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Social Media and New Technologies - Qatar Red Crescent Society Disaster Management Camp
- 1. SOCIAL MEDIA AND NEW TECHNOLOGY Qatar Computing Research Institute Disaster Management Camp April 2015 Al Khor, Qatar
- 2. What is in your toolkit?
- 5. Connecting with Affected Populations
- 11. Connecting with Affected Populations Report: We are locked in a hospital, please help us. Visitor’s comment: I called to Self Defense Force and they said they will go to the place soon.
- 12. • 12, 000+ reports • 1,000,000+ Page views for the Sinsai.info in the first month • 500,000+ Unique visitors Most viewed from Sendai, Japan (Disaster area) Statistics from Japan
- 15. Text Photo Video Imagery MicroMappers
- 17. MicroMappers Using Aerial Imagery
- 24. Be a Digital Humanitarian
- 27. Thank you and Questions Heather Leson qcri.org.qa @heatherleson textontechs.com
Editor's Notes
- Thank you to the Qatar Red Crescent Society for including Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) as part of their Media and Communications Training Sessions at the 6th Annual Disaster Management Camp. Today I will provide an overview of use of social media during humanitarian disasters, examples of human and machine computing from QCRI and some societal context for Qatar, including opportunities for the future.
- Humanitarians have many tools to apply to their work. Communications with each other, with decision-makers and with the affected populations are evolving. What is in your toolkit? At Disaster Management Camp you will be given many training sessions on satellite phones and other technical tools. Today will talk about other tools that can help your work. Source: Bogdanco, OpenClipArt (For Translators: A toolkit is a guide, a best practice used to deliver goods or services. In the software and hardware world, we use the term “toolkit” to express a set of skills or attributes. )
- The Group Mobile Speciale Association formed in the 1980s. Data source ;https://gsmaintelligence.com/ Mobile is one of the core communications devices around the world. This tally actually changes every second as more and more people get online. Whether they have access to the Internet is not yet a full reality, however, this gives you an example of the scope of change with the growth of mobile access.
- How does Mobile fare in Qatar? Well the GSMA reports that between the two providers Ooredoo and Vodafone that there are 4.3 connections. Data Source: https://gsmaintelligence.com/
- Applying the social media in your communications techniques requires a strong plan and training. This is not much different from the training you are taking at Disaster Management Camp. There are skills and best practices to create and refine. The key message I want to share is that people will use social media in a crisis. This means that you have an opportunity to potentially communicate with affected populations. It also means that the community relationships, much like the one-to-one relationships that exist all over Qatar and the GCC, could also occur online. People trust each other based on their in person contact. How can this network exist on online? What if it could provide insights? One of the reasons that QCRI creates big data and machine language tools is that we know that the large volume of text messages or social media items that are sent during an emergency overwhelm communities and humanitarians. The signal to noise ratio is so high that we need to have ways to help review, tag, sort and prioritize details. Image Source: Noun Project, Sergi Delgado
- What is the use of social media in the Middle East? What can we learn from this data footprint about the potential use during an emergency in this region? How can this tool be applied appropriately? During the Kenya Election of 2013, there were sometimes over 2000 tweets a minute on specific election hashtag. While more people use social media in Kenya, this example gives you a bit of context on how a large crisis might require analysis of social media in our region. Source: Media in the Middle East (Northwestern University Qatar and ictQatar Image created with infogram - https://infogr.am/social_media_in_the_gcc
- At Qatar Computing Research Institute, we use advanced computing to make sense of the flood of information . To do this, we combine Human Computing (crowdsourcing solutions) across various media types.
- QCRI uses machine computing (artificial intelligence) solutions. We think that by combined the best of technology (Machine computing) with digital responders (digital humanitarians as “human computing”) we can work together with humanitarians to improve disaster response.
