ICT for Disaster Response

Residents wear surgical masks while riding the subway in Mexico City, Monday, April 27, 2009. Mexico's government is trying to stem the spread of a deadly strain of swine flu as a new work week begins by urging people to stay home Monday if they have any symptoms of the virus believed to have killed more than 100 people. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) Over the past couple days, the international community has been monitoring the somewhat-panic-inducing spread of swine flu , which the World Health Organization has declared could become a pandemic .  With over 100 deaths and thousands of potential cases in Mexico , ... Read Full Story

InSTEDD = Innovative Support To Emergencies Diseases and Disasters “The InSTEDD Platform: Collaboration Technology for Humanitarian Action and Global Development” via Slideshare This is a presentation created by InSTEDD’s Chief Technology Officer , Robert Kickpatrick, about their 3-part collaboration technology suite for humanitarian response to global health emergencies. If all goes well (which I think it will!), I should be interviewing InSTEDD team members this week for a Digiactive.org post on key aspects of their Mekong Collaboration Program . The presentation above gives a great overview of their platform and tools.For even more information about their technology suite, see Dr. Taha Kass-Hout ’s (Director ... Read Full Story

About this time last week, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck L’Aquila, Italy, killing about 281 people in the region and injuring over 1000 others.  With towns and homes destroyed, estimates of the number of displaced and homeless are upwards of 20,000. via Breaking Tweets: "#earthquake" (Posted by @Buonaiuto in L'Aqulila, Italy) As we’ve seen the immediacy of social networks like Twitter and Flickr in reporting past disasters (e.g. the earthquake in California this past summer, the Mumbai terrorist attacks , the airplane crashes in NY ), local Italians were the first to break the news of the earthquake (or, #terremoto & #italy hashtags) via ... Read Full Story

On April 24, 2009, just two months shy of the 4.5 year anniversary of the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, delegates from the five most affected countries - Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Maldives - gathered in New York for the Tsunami Lessons Learned event. Reporting on their continued relief and recovery efforts in the years since the disaster claimed almost a quarter of a million lives worldwide, these countries met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark, and Bill Clinton, former President & UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery.  Below is a rather choppily-edited video featuring remarks from ... Read Full Story

Sorry for not updating in a while.  Last week I was busy finishing up the semester and moving back to NJ, and now I’m preparing to move to DC this weekend. With my downtime at home, I’ve been finalizing this ICT for Disaster Response project and writing up my  DigiActive  post on  InSTEDD’s Mekong Collaboration Program .  Which reminds me, I have yet to blog about my experience with interviewing InSTEDD’s team members.   So close to submitting the post for review! Two Sundays ago, I Skype-chatted with Ed Jezierski (VP of Engineering) and Shannon Oliver (Director of Communication, Mekong Region) for about an ... Read Full Story