Crisis Camp will help Haiti relief workers communicate and organize
Tomorrow at 9:00am, dozens of local techies with various backgrounds will volunteer their Saturday to collaborate in a one-day effort to help victims of the earthquakes in Haiti. It’s called Boston CrisisCamp.
They”ll be descending on the the Cambridge office of ITA Software, a locally-based company providing IT solutions for the travel industry, to work hand-in-hand to help bring Haiti, the Western World’s most underdeveloped country, up to speed. The goal? Help volunteers and NGOs in Haiti improve their aid efforts on the ground.
Other CrisisCamp events like this one are currently being organized all over the world.
Monika Adamczyk, who’s organizing the event, (she blushed when I asked her if she had a title) says some event participants will be developing software to help organize volunteers and facilitate communication via Twitter. Others will go to to Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Diplomacy to help in their Situation Room. Other software projects being developed by CrisisCamp include a disaster assessment mobile app requested by the World Bank and Haiti hospital capacity finder.
“At this point two certain projects are the Fletcher School and Open Tweet Find. Everything else will have to be decided tomorrow. We are running a survey in attendee skills but ultimately we will not know who is going to attend until people show up,” wrote Adamczyk in an Email.
CrisisCamp was organized by CrisisCommons.org, a volunteer organization that “maintains a network of technology volunteers to respond to specific needs in times of crisis” (crisiscommons.org). Essentially, it’s a network of people with technical skills who have a shared common interest in helping humanity during their free time.
“At lot of coordination with other Crisis Camps is done via online tools (IRC, Google Wave, email, wiki) and teleconferences that we hold daily,” wrote Adamczyk.
Boston CrisisCamp is one of 11 CrisisCamps happening this weekend. Other locations include Silicon Valley, Cali.; Boulder, Colo.; Miami, Fla.; Seattle, Wash.; Bogota, Columbia; Toronto, Canada; and Washington D.C.
I will be volunteering at the event and plan to report on the efforts and successes of event here at BostInnovation. For more information on CrisisCommons, please check out their website, http://crisiscommons.org, and follow them on Twitter @CrisisCamp.
Tags: Edu
