This document summarizes the evolution of volunteer technical communities (VTCs) from 1995 to 2011. It describes how VTCs have used various tools like blogs, wikis, and mapping to help with crisis response for events like earthquakes, hurricanes, and oil spills. It provides examples of software and platforms that have been developed by VTCs to help with situational awareness, resource management, and communications. It also discusses trends like open data, crowdsourcing, mobile apps, and ensuring interoperability through open standards. The document concludes by discussing the future of virtual operations support teams collaborating through CrisisCommons.

1. Virtual
Technical
Communities QR Code Here !
(IAEM 2011)
David Black
Pascal Schuback

2. Portraits from a Storm
Video

3. • Evolution of VTC (Volunteer Technical
Communities)
• Tools
• Open Standards
• Examples
• What’s the future look like?
Objectives

4. 1995 – Kobe earthquakes – 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 – Maps, 500 volunteers/48hrs
2009 – CrisisCommons created
2010 – Haiti, Chile, China quakes, Gulf Oil Spill, Pakistan Floods,
CrisisCommons Global Congress
2011 – Christ Church, Japan, Alabama, Irene
Evolution of VTC’s

5. Volunteer Technical Communities

6. Supporters/Collaborators

7. "We'd had a bunch of events and we raised
money but I kept saying, 'I wish I was back in
Haiti.'“
"With this, I actually felt like I was a
part of something -- and it was fun."
CrisisCamps

8. CrisisCamper - 2011

9. • RHoK—a marathon weekend hackathon
event of competitive coding, gathering
software engineers together to develop
software to respond to global challenges
and crises.
Hackathon - rhok

10. Situational Awareness Resource Management
• Geospatial Database • Volunteer Management
• Situation Mapping • Project Tracking & Mgmt
• Charts & Reporting • Logistics Management
• Assessment Collection • Inventory Management
• Situation & Incident Reporting • Hospital Management
• Bio-surveillance • Food Aid Request Mgmt
• Aid Catalogue
Aid Management
• Organization Registry
• Shelter Registry
• Request Management
Person Management Communications & Alerting
• Person Registry • E-mail & SMS
• Victim Tracking & Tracing • Mobile Apps (iOS/Android)
• Disaster Victim Identification • Alerting System (CAP)
• Missing Persons Registry • Alert Aggregation
SAHANA Software Foundation

11. Crowdsourcing - ?

12. Mobile Applications

13. Crowdsourcing - Haiti

14. Crowdsourcing – Sinsai Japan

15. Senior Leadership

16. Crowdsourcing – Irene

17. Crowdsourcing - #NZEQ

18. Community Driven Resilience

19. Mapping - Haiti

20. Haiti Open Street Map
Open Street Map

21. Virtual Mapping Efforts

22. Open Data

23. Honshu Japan
Quakes
Flight of the Common
Operating Data Bees!
Data Bees

24. Japan Open Data Repository

25. "Open standards are important to help create
interoperable and affordable solutions for everybody.
They also promote competition by setting up a technical
playing field that is level to all market players. This
means lower costs for enterprises and, ultimately, the
consumer."
EU Commissioner Erkki Liikanen:
(World Standards Day, 14 October 2003)
Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v. 1.2
OASIS Standard, 01 July 2010
Emergency Data Exchange Language Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) v. 1.0
OASIS Standard incorporating Approved Errata, 22 December 2009
Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element, v. 1.0
OASIS Standard EDXL-DE v1.0, 1 May 2006
Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Hospital Availability Exchange (HAVE) v. 1.0
OASIS Standard Incorporating Approved Errata, 22 December 2009
Data Standards

26. Person Finder Interchange

28. Virtual Operations Support Team/Group
• Capacity
• Continuity
• Resources
• Collaboration
• Expertise
VOST/VOSG

29. • David.Black@utoronto.ca |@db7
• pascal@schuback.com |@schuback
CrisisCommons.org QR Code Here !
Images and ideas by:
Gavin Treadgold, Chris Foot, Pedro Fuentes, Luis Aguilar,
tdavidson, Heather Leson, Brian Chick, Alex DC, pazo, Luc
Legay, Andy Carvin, NPR, Heather Blanchard, Patrice
Cloutier, Patrick Maier, CrisisMappers, Mark Prutsalis,
William Warby, Pascal Schuback, David Black
Contact – Thank You