CrisisCommons:

New/Social Media and Emergencies

Brian Chick, David Black, Heather Leson and Melanie Gorka

Canadian Red Cross,Provincial Emergency Management Conference (Ontario) November 10, 2010

The New Volunteers

CrisisCamp Toronto

Our New Volunteers

• Intro to Social Media, Disaster Response and You

• How Does Crisis Commons Operate

• In’s and out’s of the Tools and Apps

• Pro’s and Con’s - Looking to the future

Evolution

1995 Kobe earthquake – limited ability

2001 9/11 – Listservs, What’s going on?

2004 – Indian Ocean Tsunami – Blogs, Sahana,

2005 – Hurricane Katrina –People Finder, Wiki, Twitter

2008 – Hurricane Gustav – Mapping, 500 ppl in 48 hrs

2009 – CrisisCommons created

2010 – Haiti, Chile, China quakes, Gulf Oil Spill, Pakistan Floods, Crisis Commons Global Congress

Supporters/Collaborators

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing

CrisisCamp Argentina

Crowdsourcing

FOSS

Free

Open

Source

Software

CrisisCamp Bogota

Volunteer Technical Communities (VTCs)

Who are the VTCs?

• Sahana Foundation

• Ushahidi, Swift River and Crowdmap

• OpenStreetMap

• Frontline SMS

• Crisismappers

• Random Hacks of Kindness

• CrisisCommons

• Geeks without Bounds

• And many more

CrisisCommons/CrisisCamps

• What is a hackathon, camp, or unconference?

• Brief History

• Gov 2.0/Transparency Camp March 2009

• CrisisCamp DC June 2009

• What had CrisisCommons done in 2010:

• CrisisCamps Haiti

• CrisisCamp Chile

• Gulf Oil Spill

• Pakistan Floods

• CrisisCamp Day

Collaboration Examples

• Governmental

• World Bank,UN, UN OCHA, US government and more

• Non-Governmental Organizations

• American Red Cross, Canadian Red Cross (John Saunders), Plan Canada, Healing Hands and more

• Private Sector

• Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and more

• Academic

• Carnegie Mellon, University of Toronto, University of Colorado, Tufts

CrisisCamp London (UK) for Pakistan Floods

Who volunteers?Technical - Software developers, web developers, web designers, user experience/user interface experts, geocoders, geo mappers, GIS experts, technologists, beta testers

New Media - Bloggers, videographers, podcasters, photographers, social media trainers, social media users, collaborators, crowdsourcers

Organizational - Organizers, open source community planners, project managers, emergency response planners, crisis communicators

Other - Researchers, lawyers, trainers, teachers, librarians, technical writers, event planners, translators, innovators, entrepreneurs, anyone with a laptop

What do they do?

Code, test tools, translate, map, communicate, collaborate, brainstorm, research, analyze, report, create content, and document process

Computer Art: ASCII to Halo Reach

CrisisCommons and other volunteer technical communities are modelling a new type of volunteer.

CrisisCamp DC

Crowd Sourcing SETI@Home

Use the “Spare Cycles”

Spare Cycles

What does the average person do with his/her spare cycles?

Collaboration

Online, Asynchronous, International 25 Cities, 10 Countries

Social Media & Web2.0

Blogs Wikis Twitter Facebook Google Docs & Shared Files Skype Conference Calls

Obstacles

Spontaneous Organization Duplication of Efforts Inefficient

Policy & Protocol Partnerships Mission Infrastructure Proactive

Crisis Congress

CrisisCamp Paris

What are the obstacles, opportunities?

How can the NGOs and CROs most effectively use thousands of hours of spare brainpower?

Craig Fugate, Administrator FEMACrisisCongress, July 2010

Organizations + Crowd: Pros

• Technically skilled volunteers

• Efficient people willing to lend a hand

• Quicker access to important information

• More efficient data available and aggregated to Emergency Managers

Random Hacks of Kindness Sydney Australia June 2010

Organizations + Crowd: Cons

• Unknown volunteers

• Crowd as a liability

• Necessary skills going to waste training volunteers

• “By introducing the crowd, then, most organizations react with fear. We’re deliberately reintroducing ‘chaos’ into their orderly systems, the chaos they work so hard at keeping out.” Jon Gosier www.blog.ushahidi.org

Crisis Commons Moving Forward: How We Convene in Crisis Response

Sloane Presentation, September 2010

How Can the Crowd Help

• Emergency Response Systems:

• Crowd Sourcing can help NGO’s and CRO’s to improve their emergency response systems using social media and volunteers.

• Preparedness:

• The crowdsourcing and open data movements are growing and can help in disaster preparedness including public awareness.

• Organizations can provide trained and trusted volunteers ready to be deployed in a disaster.

CrisisCamp Examples

CrisisCamp Miami

Why Now?

Discussion

Resources

CrisisCommons.org

Ushahidi.org

OpenStreetmap.org

Crisismappers.net

Sahanafoundation.org

Rhok.org

Gwob.org

Frontlinesms.com

Contact and Credits

David.Black@utoronto.ca

Brian.chick@left-button.com

Heather@textontechs.com

Melanie.Gorka@gmail.com@crisiscamp @crisiscommons @crisiscampto

Photos by:

Rediguana, spike, pedrofuentes, Luis Aguilar, tdavidson, heatherleson, Brian Chick, Alex DC, pazo, Luc Legay

Ascii art by Pix Jockey (Flickr)