Prutsalis WCDM Address

Making Chaos Manageable

“No innovation matters morethan that which saves lives”

Avelino J. Cruz, Jr., Secretary of National Defense of the Philippineson the use of Sahana following disastrous mudslides in 2005

Mark PrutsalisPresident & CEO, Sahana Software Foundation

http //SahanaFoundation.org:

Agenda

☀ Introductions☀ Disaster Trends and Opportunities☀ Humanitarian Free & Open Source Software☀ The New Information Environment☀ Four Case Studies

☀ US National Library of Medicine People Locator☀ City of New York Office of Emergency Management Sahana

Emergency Management System☀ Los Angeles Emergency Management Department’s Give2LA☀ International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) Resource

Management System

Sahana Software Foundation

☀ The Sahana Software Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the mission of saving lives by providing information management solutions that enable organizations and communities to better prepare for and respond to disasters.

☀ We develop free and open source software and provide services that help solve concrete problems and bring efficiencies to disaster response coordination between governments, aid organizations, civil society and disaster survivors themselves.

The Historic Trigger 2004 : Indian Ocean Earthquake & Tsunami

☀ At least 226,000 dead

☀ Up to 5 million people lost their homes, or access to food and water

☀ 1 million people left without a means to make a living

☀ At least $7.5 billion in the cost of damages

“Facts and Figures Asian Tsunami Disaster” :New Scientist, 20 January 2005

Sahana first deployed for Sri Lanka tsunami response

Disaster Trends

☀ World’s urban population will reach 6.4 billion by 2050 (that’s 70% of the world’s projected population of 9.2 billion)1

☀ World’s population and economic centers are concentrated in “vulnerable cities near earthquake faults, on river deltas or along tropical coasts.”2

☀ Growing vulnerability to an increased incidence of costly disasters.☀ By 2050 the city populations exposed to tropical cyclones or earthquakes will more than double,

rising from 11% to 16% of the world’s population.3

☀ By 2070, seven of the ten greatest urban concentrations of economic assets that are exposed to coastal flooding will be in the developing world (vs. none in 2005). Assets exposed to flooding will rise from 5% of the world GDP to 9%.4

☀ Global annual disaster spending will triple to $185 billion by 21003 ☀ Spending on urban infrastructure to approach $350 trillion over next 30 years5

☀ 2011 was costliest year ever for disasters (earthquakes in Japan & New Zealand, flooding in China, Australia & Thailand, tornadoes in US) 2

☀ Five of ten costliest disasters have occurred in last five years2

☀ 20% of aid is now spent responding to disasters only 0.7% is spent on mitigation; 2

☀ President Obama declared record 99 disaster declarations in 20112

1 United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, 20072 the Economist, January 14, 2012

3 United Nations & World Bank, Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters The Economics of Effective Prevention, 2010:4 OECD, Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vulnerability to Climate Extremes Exposure Estimates, 2007  :

5 Booz & Co., Reinventing the City to Combat Climate Change, 2010

Disasters are

A Growth Industry

There is both Opportunity

And Responsibility

What is a Disaster?

☀ “A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceeds the ability of the affected society to cope using only its own resources”

- Source UNDP:☀ “Any Event or Circumstance (happening with or without

warning) that causes or threatens death or injury, disruption to the community on such a scale that the effects cannot be dealt with by the emergency services, local authorities and other organizations as part of their normal day to day activities”

- UK Home Office

Aftermath of Disasters

☀ The trauma caused by waiting to be found or find the next of kin

☀ Coordinating all aid groups and helping them to operate effectively as one

☀ Managing the multiple of requests from the affected region and matching them effectively to the pledges of assistance

☀ Tracking the location of all shelters, warehouses, hospitals and medical facilities, etc.

Tasks Facing Responders

☀ Search and Rescue

☀ Evacuation

☀ Setting up Shelters

☀ Distribution of Aid

☀ Management of Donations

☀ Tracing Missing Persons

☀ Trauma Counseling

☀ Assuring Security

☀ Protecting Children

☀ Restoration of Utilities

Life Saving decisions need to be made fast!The best decisions are the most informed ones

How Can Technology Help?☀ Scalable management of information

☀ No stacks of forms or files to manage

☀ Efficient distribution of information

☀ Accessibility of information on demand

☀ Automatic assessment and aggregation

☀ No delays for collation or calculations

☀ Live situational awareness

☀ Reports are updated in real time as data is entered

Humanitarian Free & Open Source Software Solutions☀ What is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS):

