Today, my colleague and I went to a conference held by the CDAD, partially to uncover what this actually meant and partially to try and work out how we could become involved.
Digital Humanitarianism is made possible when the thousands upon thousands of tweets, photos, and texts which are shared each day are sifted through and made sense of and can become crucial information for field workers and aid networks. Social media can give real time updates and images; but it is also filled with an awful lot of rubbish, that can waste time in an emergency.
According to Standby Task Force , in the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, only 0.001% of all tweets related to this subject contained 'useful' material for them and other humanitarian organisations. Useful here means, unique, relevant and informative data. Not just a retweet, or someone exclaiming 'OMG' at the start of a previously known fact. Indeed, the 'usefulness' of the vast and expanding pockets of information related to crisis and conflict is one problem. But so too is the inherent subjectivity and bias that patently comes from this kind of information. For example, the types of people with access to smart phones or twitter who can document these ongoings are clearly wealthier and connected. Humanitarian organisations want clean, accurate information and we tend to assume that the data they are working from aside from social media is this clean, accurate stuff. However, as someone in the conference rightfully brought up, this is rarely the case and we should accept the inherent bias within the data and communications of the humanitarian sector more broadly.
MicroMappers is a fantastic idea which draws on the universal and contemporary preoccupation with the internet and social media. Created in 2013, MicroMappers is the first ever set of microtasking apps specifically customized for digital humanitarian response. It takes the masses of data related to conflicts, like photos uploaded online with tags or tweets and allows volunteer from anywhere in the world can sift through the primary content and electronically organise it. For example, a picture of a bombed hospital may come up, and a volunteer is required to categorise it with a click of the button. Or look at the picture above for another example. MicroMappers combines the terms "microtasking" and "crisis mappers", it rapidly and effectively eliminates the useless data and allows for faster humanitarian action. It simultaneously creates and relies upon a shared network from the most up to date information. Anyone can sign up at any point to volunteer; you will be notified when your help is needed, and you can do it from the comfort of your own bed.
It's disappointing but not at all surprising to hear that organisations like Standby Task Force only emerged in 2010, with MicroMappers only appearing on the scene last year. Too often the third sector is playing catch up with the private sector. Aid organisations are further hindered by the fact that humanitarian organisations consistently fail to share their findings, needs assessments and local knowledge. Thus they consistently waste time researching and generating data for their own internal use as opposed to pooling their resources and knowledge with others.The default non sharing stale mate between organisations reveals the barrier to good communication, and consequently real progress. When the audience was asked how much they would share their information, it seemed rare and more a matter of generous personality and initiative than organisational protocol if they insisted they would share this data.
The main reasons given for humanitarian organisations not collating and disseminating their knowledge seems to be as a result of two main things:
1) Time scale & 'feeding the beast' - Field workers and needs assessors are working against the clock to get information quickly. Trailing through various databases, PDFs from diverse sources and collecting the information may take longer and leave more gaps than just doing it themselves.
2) Competition - Organisations need their USP in order to market themselves to supporters and funders. Without this 'unique' data and accurate, independently sourced baseline, they risk falling short of requirements and 'losing out' to other organisations.
But it I was informed of a solution to this humanitarian information hogging. MicroMappers is a fantastic idea which draws on the universal and contemporary preoccupation with the internet and social media. Created in 2013, MicroMappers is the first ever set of microtasking apps specifically customized for digital humanitarian response. It takes the masses of data related to conflicts, like photos uploaded online with tags or tweets and allows volunteer from anywhere in the world can sift through the primary content and electronically organise it. For example, a picture of a bombed hospital may come up, and a volunteer is required to categorise it with a click of the button. Or look at the picture above for another example. MicroMappers combines the terms "microtasking" and "crisis mappers", it rapidly and effectively eliminates the useless data and allows for faster humanitarian action. It simultaneously creates and relies upon a shared network from the most up to date information. Anyone can sign up at any point to volunteer; you will be notified when your help is needed, and you can do it from the comfort of your own bed.
It's disappointing but not at all surprising to hear that organisations like Standby Task Force only emerged in 2010, with MicroMappers only appearing on the scene last year. Too often the third sector is playing catch up with the private sector. Despite the wider hesitance of sharing institutional data and information, I hope that as MicroMappers grows and becomes a more intuitive and logical tool, the sharing of humanitarian data will become second nature to aid organisations as much as it is to the civilians on the ground who are the ones taking these photos and disseminating this information in the first place. Ultimately, the third sector needs to continue to keep up with the revolutions in technology and embrace online connectivity as an additional resource in the tools of saving lives.
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