Interactive voice for a volunteer organization to manage disasters

Crowd sourcing emergency information with Interactive Voice:

"CERT members call one of the four telephone numbers to access Freedom Fone; then press the “reporting” menu item number on their phone keypad to record a “field observation report”. That report is received and stored in the Freedom Fone inbox as an audio file (MP3) at Sarvodaya’s Hazard Information Hub (essentially the data center belonging to the Sarvodaya Community Disaster Management Center). Trained HIH Operators (HIHO) listen to those local language spoken incident field observations, then transform them in to English language text to feed in to the Sahana Eden, Emergency Data Exchange Language Situational Reporting (SITREP) application."
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A decision support system for managing politicians during a disaster

Crisis mapping, disasters and aid: A new paradigm:

Prezi presentation on ICCM 2011 by Geeks Without Borders

"It offered key actors and their proxies – some of whom could not be seen together, many of whom were out of Sri Lanka – the ability to in real time or asynchronously, communicate ideas, conduct discussions, upload documents for review, jointly edit them, map out positions and interests of political parties and non-state actors, flesh out and debate public stances and be informed by a range of decision support tools, including a library I curated with resources on peacebuilding. When the tsunami hit, the local and international networks connected via Groove were in a matter of hours turned into a decision support system for relief and aid work. At its peak, over 300 national and international entities, including the Prime Minister’s Office, Sarvodaya and even the US Southern Command, involved in relief efforts in South East Asia, were part of the Groove workspaces set up in Sri Lanka."

Published in The Nation newspaper on 20th November 2011.

Filed under: ICT for Peacebuilding

ITU disaster workshop in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Does this picture remind you of the default Windows XP desktop background? That's what most of Mongolia looks like. Roughly 40% of the Mongolians live in Ulaanbaartar (UB). The rest are sparsely scattered in thinly populated communities in the vast open terrain. The cultures vary across the desert, meadows, and hills. The human to animal ratio is 1:12. The seasonal dwelling is decided on the animals' needs (Mongolia).

Mongolia looking like WinXP

Mr. Terbish and I wandered in Bogd National Park, when he explained some of the characteristics of Mongolian nomadic people. Terbish is a member of the the National Disaster Management Committee representing his mobile company: Unitel. His father in-law is a Herder living 300Km west of UB. Father in-law has to search for a cellular signal, like ride the horse to a coverage area to speak with Terbish; then schedule a reconnecting time if a reply is to follow. In the country-side they don't have FM Radio either. To give you an idea of the coverage, mobile operators had setup temporary base stations to give connectivity to the crowds at the Naadam horse races. The horse races took place in the plains about a 2 hour bus ride from UB with a strait race track spanning 25 kilometers.

3-6 yr old kids racing 3yr old horses, Naadam 2011

RIMES project had pilot tested a community-based warning system with motorcycles and horse-messengers to carry the hazard information to the last-mile communities. In the "hazInfo project" simulations we conducted in Sri Lanka, several communities mounted public addressing systems on the hood of three-wheelers (Tuk-Tuks) to relay the message to the village households. It seemed to work well during the simulations but the efficiencies are questionable during a real event as to whether the communities can organize a three-wheeler and a PA system in short notice. Besides earthquakes, all other hazards in Mongolia are hydro-meteorological that are slow onset giving enough  time to respond.

I was thinking addressable satellite radios but they are not two-way communication devices. HF radios for data transmission may be another way to bridge the last-mile?

These observations were made during the "ITU Asia-Pacific Regional Multi-stakeholder Forum on Emergency Telecommunications", which was held at Chinggis Kaan Hotel, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 08-11 July, 2011. I presented on our experiences with the Common Alerting Protocol and also submitted a supplement brief that recommends member states to register alerting authorities.

READ MY CONFERENCE REPORT