☀ The code is available for anyone to use and modify

☀ Free Software Foundation “free speech, not free beer”:☀ Humanitarian FOSS is:

☀ application of FOSS principles for charitable purposes

☀ Aligned to Red Cross Code of Conduct

☀ Many HFOSS Solutions providers

Common Technology & Features

☀ Multiple Environments☀ Linux, Windows, OSX☀ PortableApps, VMWare☀ Cloud/EC2

☀ Translation & L10n☀ Alternate character sets☀ Right-to-left scripting

☀ Open Data Standards☀ KML, EMS, GeoRSS, WPS☀ EDXL, CAP, JSON, XML

☀ Mobile Accessibility☀ J2ME, HTML5☀ IOS, Android

Haiti Earthquakeand the

New Information EnvironmentJanuary 12, 2010 4 53 PM; :

Magnitude 7.0

The New Disaster Information Environment☀ Government & Emergency Services relief capacity has

been exceeded or crippled

☀ To meet response requirements, the boundary of the effort extends to external groups (NGOs, civil society, foreign aid, UN agencies)

☀ Core Decision Makers need to consult a wider group and gather information from nontraditional “uninitiated” sources for better Situational Awareness

CROWDSOURCING & SOCIAL MEDIA

OPEN SOURCE & OPEN STANDARDS

Where are the Survivors and Who Needs Assistance?

Missing and Found Persons

☀ After Katrina, 52 distinct missing persons web sites.

☀ After Haiti quake - HaitianQuake.com - scraped sites to create a master site of all sources of information

☀ Google Person Finder absorbed and extended

☀ PFIF key to interoperability between systems, including Sahana-based Haiti Earthquake People Location (HEPL)

PFIF

☀ Leveraged☀ Global Volunteers☀ Social Media & “Crowdsourcing”

☀ Accomplishments:☀ Structured data from

crowdsourcing☀ Found actionable information from

public sources☀ Highlighted coordination between

different groups each with different skills and capabilities for a humanitarian purpose.

☀ Bringing together non-traditional and traditional emergency response community

Project 4636 & Tweak the Tweet

Best Practices :Leveraging New Technologies

☀ How do you understand in 140 characters:☀ Source/credibility, verification, validation, location,

prioritization, categorization, causation and responsibility

☀ Challenge How do you appropriately integrate :publicly available information with trusted systems and sources?

Crisis Mapping in Haiti

☀ High-resolution Satellite Imageryavailable quickly (26 hrs)

☀ OpenStreetMap volunteers used this & old printed maps to quickly cover Port-au-Prince

☀ These were made available as basemaps on handheld GPS devices

Open Street Map – Project Haiti

Open Street Maps: Port au Prince10 May 2010

Crisis Mapping in Haiti Lessons

☀ Leveraged global volunteer community to provide accurate and current data – “crowdsourced” – by experts in GIS

☀ Best geographic information after disasters may come from publicly curated sources like OSM

☀ Standby Task Force and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) today provide rapid crisis mapping solutions for governments and UN agencies following disasters.

☀ Sahana software supports the humanitarian geo-spatial data model used by OSM which allows Sahana to import and export POIs with OSM.

Where are the functioning hospitals and what is their status?

Sahana Geo-locate the Hospitals Challenge☀ Started with list of 157 hospitals in Haiti scraped

from PAHO, MSPP, UN OCHA, OSM, ReliefWeb

☀ 100 with no known coordinates (lat/long)

☀ Challenge geo-locate them by any means :possible

☀ Took 24 hours to “find” all but three

☀ Solutions creative descriptions in news articles, ;reconciliation with OSM, local knowledge, telephone calls, e-mail, educated guesses

☀ Geo-rectification by GIS expert using World Bank provided high resolution flyover imagery

Hospital Management Systems

☀ Multiple systems fed data into a “Master List” maintained by US HHS, handed over to MSPP

☀ Crowdsourcing solutions can assist addressing critical information gaps in a rapid and timely manner

☀ Open data standards-based solutions allow for better sharing of information across diverse organizations

☀ EDXL-HAVE data standardMASTER

LIST

Global Health Facility Registry

☀ Create a List of EVERY Health Facility in the World

☀ Builds on the EDXL-HAVE based Sahana Solution proven in Haiti

☀ Hospital Registry

☀ “Web Services” to import/export data (RESTful API)

☀ Matches requirements identified for the Global Health Facility Database Initiative that came out of the April 2010 World Health Care Congress in Washington

☀ Crowdsourcing the data collection

☀ Collaboratively curated by a trusted network of government, NGOs, companies and communities.

