This week, our 397A class welcomed Andrew Alspach from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Mr. Alspach worked with the technology coordination portion of OCHA and talked to us about the importance of cooperation and organization when it comes to information gathering, dissemination, and integration in the numerous NGOs that act in states of crisis. One of the biggest goals within OCHA is to utilize the access and integration of information to save lives. As Mr. Alspach briefly mentioned, he believes that it is time for the UN to act and embrace the technology that exists around us. Everyone always talks about cooperating with NGOs and making new ways to share information, but now is the time to "walk the walk." After all, any kind of assessment that needs to be taken immediately in times of serious disasters, the UN will take at minimum 1 month to produce a viable report for the anyone operating in a disaster zone. Does anyone else think this is just plain ridiculous?
Surprisingly, Mr. Alspach mentioned that services from Google have been extremely helpful. Google Docs has been utilized so that multiple organizations can work on similar files, in one file format, that is shared with whoever needs to be involved. Collaboration is maximized with using many of Google's services. Simply, rather than having a team of people working together in a set location with lots of discussions, data can be poured into a virtual realm so that sharing is both maximized and nearly resource-free. The now growing divide between reality based collaboration and virtually-based networking has drastically increased any cooperation that is needed on site, but it's becoming obvious that virtual workstations are better when teams can't physically meet and also have just as much efficiency.
Finally, Mr. Alspach really pushed the idea that knowledge is a social machine. I really like this concept. After all, we learn a lot from each other, and we interact on such high levels that our understanding of the world around us is constantly discussed to either bring more questions or complete an understanding. Interaction has become a key for cooperation and learning. Most communities also hold rituals and artifacts close to their groundings. And as people grow in such societies, these artifacts turn into objects of social development. Together, communities help create awareness of social norms, to sensitize particular artifacts, and to change previously made assumptions of the surroundings. The concept is just brilliant because people pick up conformity related concepts from friends and family, and if other learning objectives are applied to the same kinds of principles to social knowledge, people gain a deeper understanding of the new objectives.
Again, I want to thank Andrew Alspach for joining us this week and talking to us. I hope that he learned as much about us as we learned from him.
I agree with your point that taking a month to produce a report is ridiculous now. It does not take a month to gather the amount of data required to generate an initial report if the United Nations was more open to collaboration. Unfortunately, the UN until recently has not utilized collaboration tools like Google Docs fully. Instead of gathering the data themselves, the UN could have "crowd sourced" the data to generate an initial response. If the UN promoted collaboration, they could have gathered the required amounts of data within a week or two tops. They then could have an initial report prepared within two weeks, improving humanitarian responses.
ReplyDeleteYour comment on Google Docs highlights some of the innovation coming out of the UN resistance to technology. While the UN is reluctant to adapt to new technologies, private companies are innovating revolutionizing humanitarian responses for everyone outside of the UN. Organizations can now collaborate to create a standard disaster questionnaire and gather a large set of responses. Before this, organizations created their own questionnaire and would then ask those affected by disaster similar but different sets of questions. Now, they can ask the same questions and can ask a wider range of people. This will allow responders to get a better picture of the needs for those affected by the disaster. This will make for a more appropriate response where the needs of those affected are truly met.