Mr. Alspach mentioned his work in development, and then he made a comment about how long term and short term goals should be present in a disaster effort and in decision making.  I agreed with him when he mentioned that most disaster relief aid decision making does not usually involve the long term, but just focuses on fixing short term issues.  This is a critical part in disaster relief in my opinion because, it requires critical thinking and understanding the countries already political, economic, and social situation of that country in need.  The decision making process in disaster relief projects, needs to keep in mind of the reconstruction of the area if it needs it.  If you do not consider those things in your plans then sometimes the relief efforts you are doing just might hurt the process. 

The information management circle chart that he showed with the eleven different sections of Emergency Relief that some NGOs have to worry about, made me think, Why do they have one person over seeing all of them.  I believe that for each of the eleven sections (water, protection, nutrition, logistics, health, emergency telecommunications, emergency shelter, education, early recovery, camp coordination and management, and agriculture) should all have their own coordinators that reports to a head person or head team.  I think if there is a team there would be better results in times of crises because one individual might get over whelmed with everything that is going on. 

Finally, I would like to add that I found the video he showed done by Steven Johnson to be 1) extremely effective in how it delievered its message, 2) very creative, 3) very cool, 4) right on the money.  Take a look at it and tell me what you think of this video and not just that it is cool, but do you agree with some of the things he says?

NetHope Blog Post

First I would like to say thank you to the Emergency Response Director of NetHope, for speaking to the SRA 397A class on 3 October 2011 via a video conference.  It was quite interesting for my first guest speaker through video conference.  I do have to say that the audio was the major issue for us tonight, I guess it goes to show how communication can even be an issue in a country without any large disaster issues at the current place and time. 

I asked the question, You have been involved with many disaster response missions throughout the world, in your opinion which one tested NetHope’s capability and effectiveness the most, and why?

His response was not a surprise to me, he said Haiti was the most difficult disaster to deal with, very difficult.  One road block to starting the recovery process was that two of the top UN officials who were already in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, are now dead.  They died in the earthquake and some other UN representatives who were there were searching for loved ones.  This caused the UN to be down and slow to get going after the initial shock of the earthquake. 

However, organizations like NetHope, who when they arrived created a wireless network using long range wifi that connected all NGO offices.  This allowed for better communications between all the NGOs that responded to the natural disaster in Haiti.  He did continue to speak about how NetHope set up these academies where they take computer science students and train them to their standards, giving them internships and chances to start working as local staff.

He talked about a few things my favorite was the part on innovation.  He made a good point, but I also find it to be common sense.  If you want to use technology in disaster response you have to be willing to get rid of the piece of technology that worked for you the last disaster for a new and improved system or piece of technology.  The bad thing that FEMA did is that they put a water distribution center in the middle of a Wal-mart parking lot that just reopened its doors. 

A good way to be innovative would be in the famine area of Africa most of the refugees have cell phones.  The NGOs print these vouchers for the people to eat, but the cost to print these vouchers is $1.60/voucher.  If you have 100,000 refugees that is $160,000 worth of vouchers, however if you use mobile technology for people to receive vouchers it only costs $0.03/voucher equaling out to cost only $3,000.  This would save NGOs $157,000 per 100,000 refugees.  This to me is one of the things I might want to do my final project on, creating ways to save money in how they hand out food vouchers in areas where many refugees or survivors have cell phones. 

In the video below it talks about how NetHope lost 15 students in the Haiti Earthquake.  They are providing technical training and internships to humanitarian staff and unemployed youth in developing countries.  This is great on multiple levels within the international community.  They teach the students practical experience so they can fix real life problems.