The 2010 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince caused widespread devastation, killed over 300,000 people, and became a pinnacle example of how people thousands of miles away can participate in a group effort to coordinate relief-based operations for catastrophic disaster zones.
Penn State had some of these people right here in IST.
I remember as a freshman student in the second semester of classes when I was asked to join a team of researchers at Penn State with something called Project EMERSE, which focused on methods to enhance messaging for emergency response, specifically for disasters and catastrophes. Project EMERSE analyzed thousands of tweets from Haiti as well as developed an app for mobile devices to send detailed information to a server, which is then disseminated to nearby response and relief workers to better coordinate efforts. Analyzing tweets was much like we talked about in class, concerning the SMS services within Haiti. Thousands of tweets would flood the network, and suddenly, too much information would be out there to interpret. Translators could filter through all the Creole and French for our English speaking partners, but when 100 relevant tweets becomes 20,000 tweets of noise with unknown relevance, sorting through Twitter becomes cumbersome. I can say I personally sorted through 3,000 tweets of a set of 5,000 where all the text was in English, and my job was to categorize each tweet based on an ontology or domains of subheadings, including topics like 'health', which would cover everything from injuries to sickness, or 'supplies', which would include water, food, or shelter. We observed what people said they wanted or needed and tried to identify any locations they mentioned in their tweets. We liked the ideas Ushahidi presented, hence why we talk about them so much in this particular class, but in working with NetHope, we provided research to enhance emergency response through the use of mobile technology and situational awareness for humanitarian aid or relief workers.
Here I have added a 2 minute video further explaining some of the other things Ushahidi has been involved with prior to the well-known actions in Haiti.
One thing I want to note here is that I came across one article concerning the use of GPS tracking units to coordinate relief efforts. It talked about two important things. First of all, GPS tracking has a HUGE potential due to the fact that most cell phones now have a GPS chipset included in the hardware. What some organizations would plan to do is to have an access available to track people and their phone's GPS without revealing personal information, specifically to track crowd movements during emergency situations, or in situations that require global assistance, like the floods in Pakistan. Second of all, the article talked about how easy it would be to obtain cheap GPS units to provide to humanitarian organizations to track relief efforts. It was interesting to see that a GPS unit can be taken anywhere to connect to any computer wirelessly for around $99. Applications for GPS use in the future could be interesting to develop, especially with the fact that Facebook and Twitter updates can now include location-based information or other GPS coordinates.
The pinnacle part of the response to the Haitian earthquake was the fact that people in distant countries could coordinate a relief effort without being in country. With the efforts done by Project EMERSE, the categories used are basic enough to get the message across of what certain individuals need most. Now you have relief effort groups split their man power up into the different TWEET or SMS categories you designated with the incoming tweets or SMS messages. This allows you to have certain groups focus solely on the category they are assigned. That way the traffic of tweets and SMS messages could be forwarded to these groups using GPS and maps to show the locations of these individuals.
ReplyDeleteIt is to my knowledge that no matter what type of phone you have in today’s world, there is the ability to track anyones cell phone by GPS. This can still be done on your Droid or iPhone whether you have the GPS signal on. Especially if you call 911 or another emergency number your smart phone automatically turns that GPS signal on to help emergency services locate you.
Ushahidi is in my own opinion an effective tool in any kind of emergency situation. This is because it is 1) easy to use, 2) it is accessible to anyone, and 3) deployable worldwide. I believe number 3 makes it one of the best ideas with crisis management. The reports are posted in almost near real time which is great for effective responses. It is also open source which allows it to be updated and changed to help with specific situations.
-Haiti was definitely the largest and most accurate portrayal of how technology and social media can affect disaster situations and disaster zones. Equally so it displayed a worldwide effort to help participate in the coordination of relief efforts in Haiti.
ReplyDelete- Personally, I didn’t know that Penn State’s Information Sciences and Technology Department had started Project EMERSE. Granted, at the time I was a first semester student at Penn State: Altoona; nonetheless, I was still unaware that Penn State was involved in relief aid to Haiti after the major earthquake hit, but not surprised.
-Undoubtedly the number of social media posts, whether it be Facebook status updates, or Twitter tweets, can become and often does become over abundant and a headache instead of a help, especially when PEOPLE, not computers have to sort through these social media posts.
-While I do commend your individual efforts to aid the disaster relief in Haiti, I don’t quite understand one part of what you stated. “I can say I personally sorted through 3,000 tweets of a set of 5,000…” Does this mean that 2,000 tweets went neglected, uncategorized, and unheard? Or does this mean that out of 5,000 tweets, you only had to categorize 3,000 tweets?
- In the section about GPS trackers in cell phones I feel that it is incumbent upon me to hint that all cell phones have a GPS system imbedded in the hardware of the phone. And, it has been a standard since the attacks on the World Trade Centers of September 11th of 2001.
- Since the standard of all cell phones having a GPS chipset in the hardware has been in place for ten years, there has also been a choice among users to have the GPS locator within their mobile phones be E911 only (aka: Emergency 911 use only) or for GPS to be turned ON completely. Personally, I have mine set to E911 only unless I find myself in a particularly difficult or dangerous situation.
-I do agree with you that applications for GPS use would be interesting and exciting to see how they would be developed and deployed, especially within social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, which now include location-based information when you post a comment/tweet or a picture if enabled.
You pointed out one of the biggest flaws in the SMS messages and twitter posts. Sometimes there is too much information out there and the correct information gets lost. You mentioned have to sort through the 3,000 tweets by hand into categories. I can only imagine how long that would have taken you to sort. By the time, you had sorted those 3,000 tweets there were probably at least 10,000 new tweets. You reach the point where there is too much information and good information is easily lost. You can also run into the problem where not all of the information that you have to sort through is even useful. Someone can be tweeting about the disaster, but providing information that is either useless or even potentially harmful.
ReplyDeleteYour article on the GPS trackers provided a perspective that I had not previously thought of. GPS trackers can provide information that other technologies cannot. The most interesting potential use of GPS is to map human responses to disasters. Responders can use these maps to better plan for future disasters if they have an understanding of how people react in a disaster. I also like the fact that GPS does not rely on cell phone network towers that have the potential to fail under stress. GPS relies on satellites in space to provide locations instead of towers on the ground.
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