techy response to haiti

my life has been consumed with haiti the last 10 days. it looks like there is an 80% chance i will be down there this time next week. it feels daunting but i am excited to be on the ground and be able to connect some dots.

there are some wonderful ways for people to help haiti that i want to share. they don't require going down OR sending money. if you look at the bottom of this page i have added a link for people looking for people.

this video is a brief introduction to the work that crisis commons is doing.


they had an all-day crisis camp yesterday at the NPR headquarters and in 10 cities around the world. they will hold camps again next weekend. i am working with them to expand the hospital capacity finder work to include clinics and convalescent centers. you can check out the crisis commons website to see if you can join one of the camps are in your area. or if you are interested in starting a crisis camp in your area, let me know and i can hook you up with the people.

here is a brief summary of what happened over the weekend in DC alone:

CrisisCommons in collaboration with National Public Radio, hosted CrisisCamp Haiti in Washington DC to provide volunteer opportunities to create technologies and provide technical assistance to assist relief agencies, diaspora communities, non-profits, faith-based communities, non-governmental and community organization to assist in the response and recovery of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. On the same day, CrisisCamps (organized locally) were hosted across the world in 13 cities such as Bogota, London and Miami with hundreds of volunteers participating. In addition, such technology centered locations such as Silicon Valley and Boston

also participated.

Since the earthquake, CrisisCommons has empowered approximately 20 cities and hundreds of volunteers to give their expertise (virtually or via CrisisCamps) to assist in the humanitarian aid relief efforts. Accomplishments include the "I Have, I Need" a "Craigslist" of donation management, Crisis Wiki, UN RSS Feed request, PersonFinder, French/Kryol Translator apps for the iPhone and Android and WiFi firmware router enhancement which boosts WiFi signals.

Ushahidi is also doing cool stuff in conjunction with Crisis Common. if you are a techy person, please check these sites out (and pass this along to your techy friends). there is a heap that people can do.

if you have friends connected to NGO's on the ground, please pass this along to help us start inventorying what is going on where.

Mapping NGOs in Action

NGOs are the "boots on the ground" in Haiti. Hundreds of NGOs have ongoing operations in Haiti. But who's who and where are they? This project is gathering information to create an overview database of relief assistance that is deployed to Haiti. The project will create a directory of organizations, people on the ground, where they are, what they are doing, and what they need. The team will create a Drupal database relating people to programs.

http://crisiscommons.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mapping_NGOs_in_Action