Designing for Action: Empowering Migrants with Technology
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Technology is changing all areas, also migration. How Red Cross is designing and building solutions that support and guide migrants, and also volunteers. The Virtual Volunteer is designed for migrants who need trusted information on where to find help and how to keep safe and healthy when on the move. Speaker: Elena Pedrazzani, International Red Cross. (English). Presenterades på IBM BusinessConnect den 4 oktober 2016 på Stockholm Waterfront.
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Designing for Action: Empowering Migrants with Technology
- 2. Currently there are 244 million migrants in the world
- 5. Berlin Stockholm Malmö Athens Vienna Izmir Million people Arrived in Europe in 2015-2016 1+
- 7. Educated, expert and connected. Smartphone users. Familiar with most common messaging applications. Migrants today.
- 9. 3.4 billion people connected Worldwide in 2016 100£ is the cost of a budget Android phone 87% Of the population in Syria belongs a mobile phone Migrants today.
- 10. What are their needs? How do we help?
- 11. Video BBC
- 14. Provides safety and first aid tips, and basic information to help migrants in the new country.
- 15. Helps people communicate in a foreign language
- 16. Links users with resources and important news
- 17. Provides localised information on the Red Cross, puts users in touch with the organisation and gives information on finding missing people.
- 18. You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward technology, not the other way round. Steve Jobs. How did we get here?
- 19. Video
- 20. © 2016 IBM Corporation IBM Design Thinking Human-centered outcomes at speed and scale IBM Design
- 21. © 2016 IBM Corporation The Loop The Keys Principles
- 22. Stakeholders
- 23. Personas
- 24. Empathy maps
- 25. Hills
- 26. Ideation
- 29. The future?
Editor's Notes
- Today an estimate 244 million people live far away from their home. This number includes refugees, asylum seekers, displaced people. Migrants. People that by choice or by obligation, in order to escape suffering and survive, have left their homes and to find opportunities and take a chance in a new context. Often a new country, far from their own.
- People migrate for many reasons. Sometimes they voluntarily leave their country in search of new opportunities and to make new experiences. However people are often forced to leave their country.. Main driver for forced migration is the need to survive, political instability or political persecution and economic reasons: poverty, political instability, violation of basic human rights, an increasingly hostile climate and natural disasters are the main reasons that force people out of their countries. Too often fleeing is the only possibility for people to survive.
- Conflicts are a clear example of forced migration. Today 53 million people have been displaced by conflicts, and these numbers are constantly increasing. Because of the 14 ongoing conflicts in the world today, the number of people fleeing violence, wars and all types of conflict has increased almost three times compared to 10 years ago. And as said, the situation has not showed to get better in the last two years.
- In the two years 2015 – 2016 more than one million people have fled to Europe to escape violence and poverty and find better living condition. With the Syrian conflict entering its 6th year, ongoing violence and persecutions in Afghanistan and instability across the whole region, Europe has become the destination of many trying to find refuge.
- I think we’re all familiar with the images of refugees arriving by small boats on the Greek islands and then walking through the Balcanic route to Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
- For humanitarian organization the crisis in Europe represents an imperative to help we cannot ignore. But to help this people, we need to know who they are and what their needs are. Migration is not a contemporary phenomenon, people have always moved – an example? The 50+ million people who left Europe in 19th century to the US, Canada and South America. How have migrants changed during decades? Is this reflecting changes in the world population? We often think of migrants as destitute people, with low levels of education and very different from us. However, this is pretty far form the truth. Migrants in 2016 have habits which are pretty similar to ours. Especially for this meeting I will focus on their relationship with technology. Technology has a massive role in migrants’ life. It is in fact their lifeline to remain linked to the life there are leaving behind and find connection with that one they are going towards. Technology allows people to stay in touch with friends & family, let them know they are safe, and to find information en route. Which is a crucial point we will look more into later.
- This is just a mock up, but it is very similar to any phone that migrants belong: a smartphone, with all the most common application for communication and to find information, like routes or weather or google.
- The migration crisis in Europe over the last 2 years is the first of its kind to happen in an age of persistent connection. Just to mention a few number: - In 2016 an estimated 3.4 billion people are connected world wide. That is 49% of the population. - In 2014 Syria had 87 mobile phones per 100 people. - In Syria, Budget Android smartphones can be picked up for well under £100, and come with cameras, large screens and everything you would expect from a modern phone. It is possible to by a perfectly functioning iPhone 3G for as low as 25£. Technology is at most people’s reach.
- What do migrants need as they cross borders, countries and try to build a new life far from their home? Surely they need basic services, like food, medicines, doctors and a place to sleep at night. But one need we cannot ignore, is the need for information. Information for people arriving in a totally new context is as important as basic life assistance. How are they looking for information? Mobile phones are crucial here. In an age of ubiquitous connection they are the tool to be able to look for what they need, fast. I heard many times from Red Cross volunteers that the first thing people were asking as soon as they landed on safe shores in Greece was wifi connection. To warn their family they were alive, but also to understand what their next steps would be… Too often, people on the move can only count on information they receive from unreliable sources, like friends and social media, but also including traffickers and smugglers who target and exploit the most vulnerable people. You see why information is hence crucial.
