The Open Humanitarian Initiative aims to improve disaster response through two key objectives: 1) improving information sharing between organizations through tools that standardize data and enable secure sharing, and 2) building information management capacity within response organizations. It will develop a data sharing platform, tools for visualizing and analyzing data, and training programs to establish best practices in information management. By bringing together technology companies, academics, and humanitarian groups in a collaborative public-private partnership, the Initiative seeks to establish an effective and sustainable approach to coordinating information during disasters.

1. Open Humanitarian Initiative
August 2012

2. Disaster response continues to be rated as “poor” with the lack of
information flow cited as one of the main reasons
Inter Agency RTE* of the Response Major Reasons Cited by RTE
“The difficulties encountered in
“The response to the Haiti Earthquake in establishing an appropriate
2010 was a missed opportunity to system for collecting and
translate the quick setting up of cluster analyzing data in order to provide
coordination and the availability of decision‐makers with information
substantial resources into timely results” in a timely manner” were cited as
one of the main reasons of poor
Earthquake in Haiti response
Real Time Evaluation report
found that “the overall results “The information flow was massive
are considered to be both but with limited strategic usage (i.e.
‘scattered’ and ‘patchy’” decision making and prioritization)”
Floods in Pakistan
“More consistent methods for
“Nearly all agencies and organizations and integration of assessments
were unable to mobilize the appropriate would have minimized the
capacity to respond to the Darfur crisis” inattention to cross-sectoral
issues, in particular protection and
gender”
Disaster in Darfur
*RTE = Real Time Evaluation Report
Having access to the right information seems to be one of the main factors that determines the
difference between life and death 2

3. A number of issues have made an effective information management
solution both an important opportunity and a massive undertaking
High Level Issues
Granular Issues
• Lack of information sharing between
humanitarian organizations • Lack of process standardization on
how humanitarian data is
• Lack of information management capacity
Process represented during data exchange
both within local and international
humanitarian organizations as well as
within governments and first responders in
• Lack of access to the most current
disaster prone countries. information required by responders
Technology to make fully informed decisions
• Lack of a common platform for
securely sharing humanitarian data
These Issues are Costly
• Increase in the amount of time it takes to collect • Lack of capacity to share, manage,
analyze and disseminate
and analyze data resulting in reduced Organization humanitarian data both at the
information availability which impacts the national and international level
responders’ ability to do their job effectively
• Increase costs to emergency response agencies
due to multiple data collection iterations • Lack of willingness to share
humanitarian information
• Lack of data leads to an increase in operational Governance
costs such as transportation and distribution
costs
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4. In order to address these issues, a number of people from different
organizations came together to focus on two key objectives
Open Humanitarian Initiative
STREAM1 - TECHNOLOGY STREAM2 - CAPACITY BUILDING
Main Objective: Main Objective:
• Improve information sharing between • Improve information management capacity both
humanitarian organizations within local and international humanitarian
organizations as well as within governments and
first responders in disaster prone countries 4

5. The Open Humanitarian Initiative is divided into 6 areas to provide a
complete information management solution
Project Deliverables Impact
1 • Interoperability: Data standards will be • Governments, NGOs and humanitarian
STREAM1 - TECHNOLOGY
defined to ensure consistent organizations will be able to move and
terminology and to enable data sharing share information between different
technical solutions
2 • Data Sharing Platform: A data sharing • Ensures data can be shared remotely
platform will combine, store and share between organizations and can be
humanitarian response data using the accessed from any location enabling
data standards schemas defined better decision making
3 • Visualization: An interface will be • Organizations and responders will be able
created where data can be processed, to visualize the required data in the ideal
analyzed and displayed in different format
formats such as graphs, tables, charts,
dashboards, maps etc…
4 • Capacity Building: Local disaster • People trained in using information
management authorities as well as management tools, such as the OHI
humanitarian organization staff will be platform, leading to better crisis
STREAM2 - CAPACITY
trained in the use of information information management
management tools, such as the OHI
platform
BUILDING
5 • Digital Volunteers: Local and global • Culture of information management
digital volunteer communities will be established, leading to an increase in
created, fostered and trained in the use responder capacity and data availability
of information management tools
6 • Research and Innovation: A culture of • Increase in the quality of the analysis
research and innovation established performed resulting in increased OHI tool
within the information management effectiveness
field in disaster prone regions 5

6. Unique initiative built around collaboration and innovation
With subset of potential partners, we..
• Leverage existing investments
Don’t
reinvent • Scale-out best practices
the wheel • Inter-operate with existing solutions
• Not do yet-another set of pilots that don’t go anywhere
• Public-private partnership at it’s fullest extend
Utilize
Broad • Work with private sector, academic community, UN agencies and digital volunteer
groups
Community
• Work closely with governments in disaster prone countries
• Flexible funding model
Are Flexible
• Simple, yet effective governance model
• Managed through agile project management methodology
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7. Bringing together a broad set of potential partners is a key success factor
Subset of potential partners Role within OHI
Global Technology Companies • Support with the design and
implementation of the data platform,
visualization and interoperability
• Provide the technology such as hosting
services and software
• Provide guidance and in-kind
development support
Academic Institutions
• Support with the research and
innovation approach
• Help with training and learning material
• Provide guidance and in-kind support
Humanitarian Institutions
• Support with the overall project
• Provide guidance and leadership
• Provide in-kind support
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8. High Level Architecture Diagram
Existing Platforms Visualization GUI
SQL Azure ArcGIS Other Custom
OCHA 3W IFRC - DMIS Reporting Online Visualizations
Etc …
Data Sharing
HXL
Platform KML/RSS
SQL Azure
Send and receive
Data in HXL format
(Pub/Sub)
Fusion Tables
Web Based, Open,
server-to-server
publish/subscribe
protocol FreeBase
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