Haiti was a technological display of all new gizmos and gadgets that had not been previously used in disaster response. SMS services, Mission 4636, Local Media, Geo-Tagging, and Crowdsourced Maps were the tools implemented for the first time in the response effort to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. SMS services were established by the International Federation of the Red Cross with the Viola cell phone company, and by Ushahidi. These SMS texting services allowed texts to be sent by people who needed help or who needed to be rescued. That’s where Mission 4636 came in. Mission 4636 was an SMS service that was established in the living room of a Massachusetts professor that wanted to do some good. Local media was destroyed in the quake except for local radio stations. The radio stations, especially SignalFM, were used to broadcast information to survivors of the quake and to broadcast about local areas that were damaged or still in place. Geo-tagging was used to find people who had sent messages to the short code 4636. The geo-tagging was also used to make crowd-sourced maps. These maps became the standard for the search and rescue teams that were in place to help the survivors get to stable and secure places where they could receive help. All five of these technologies and areas were never previously used in a disaster response. In a way the response effort to the earthquake in Haiti was a technological experiment to see how technology could play a role in disaster relief, and what areas it could most help and most be impacted by technology.
The "map" above explains all five areas that impacted the technology used in the disaster response to the Haitian earthquake.
Like you said the new “gadgets and gizmos” were key to the disaster relief in Haiti. For the first time a lot of new things were used by the federal government like SMS and Twitter. Also, like you said mission 4626 which was SMS was invented by a professor in his basement. This is not the first time we saw this type of civilian action. We first saw this during the clean up of Hurricane Katrina, when People finder and Shelter finder were brought about. This was all due to civilians trying to do their part in the disaster relief. Without these great citizens, the disaster relief effort we would be in a totally different place today. For example People Finder and Shelter Finder were amazing ideas that helped out a countless amount of people. Who would know were we would be today without these great ideas? The geo-tagging crowd sourcing maps were very key as well. These are what responders used to to find the people that they were looking for. This would not a huge problem if it was in America, since we have numerous maps of different geological groups, but since it was in Haiti, which is not that well developed, it became a problem. It was a problem of which geo-tagging fixed. That too was a great invention that played a key role in the clean up. The gadgets were the key to this disaster clean up.
ReplyDeleteNew technology, new ideas like crowd-sourcing and the creative use of existing things, like SMS messaging, certainly revolutionized the disaster relief efforts in Haiti. Despite the overwhelming success of this mish-mash of new ideas and devices in Haiti, I feel as though there are serious flaws that would prevent many of these approaches from being successful in first world countries.
ReplyDeleteIn the United States, we've seen the impact that any minor event can have on our telecommunications infrastructure. When there was a minor earthquake on the eastern seaboard, cellular communication was rapidly crippled. If there is a football game, good luck sending or receiving messages in Beaver Stadium. Our infrastructure that supports much of our technology is simply not resilience enough to survive spikes in activity.
In the event of a real disaster, things like Ushahidi, Mission 4636, and some geo-tagging would become impossible. Vast networks of volunteers who spent time translating, reporting, and responding to messages during the Haiti disaster would be out of a job since the failing telecommunications infrastructure would prevent or overwhelm any attempt to utilize SMS, effectively nullifying much of the effect of non-local volunteers. The Haiti disaster saw around 1000 SMS messages per day with about a third of the population having access to cellular devices and even less having computers. On the other hand, most first world nations have almost 100% of their population wielding cellular phones and three times the number of computers-per-person, meaning that even if the data could make it through, the out pour would be impossible for volunteers to sorts, validate, report, and respond to in a timely manner.
Like you stated in the very beginning of your blog post, Haiti was like the revealing of a brand new cell phone or gaming system. Haiti saw many new technologies being used to reach people all over the country after the earthquake. In my opinion this is why I believe Haiti’s response was pretty effective for the country it was in. Haiti’s pretty much non-existent government and most of the infrastructure completely destroyed made it very difficult from the start.
ReplyDeleteI believe that SMS was the saving grace if you will for the relief effort in Haiti. This effort by the International Federation of the Red Cross with the Viola phone company and by Ushahidi helped saved hundreds of thousands of lives. In my opinion lives were saved whether they were stuck in the rubble or if they were homeless and living in make-shift homes in little camps, or if they were suffering from the spread of disease in these camps.
Mission 4636 with SMS was amazing, especially when it was started in another country in some Joe Shmoes living room. This technology helped locate people who were in need of any kind of attention. I agree that geo-tagging with crowd-sourced maps was critical in the saving of lives because it directed humanitarian efforts in those people’s directions instead of having to search every space of rubble this helped locate people faster. This saved lives too, speed and efficiency.
Haiti was one of a kind disaster, only because of the amount of new technology communication that went into the disaster response. It still blows my mind that Ushahidi was developed in Boston (when the disaster was in Haiti) in the guy’s living room with a bunch of friends. It’s cool that people like him take the inniative to use their time and create technologies like Ushaidi and Mission 4636 to help people during a disaster. Especially people who can’t really technologically help themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe map you provided that our guest speaker kind of confused me, for one I could see it during his presentation, and two when I was able to see it, it was difficult to understand. From what I can make out, it looks like it shows the different types of technology that was used. Then is appears to go into a brief detail about each technology was able to provide, or scenarios that involved the technology.