March 21, 2012 28

Standards Organizations

Safe and Well

EDXL-TECPFIF

EDXL-TECPFIF

EDXL-HAVE

Haiti Hospital Data Proposed 2010( )

Missing Persons Community of Interest 2012

Sahana

Google Resource

Finder

Travax

Best Practices Open Standards and :Information Sharing Agreements/MOUs

Haiti Earthquake & The “New Information Environment”

New information and communication technologies, new information providers, and new international communities of interest emerged during the Haiti earthquake response that will forever change how humanitarian information is collected, shared, and managed. Humanitarian responders used social networking media, mobile phone text messaging, open source software applications, and commercial satellite imagery more than ever before. Outside of the established international humanitarian community, volunteers and participatory reporters from the affected population became new sources of data and information. Humanitarian organizations, host governments, and the donor community will all need to adapt to this new information environment.

US Department of State Humanitarian Information Unit, White Paper Haiti Earthquake Breaking New : :Ground in the Humanitarian Information Landscape, July 2010

New partners are offering faster, more effective means of analyzing an ever-increasing volume and velocity of data. The challenge ahead is how to create an effective interface between these resources, and create an eco-system where each actor understands its role. It will not be easy. Volunteer and technical communities V&TCs like OpenStreetMap, ( )Sahana and CrisisMappers approach problems in ways that challenge the status quo.

UN Foundation, Disaster Relief 2.0 :The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies, 2011

Four Case Studies:Organizations Using Sahana☀ US National Library of Medicine’s People LocatorTM

☀ City of New York’s Office of Emergency Management Sahana Emergency Management System

☀ Los Angeles Emergency Management Department’s Give2LA website

☀ International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (IFRC) Asia Pacific Region’s Resource Management System

US National Library of Medicine People Locator ProjectFamily Reunification After A Disaster

☀Hospital Use Case☀ Original focus, in conjunction with local Bethesda

Hospitals’ Emergency Preparedness Partnership

☀ Goals☀ Log disaster victims arriving at the hospital

☀ Assist family reunification counselors

☀ Reduce inquiry load on rest of hospital staff

☀Community Use Case☀ First activated in response to the Haitian

Earthquake

☀ For disasters of larger scope:☀ Provide a registry and tools for search and reporting

by public or field workers

☀ Promote data exchange among registries

US National Library of MedicinePeople Locator Project

US National Library of MedicinePeople Locator Project

Hospital Use Community Use

Triage Station

Software

Data Google “Person Finder”

Search & Report at Vesuvius

/PL

NLM’s ReUniteTM

iPhone App

LIVE SITE at

HTTP //PL.NLM.NIH.GOV:

TriagePicTM

Recent People Locator Deployments

☀ Sendong, Philippines, December, 2011

☀ Turkey Earthquake, October 2011

☀ Joplin, Missouri, May 2011

☀ Tohoku Earthquake, March 2011

NYC OEM & the Sahana Emergency Management System (SEMS)

Hurricane Irene – 2011

WFP & Government of Philippines RGIMS

EVHAC – European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps

Conclusion Benefits of HFOSS:☀ Starting Point

☀ NLM estimates building on Sahana platform saved them over a year of development

☀ NYC Registry Program built quickly from existing code

☀ Sharing with other orgs☀ IFRC RMS spreading to other regions, including US☀ NYC distributing SEMS to Regional Catastrophic

Planning Team and other regions/big cities☀ Give2LA expanding from City to County

☀ Sahana Software Foundation a trusted partner☀ Non-profit 501(c)(3) and licensing model☀ These systems are all freely available from the SSF

Unique Development Model:Virtuous Circle of ContributionsTraditional Open Source Development Model

☀ Can result in multiple branches, each needing support and expertise to maintain

Branch for Org B

Branch for Org A

TRUNK

Unique Development Model:Virtuous Circle of ContributionsSahana Open Source Development Model:

☀ Features & fixes developed by one organization are available to all future Sahana users

☀ Enabled by Sahana Software Foundation s 501(c)(3) status & 'supported by Software Grant Agreements & Contributor License Agreements

TRUNK

Org B Branch

Org A Branch

Freedom to use, analyze, modify and re-distribute

Available for everybody at no cost

Open for research and development

Collaboratively developed by a Global community

Mark Prutsalis

President & CEO, Sahana Software Foundation

http //SahanaFoundation.org:[email protected]

@SahanaFOSS Sahana#http //www.slideshare.net/SahanaFOSS:

Free and Open Source Software Projects