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Tags: alltogether, crowdsourcing, idea, information rules, jobs, labour market information, marketplace, movement, wages and conditions, work

Mobile webapp for Ushahidi

As a (web) project and program manager working in the humanitarian and for development, I’ve been always fascinated by the amount of challenges that any tool aimed to the fields presents; just to cite a few: reliability, low bandwidth, cross-platform, offline support, extreme simplicity, and of course it should work-when-everything-else-fails(TM). I will not mention that, as a plus, in many cases budgets and funding are limited, if not extremely limited, compared to complexity.

I guess this is the reason that pushes those who works in this domain to keep being extremely pragmatic, ingenious and sometime very innovative.

In Reflab we have lately labelled this whole lot of design challenges as building resilient tools (resilience being THE buzzword nowadays, I guess it is a good choice to promote the idea).

In such context of resilient applications, limited connectivity is one of the main issues I’ve been personally working on in the last years, first developing OOPS, i.e. offline and portable web-based information publishing (or offline websites, if you prefer) and later working on Data Collection.

The idea for a not-so random Hack of Kindness

some nice folks hacking HTML5 for Ushahidi at RHoK

Just before ICCM 2011 I though we could apply what we had learned so far in data collection and mobile web applications to a project that we really appreciate a lot and which, hopefully, would immediately benefit: Ushahidi.

Ushahidi is an amazing tool in terms of impact in crisis management, works well via web and also has mobile applications for several platforms. A mobile web application, with offline support, would make it address some extra use cases: offline data collection, of course, but it would also make it a lot more easy to distribute, update and, last but not least, as Erik (@whiteafrican) immediately pointed me out, if would be great if it could support Custom Forms.

So, together with some friends and colleagues we when forward spending a few evenings, and then a whole RHoK weekend to develop the Ushahidi mobile webapp.

The hack

What we did: using the Ushahidi APIs, HTML5 and some Javascript libraries we could quickly build a very first version of the application, then a second one by the end of the weekend.

The app uses different HTML5 features:

• application cache for offline use of static resources (html, css, javascript)
• storages (Web SQL) for report data saved locally on the browser
• geolocation API to obtain latitude and longitude from the device GPS
• FormData to post the image
• online/offline events

The UI interface is based on jQueryMobile, server-side there is a very lightweight back-end written in Python, that can simply be replaced by other frameworks or directly integrated in Ushahidi core.

What does the application provides: at the moment is only manages reports, collecting data online and offline, saving it locally and sending it when some connectivity is available. It features all basic fields, included GPS coordinates and image/photo upload (on platform supporting it), but not the custom forms.

Not bad to have something running, plus some documentation; and the same code could be used for other mapping or assessment tools!

Credits go to Riccardo Lemmi (guru and lead), Francesco Occhipinti (Javascript wrestler), Francesco Merlo (Python/API uber-developer) and Antonio Tirabasso (wise UI engineer).

What’s next?

In the pipeline we have: to put everything on Github, work on the UI (no work has been really done, yet), and do a real-world simulation/testing.

I really hope the app will prove useful to Ushahidi users: with the feedback collected we could then consider extra features, better interfaces and move forward looking at the custom forms.

Thanks to Heather Leson (Ushahidi Director Community of Engagement) we are now looking to other related challenges and will connect with more people willing to join online-offline and connectivity-related developments!

 
References:
The Next steps for Ushahidi Hacks
Online offline web applications
OOPSHTML5 rocks

New energies to help in humanitarian crisis

CrisisCamp, Paris

A case study presentation (by Elena) at the Summit of CrisisCamps Europe, Paris

It was in Paris at the 2011 Summit of European CrisisCamps, that I felt, understood, the true power of  the Crisis Campers fast growing community: no tweet, blog post, article, or paper can replace the experience of being in person within that small crowd of extremely motivated, capable and genuinely devout people! (and yet I’m blogging in the hope that some reader will be inspired).

Crisis Camps are a special breed of barcamps, born to connect a global network of volunteers who use creative problem solving and open technologies to help people and communities in times and places of crisis. 

Senior information managers, developers, bloggers and journalists, project managers, designers from big NGOs to small non-profits, volunteers or professionals, very young and less young, the very diversity of the people gathered there was so powerful to me.

We spoke a lot about technology, sure, but the common ground for all people there is not to invent radically new tech (maybe sometimes) but how to use, mix and shake existing tools, to solve immediate problems.

This changes everything!

At a CrisisCamp you might find yourself developing an application to help refugees find their relatives, designing a system that processes Tweets to provide assistance after an earthquake, brainstorming around a mobile application, open data, transparency and security, and discussing a hundred new ways to volunteer and help, and build a more resilient world.

