Podcamp Toronto: Crowdsourcing Crisis Commons

Crowdsourcing Volunteer Technical Communities with CrisisCommons February 20, 2010

What is CrisisCommons?

photo by Trickydevil under a Creative Commons license

We Are: • We are technologists who have skills which can help provide citizens with the ability to connect with one another. • We are global citizens who believe in social change and are willing to communicate the truth of what they see and share with others. • We are organizations who believe in leveraging resources for the greater good.

Crowdsource OpenSource Collaborative

You Organizers Web Social Developers We are: Media Emergency http://crisiscommons.org/ GeoCoders Planners Crisis Project Communicators Managers Technologists Programmers Anyone with Trainers a Laptop Translators

We are built on a history of Crowdsourced Open Source Technology

Framework

HAITI EARTHQUAKES •January 12th, Magnitude 7.0 •9 million people, 50% urban •3 million directly affected •ESTIMATES 250,000 dead, 1 million homeless •100ʼs of NGOʼs, 100ʼs of ﬁeld hospitals •US$1.4 billion - 1st 12 months •Early estimate US$7 billion physical damage Meta-threats •Food security •Disease •Floods, mudslides •Civil unrest/crime, political instability •Community disruption, 500,000 internal migrants •Psycho-social trauma

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT An organized analysis, planning, decision-making, and assignment of available resources to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from the effects of all hazards. Facilitates decision-making in conditions of extreme uncertainty and extreme time constraints. •Standard Operating Procedures •International Technical Standards and Protocols •Common Language •Common Operating Picture

•Camp Coordination and Camp Management (IOM) •Education (UNICEF) •Emergency Shelter and Non-Food Items (IFRC) •Food (WFP) •Logistics (WFP) •Nutrition (UNICEF) •Protection (OHCHR with UNICEF for Child Protection and UNFPA for GBV) •WASH (UNICEF) •Agriculture (FAO) •Early Recovery (UNDP) •Emergency Telecommunications (WFP) •Health (WHO/PAHO)

Hierarchical System, long-established stakeholders, efﬁcient, politicized Flat organizational structure, unfamiliar with the establishment, innovative, young organization

When the Earthquake happened in Haiti We asked: How can we help? CrisisCommons creates response via CrisisCamps

What is CrisisCamp?

We Grew. Fast. 38 days, 26 Cities http://maker.geocommons.com/maps/11985

Toronto: CrisisCamp (Haiti) January 24, 2010 January 30, 2010 February 13, 2010

Crowdsourcing Volunteer Technical Communities: How?

using social media to spread the word

social and traditional media attention

We Blogged

We Tweeted

We created a Wiki City project page

We created video, photo, & other social media content

CrisisCamp (Haiti) Projects Types of projects: 1. Social Media/Networking/SEO 2. Software/Web Development 3. OpenStreet map (GIS) 4. Infrastructure for CrisisCommons

We try to match volunteers with the skills needed for projects and the type of volunteering they would like to contribute. All we could do was prepare many options.

Teams work like mini-scrums across cities. Tasks are divided up, collaborated, and coordinated using every online tool available. Teams vary based on the project but essentially could include: developers, social media knowledge workers, project managers, anyone.

CrisisCamp (Haiti)- Toronto Development Projects

Developing software on the ﬂy. Thereʼs agile, then thereʼs CrisisCampʼs interactive, collaborative, crowdsourced, open source software development. It is AGILE on Speed.

Building Projects: On the ﬁrst weekend very little happened. Much time wasted. • Identiﬁed one of the needs was organization. • Developers need requirements. People requesting projects need to ask for projects in a way a programmer can understand. o Shop for projects! o Match skills to programmers The second weekend; much better! • Quick meeting in the morning to gather requirements then match • Some developers have skills that donʼt match up to projects; we tried!

What did we do? • Machine Translation Service o Built a connection to Haitian Google translate to a number of mediums (IRC, web & beyond!) o Kreyol translators have tested Googleʼs translator and itʼs passable. • Haiti rebuilding connection project o Build a way to connect needs in Haiti with people offering to help (ie. We need chairs for a school) • iPhone people ﬁnder • Project tracker

CrisisCamp (Haiti)- Toronto Social Media Projects

RSS Feed Aggregator Toronto team contributed: SEO, library categorization, project management, RSS feed veriﬁcation, form usability Toronto team contributed: social media outreach, tool testing (UI/UX), translation, personal stories, research, analysis and collaboration

CrisisCommons Success Stories • We have we need o Matching needs with donations (ie. We need tents)  http://www.wehaveweneed.org/ • Tweak the Tweet o A syntax to make tweets more uniform. o http://epic.cs.colorado.edu/helping_haiti_tweak_the_twe.html

CrisisCommons Success Stories o Haiti OpenStreetMap  Google maps donʼt exist. Many streets arenʼt named. OpenStreetMap is free, open and crowdsourced.  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti o Inveneo Wireless Network  Self conﬁguring wireless network  Customized ﬁrmware for wireless networks. Network shared between NGOs on the ground in Haiti.  http://www.inveneo.org/?q=crisis-camp-haiti

What's Next? • Next CrisisCamp (Haiti): February 27th, 2010 • Research, listen, learn and build • Solidify global CrisisCommons infrastructure o Face-to-face International conference - Washington DC • Partner with NGO's (Canadian, International) o Better Communication = Better Help • Mobilize Volunteers o Have a group ready for next steps o Variety of skills required

Questions? @heatherleson @ruyoung @db7 @leftbutton @jkolez

We are grateful to the sponsors that have supported us during our various events:

Thank you! Contact us: Google Group CrisisCommonsTO Twitter @CrisisCampTO E-mail CrisisCampTO@gmail.com

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Podcamp Toronto: Crowdsourcing Crisis Commons

by Heather Leson

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