- Information, mobile phones are thus crucial. I could speak more providing thousands of examples, but instead I would like to show you this video produced by BBC media action. BBC media action conducted a research that showed how humanitarian organization need to factor in mobile technology when thinking aid. Why? Have a look with me: [shows video]
- This is the reason why when IBM contacted the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society we could not say no to a collaboration that would enable us to reach thousands of people with vital, reliable information. Thanks to its role in providing help and its proximity to the community, the Red Cross often has the information, but lacks in ways to deliver that efficiently and fast. We needed a platform. And this is what we have done. The Virtual Volunteer. The Virtual Volunteer is an easy to use web app that gives migrants or those considering migrating access to quality, accurate and objective information. Universally accessible with any connected device, it puts reliable information at the fingertips of migrants—helping them stay safe and healthy and access needed services. It is currently available in Greece and Sweden this week and Italy in the coming weeks. As you can see we have tried to combine a wide range of information to support people when vulnerable:
- The Virtual Volunteer geo-located users through their phones and can provide information on the closest services available. Different types of services – life support services such as soup kitchens, showers and shelter, medical services and hospitals, and also information on where to find help for legal matters.
- We also wanted to focus on the need to stay safe. We have included basic first aid tips looking at the most common health concerns for migrants (living in camps, in Greece, or in urban settings). We also have collected the most frequent questions that our volunteers and staff were asked, both on the field and through the information line available. As all the content in the platform, information is geo-located, so a user will first see the information relevant to the county they find themselves in, the offering an immediate response to the need of information. Nevertheless one of the scopes of the project is also to provide unbiased information to migrants that are considering migrating. This means that through the application, people can visualise information relevant to any content they wish to know more about. This means they can become aware of risks of migration, existing legislations, border situations and take informed decisions. Too many times we have heard on the Greek islands recently that if people knew more about the EU/turkey agreement and how hard it is to get protection in Europe, they wouldn’t have travelled to Europe.
- Language can be a difficult barrier when in a foreign country. We all have experienced it when travelling, imagine having to navigate through finding a doctor or hygiene products. That is why we have incorporated a very basic communication support tool. One section of it allows users to find translation of very common sentences. At present this function only displays function, but we are looking into creating audio support which would help people, familiar with different alphabets and sounds, to know the correct pronunciation of the sentences. The second section, on the left of the screen allows migrant to communicate with the support of icons, thus making it simple for them to try and ask for basic things when in the new country.
- We also try to make the application a one stop shop for migrants towards other resources and relevant news.
- And of course we provide information on the Red Cross and how to get in touch with the organization in the country they are into also providing the option to write a mail. And finally a connection with the services provided by the National and International Red Cross to trace missing people, or people migrants might have lost touch with.
- How did we get there? While you read the words of Steve Jobs on the need to think customer experience before tech, I would like to give the fore to my colleague Henrik Dalin from IBM who’ll talk about this more in detail…
- The user is our north star and guides us in our work to design the best experience.
- User outcomes - Restless reinvention – Multidisiplinary teams Observe - Reflect - Make Hills - Playback - Sponsor user Who, What and Wow! ”A migrant can get needed and accurate Red Cross information on a connected phone.”
- Prioritised Hills “Support the National Society Management to access and exchange data (document, guidelines, expertise) in a standardized and coordinated way.” “General Migrant can access relevant information about services available and find answers quickly to specific questions, in different languages.” “Volunteer & field staff (National Societies) helps migrants with current information directly from Ipad.”
- How we first created a prototype in Invision and then after Playback started the development on Bluemix and continue the development based on our Product backlog with ideas (requirements) from the Design Thinking workshops.
- What does the future look like? The virtual Volunteer is now active with information for Greece and Sweden. In the future we plan to make it available to more countries. Italy and Turkey will be the next ones and then we are looking at deploying the platform beyond Europe, specifically thinking of the migration route in Central America and the migration of Filipino Nationals for work reasons. The flexibility of the application means that it is possible to provide information for countries of origin, transit and destination, ensuring migrants can stay safe and informed at all moments of their journey, having the right conditions to take decisions based on reliable information and nor rumours.
- The Virtual Volunteer though is not only applicable in migration context. It also could help in other emergencies. Here a picture from the Ebola context. In this specific context, health crises, having an application available like the Virtual Volunteer could not only help people in need locate the closest health facility to seek help, but also, it could contribute to spread knowledge on health practices, prevention tips, synthoms and what to do in case of need that are crucial in acute emergencies with rapid evolution.
- Another context would be Natural Disasters. The Virtual Volunteer could help with providing key contact details, information on where to find what, how to trace people that might be missed and get the latest updates in regards to the situation. In natural disaster theatres, having updated timely information is often crucial to keep alive. Let’s think about floods for examples. For national scale disasters, or disasters that hit large urban centres (Earthquakes in Nepal, Haiti) the Virtual Volunteer could help communicate key information to a large number of people, thus contributing to the action of those that help.
- Thank you so much for taking the time to listening.