Among all wild ideas and new technologies, there is one central aspect that needs all of our attention:

people, the very people affected by a crisis are getting connected!

Not all of them, no, not everywhere, not all the time, but they are there. They might not have a pc, but they might access Twitter, and be on Facebook, and this changes everything!

Tools liberating new energies

New energies in the fields (Haiti, OpenStreetMap) - (C) Kate Chapman

The opening case study of the CrisisCamp is the story of #CIVSOCIAL (slides here), a beautiful, immensely human story, of how a group of friends and volunteers reacted to save lives in recent Cote D’Ivoire crisis, using ordinary technology (Twitter, Skype, etc.) and leveraging the energies of extraordinary people. Thanks to Jean-Patrick (@ jpehouman) for sharing his great story.

Have you ever heard of Ushahidi? Per se, it’s a great idea: with it you can crowdsource geotegged information, provide visualization and interactive mapping… quite powerful. But you should listen to the stories of Anahi (@anahi_ayala) and others that have been using it, to really grasp the revolution that happens behind: hundreds and hundreds of people collaborating worldwide to create accurate maps, to translate messages, requests for help, reports, to harvest information from the Internet aggregate and validate it, and more. The output is information, rapid, often good and very valuable information, to inform people, coordinate, and act, in crisis: for the Haiti earthquake, Chile earthquake, Pakistan floods, Egypt, Lybia, Sudan, …

Other major projects presented, discussed and worth our attention are: OpenStreetMap and Global Voices, and there are many many others, and all of them share the goal to build a little piece of a better world, a more prepared, transparent, resilient, open and human world.

People in humanitarian crisis are getting connected: connected one to each other, connected to people in other countries and willing to help, connected to the rest of the world, when listening. The names of the tools that connects us all are not new: Facebook, Twitter, Skype, WordPress, …

Tools liberating new energies, the energies of:

• volunteers across the globe translating, validating reports, spreading the information and spreading awarness,
• geeks, mappers, developers, hackers, creating new and better tools,
• and most of all, the energies of the people there!

Few have yet acknowledged such a big change and big opportunity.

The new paradigm in Crisis Management

Social, partecipatory web is liberating new energies, energies that have already shown their impact, so where do the well established agencies, NGOs and institutions stand?

An important debate that took place in Paris: “Civil Society & institutions in Crisis Management : New Paradigm of the Participatory Web.”, a roundtable on the current understanding and acceptance of the new paradigm from the Institutions. The main outcome of the debate was that not only the Institutions but also most humanitarian agencies and  large NGOs have not yet seen, understood, nor accepted the change. And it was great to have people from UN OCHA and the International Committee of the Red Cross at the table, OCHA in particular has already done much and is leading the effort of collaborating with the volunteers communities defining the new challenges.

CrisisCamps collect the enthusiasm, the appeal, the dream of the many that have experienced the change: volunteers, humanitarian geeks and technoutopists, a movement born from the bottom, very young, and unexperienced. On the other side the institutions and international organizations that have been working in humanitarian crisis for decades, with their experience and knowledge (and rules and procedures) aimed to ensure quality, safe, transparent and effective action.

Conclusions

Participatory web, and notably the direct participation of the affected communites, will have a growing impact on the information, knowledge sharing, privacy and security, and action before, during and after a crisis.

As Anahi puts it:

“people have access to these tools and they will use them, anyway!”

and also:

“people are now in the information loop and can provide and will also benefit a lot from information.”

I urge all international organizations, NGOs and Institutions to look at, explore and embrace the new paradigm: the debate is open, while communities are growing and social web spreading more and more.

And only these organisations only can provide the experience, the training, the wisdom and the resources needed.  And I’m sure the “new energies” will listen, learn from them, and organize, develop new tools, practices and continue to innovate.

I really hope that in the next years international organizations will foster and help accelerate such change, fully understanding that the social web is an everyday tool to fulfill their very mission.

What’s next?

The Paris Summit of CrisisCamps has motivated me more than enough to move forward and start bringing such new powerful ideas and tools into my everyday work in Reflab, and engaging in the community: together with Elena Rapisardi (@erapisardi) and Marco Boscolo (ogdabaum) we have kickstarted an Italian group. Thanks to Header (@poplifegirl) and CrisisCommons for the support. Huge thanks to LaCantine for giving us a great location, wi-fi, food and everything we needed and to Claire (@ClaireInParis) for leading and guiding us all.

Related resources
crisismappers.net
crisiscommons.com
Disaster Relief 2.0 (report)
Volunteer Technology Communities (paper)

Tags: barcamp, crisis, crisiscamp, crowdmapping, crowdsourcing, emergency, relief, social