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“NetHope’s Open Humanitarian Initiative (OHI)”Gisli Olafsson, Emergency Response Director, NetHope, Inc.

September 12, 2013

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Presentation and discussion on NetHope’s OHI:

• OHI’s mission, key focus areas, and future plans for enhancing incident management information sharing technology and capacity building;

• NetHope’s experiences with partnership building, stakeholder engagement, and critical areas of governance and planning; and

• Exploration of how NetHope’s experiences can inform your organization’s initiatives/activities.

Information about the NISC:

• Mission, strategic goals, and activities; and

• Diverse member community and how to join.

OVERVIEW

This is NetHope

Open Humanitarian Initiative

Bringing humanitarian responseto the network age

Why?

• Having access to the right information during humanitarian response can mean the difference between life and death.

• Information and communication access is a basic need.

• We must not only share information with each other, but more importantly with the affected communities.

http://unocha.org/HINA

The Problems

• Willingness to share• Need for attributionPolitical

• Lack of data standards• Information stuck in silos• Investment in existing systems

Technical

• Lack of trained information managers• Inability to provide value quickly to

shared dataCapacity

How?

• Define common goals to aim for

• Bring together all the actors required

• Drive funding towards this important aspect

OHA

OHF

OHI

The Main Pieces of the Puzzle

• Five year initiative focused on bringing the concepts of open data and increased transparency into the humanitarian space

• Enabling affected communities to be part of the information loop• Build a platform for information to flow between existing systems

Open Humanitarian Initiative (OHI)

• Bringing together all of the actors needed to make an impact• Humanitarian Response Organizations, Academia, Private Sector, and

Governments• Provides strategic direction for the initiative

Open Humanitarian Alliance (OHA)

• A multi-donor fund modeled after the HIF that projects working towards the vision of the OHI

Open Humanitarian Fund (OHF)

Key principles

• Participant drive effort• Help existing efforts scale rather than

reinventing the wheel• Not everyone has to participate in every

effort, but rather choses areas of focus• Broad public-private partnership• Aim for impact!

What?

Open Humanitarian

Initiative

Open Humanitarian

Knowledge Platform

Humanitarian System

Interoperability

Technology Enabled

Humanitarian Decision Making

Information Management

Training

Humanitarian Innovation

Teams

Technology Enabled

Community Driven

Response

We will create task forces

OHI Project Committee

Knowledge Platform Task

Force

Inter-operability Task Force

Innovation Team Task

Force

Information Management Training Task

Force

Big Data / Mobile Data Task Force

Technology Enabled

Community Response Task Force

Technology Enabled Decision

Making Task Force

Timeline

OHI Launch (Feb 2013)

OHA Launch (May 2013)

OHF Launch (Winter 2013)

1st International Conference on

Open Humanitarian Information

(2014)

Open Humanitarian Incubator (Feb 2013-Dec 2013)

QUESTIONS?

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• Launched June 2012• Founding Members

State of Oregon; Commonwealth of Virginia; State of California; City of Charlottesville, VA; City of Charlotte, NC

• Community Building Interest in bringing together emergency management, IT, GIS first responder,

and public safety communities across federal, regional, tribal, state, and local government

• Voluntary Information Sharing Governance documents, information sharing plans, standard operating

procedures, and software code/documentation, etc.

ABOUT THE NISC

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ABOUT THE NISC(cont.)

MISSIONBring together data owners, custodians, and users involved in the fields of homeland security, public safety, and emergency management and response to leverage efforts related to governance, development, and sharing of technology, data processes, and best practices.

VISION• Common, shared situational awareness capabilities will exist in every state,

territory, and the District of Columbia.• Information will be found, discovered, and shared effortlessly across all

levels of government.• Every community across the nation will be resilient in the face of disaster

or emergency.

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STRATEGIC GOALS

• GOAL 1: Enhance national situational awareness capabilities

• GOAL 2: Enhance and standardize national information sharing capabilities by maximizing access to and the use of available data

• GOAL 3: Provide support to EMAC and mutual aid efforts across the nation

• GOAL 4: Sustain the NISC as an independent consortium

Download the 2013-2017 NISC Strategic Plan at www.nisconsortium.org

ABOUT THE NISC(cont.)

17For a complete list of NISC member organizations, go to www.nisconsortium.org

ELIGIBLE MEMBERS • First responders• GIS practitioners• State/local/tribal

emergency management information & communications officers

• Mission-critical NGOs

• Private partners• Civic leaders• Federal agencies

ABOUT THE NISC(cont.)

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Education & Training

• Events— Monthly Webinars— Educational Seminars— NISC Annual Summit

• Technical Assistance— Brokerage of subject

matter expertise

Collaboration Space

• Initiative-focused Work Groups

• Member Working Groups— Discipline focused— Topic focused— Solutions focused

• Practitioner-developed Resources— Sample MOAs/templates— Trainings— Policy/guidance documents— Lessons learned

• NISC-curated Resources— Best practices analyses, fact

sheets, tip sheets— Case studies— Aggregated information

• Technology Store and Data Pipeline— Application code— Data sets— Downloadable

applications

(limited or unlimited sharing; unlimited publish or limited publish)

Resource Exchange

Three major areas of activity:

WHAT THE NISC BRINGS TO YOU

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• PERSPECTIVE—as a practitioner, no one is better positioned to convey the needs, experiences, and priorities of our sector. You are the voice of the NISC.

• KNOWLEDGE—as a practitioner, no one is better positioned to provide lessons learned, case studies, and best practices to other stakeholders. You are the subject matter experts.

• SENSE OF COMMUNITY—as a practitioner, no one is better positioned to support other stakeholders who are vested in a universal, shared interest. You comprise the culture.

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE NISC

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• Members join on behalf of their organization• Members are required to sign the NISC Memorandum of

Agreement• Sharing of any resource, data set, or technology code is

completely voluntary

TO JOIN Review membership categories at www.nisconsortium.org Request MOA: e-mail info@nisconsortium.org or use on

website Sign and submit MOA to info@nisconsortium.org

JOIN US!