- Digital Humanitarians provide online digital skills in times of crisis. They aim to provide support for humanitarians (eg. Information Officers) who manage all the data from multiple sources during a disaster. The Digital Humanitarian Network was formed a few years ago. This network of various communities collaborates directly with the United National Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). It is a global community network that use their digital skills to help Humanitarians get data, maps, insights and technology. They provide surge support capacity to manage the influx of so much information during times of crisis and emergencies. Each has their own community, skillsets and priorities. They work as a team and are ‘activated’ based on the needs assessment identified by the UN. http://digitalhumanitarians.com/
- The Qatar Red Crescent were part of the Haiti response. One of the stories about this devastating emergency is the result of how new technology and these digital humanitarians got involved. There are may types of digital skills. Today I will give you a few examples of how people use new technology and social media to make a difference. Have you ever used Google Earth or Google Maps? ESRI? Well, there many types of maps of the world. OpenStreetMap is like a Wikipedia of maps. All the data is free. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team is a Digital Humanitarian group create maps too using local knowledge and satellite imagery. After the Haiti earthquake 800 mappers updated OSM and effectively gave humanitarians the most accurate map to do their work. The GPS unit you see above was used in the field. There are other types of citizen-generated maps that are built on top of these ‘base layer’ = physical land maps.
- There was a large volume of social media use during the response after the Japanese earthquake. The OpenStreetMap Japan Foundation and over 100 digital humanitarians managed a very large volume of social media data. This community manually reviewed massive amounts of data. They identified items that needed action And, they tried to help people. This process was very arduous and time consuming, But there efforts were an example of how a digital community could help a local community in times of crisis source: Sinai.info http://www.slideshare.net/hal_sk/sinsaiinfo-8051996 This map project uses software called Ushahidi. Ushahidi is crowdsourced citizen mapping used for emergencies, environmental, civil society and election monitoring. Ushahidi.com
- Sinai.info was a citizen and social media project with large volumes of data and reached many people. The community has shared this work with many people around the world. How can technology make these tasks of aggregating large volumes of social media into quick and usable formats for humanitarians.
- AIDR is Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response. The team at Qatar Computing Research Institute created it as a way to connect the power of machine computing to human computing. The tool can be used to filter and classify large volumes of social media data. The administrator determines all the keywords. The tool can be ‘trained’ to automatically identify data like social media tweets. Instead of humans sorting through information, the computer does some of the heavy lifting. We are also working on a module for managing SMS (Text messages). About AIDR: http://irevolution.net/2013/10/01/aidr-artificial-intelligence-for-disaster-response/
- AIDR is a way to manage large volumes of social data. With it you can export the data and analyze it. This is called data analytics. We have created a way for people to review all the data using the power of Human Computing. This is where the Digital Humanitarians come in. How can they sort through the data and identify all the relevant details to help humanitarians? Well, e (QCRI) work with the United Nations – Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and another digital humanitarian group called the Standby Task Force. They research and determine the types of information that humanitarians need to make decisions. They use AIDR to find all the relevant data which then feeds into a tool called MicroMappers. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADARPA_Big_Data.jpg
- MicroMappers uses Human computing to make sense of information created during an emergency. People can review large volumes of data by different formats. We’ve created some apps/modules by types of content– text, photo, video and imagery. MIcroMappers.org
- People will see MicroMappers in small tasks. Hundreds of volunteers will see an item at least 3 times to improve the accuracy of their rating. They simply click on the item that most describes the content of the tweet. all; of these ‘quick clicks’ or quick decisions get analyzed in the background. The tools ‘aggregate’ the data. This process then ‘teaches’ the computers (Machines) to improve the ‘artificial intelligence’ or “machine learning’.
- UAViators is another initiative of QCRI driven by Director of Social Innovation, Patrick Meier. At this very moment, he is in Vanautu, an island in the Pacific that was recently struck by Cyclone Pam. He is working in the post-disaster zone with the World Bank, the Government of Vanuatu and citizen Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (or Drone) operators. They will collect low level aerial imagery which will then be into MicroMappers for the human computing (digital humanitarians) to assess and make decisions. The data that they analyze will then be used for more damage assessments and relief planning. Watch our blog for details. – MicroMappers.org uaviators.org
- This is a map of all the important insights or ‘data items’ that were aggregated to the map by the volunteers. Once all the MicroMappers are done reviewing all the tweets in a dataset, the Standby TaskForce can then take the most relevant tweets and add them to a map. This map is from the recent Cyclone in Vanuatu. The insights on this map were provided to the UN OCHA to help them with their decision making for rapid assessments.
- During the Typhoon Hagupit (Ruby) and Typhoon in the Philippines, our QCRI tools (AIDR and MicroMappers) showed that the volume of tweets reviewed really is a needle in a haystack. Meaning – the communities of digital volunteers were able to identify small portions of the data that would make in a sea of many items that were not informative. This shows the power of using QCRI tools to augment your communications in a large onset disaster. The UN used these data insights as part of their overall information products for both of these emergencies. Source: www.unocha.org/data-and-trends-2014/
- There are also ways to do digital forensics with the crowd and wider community. The QRCS expressed interest in other ways to verify information online. There are many tools and techniques. QCRI together with University of Southhampton and Masdar Institute of Science and technology created a way to ask Digital Detectives information during emergencies. This is an example the recent Cyclone Pam. More details – veri.ly
- Veri.ly users can add details after searching. Sometimes they do reverse image searches with Google or even use TinEye (a reverse image lookup tool). Each detective contributes to the Human Computing analysis to improve accuracy. Also see the Verification Handbook to learn more http://verificationhandbook.com/ In Arabic - http://verificationhandbook.com/book_ar/
- Scenario: There is an emergency in Doha. This photo was posted on social media as a main evacuation zone. How can you use social media and online tools to find out where this building is? What are some of the tools that you can use? Eg. Google reserve imagery, Tineye reserve search. Once you identify the location, you can then try to figure out where was the photo taken from. What is the angle? Are there any other items you can use in the photo to guess where this is. This is how you verify. Step by Step – deduct and guess. Then, use the internet to keep trying to find a match.
- QCRi is keen to learn from you how you think social media and these new technologies can be best applied in Qatar and for the work of Qatar Red Crescent. We work with big datasets. The use of social media in Qatar may not be ready for QCRI’s tools for humanitarian emergencies, but we can consider how People use Social Media for Zakat, Charitable giving and humanitarian response support. This is an opportunity. A recent report was released about the practice of Zakat and how this could help humanitarian organizations. While social media is not used widely in Qatar, now is the time to prepare your communications plans. Perhaps it might be easier to start with fundraising and charity data during Ramadan or regarding Zakat. This type of large dataset might be able to learn from QCRI’s work. Until then, I hope that this presentation provided you with some context on new tools and social media, including the work of Qatar Computing Research Institute. Source: http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/report/humanitarian-financing-and-zakat
- The key to using these Digital Humanitarian tools to manage the volume of social media is to have digital volunteers to support your network. As mentioned, the Qatar Red Crescent is investigating how you can help their work with your online skills. Every country and every humanitarian group has different priorities and culture practices. There is an opportunity to consider how you can best use these tools for your benefit. But, this will take time and learning. (This is a screenshot of the MicroMappers clickers website) There needs to be more digital humanitarians in the Arabic world. You have the local knowledge, local language and understand local traditions.
- We had the great privilege to share MicroMappers with local Doha students recently. My colleague, Ji Kim Lucas is a Senior Software Developer at QCRI. Together we think that local students could collaborate with MicroMappers for environmental projects to asses the beaches for pollution and garbage. While students might not be engaged in humanitarian activities, they are very technically savvy. How can they help humanitarians in the GCC in the future? Youth are so important to the future of humanitarianism. How can we learn to get them more involved? Qatar and the wider community have a chance to consider now how they can engage youth in their planning. During an emergency, it will be the youth that will go to social media to help their families and networks. They already have these connections. Image source: Coding is Cool, QCRI and MIT CSAIL event March 2015
- Many of us here are volunteers at the Qatar Red Crescent Disaster Management Camp will leave here as ambassadors. We will each be in our communities sharing why this work matters and what we learned. Volunteering is a gift. Even if you cannot deploy to a region during an emergency you can log on and join others. The QRC needs help with translators and new technology. They seek to bring together digital skills with the lessons you are learning here. Please tell Heather and Ali (QRCS) if you are interested as we build this. Photo credit: Amara Photos – Qatar Red Crescent March 31, 2015
- Thank you for including Media and new technologies in your sessions. I would be happy to talk about these topics in greater details. My work email is hleson@qf.org.qa. Thank you
- The QCRI team together with MIT – Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab created a tool called Punya. We did this to make it easier for humanitarians to create mobile apps to use in their work. Referring back to the high volume of mobile users in the world, This is one other area that we are working to support humanitarians. My colleagues created this app with ICRC to help with their forensics work. By using the best methods in technology, we are trying to lower the barrier to information management and access in support of humanitarians.