“Team Rubicon is doing for disaster response what the Obama team did for political campaigns,” said Jonathan Morgenstein while taking a break from tearing down moldy drywall in hurricane-damaged Rockaway, Brooklyn. A New York native and US Marine Corps veteran who served two tours in Iraq, Morgenstein had spent the last month working on the campaign trail with Veterans and Military Families for Obama. He was referring not to the nearly fifty volunteers he was coordinating that afternoon, but rather the sophisticated software back-end that he was relying on to provide the correct information attached to the clipboard he was carrying. In the same way that better technology such as “Narwhal” had been credited with assisting him only weeks earlier for turning out more volunteers, donors and voters than in 2008 for Obama (“When The Nerds Go Marching In,” The Atlantic, 11/16/12), it was now playing a core role in coordinating disaster response in New York.

Jon Morgenstein in Rockaway, Brooklyn

Jon Morgenstein in Rockaway, Brooklyn

And on November 18, Morgenstein needed the help. In collaboration with Team Rubicon, he was responsible for supervising 48 Clinton Foundation volunteers to gut ten hurricane-damaged homes in preparation for their restoration by contractors. Morgenstein was one of hundreds of volunteers helping out with Team Rubicon during the Clinton Global Initiative’s “Day of Action for New York,” which pushed Team Rubicon organizing capacity to the limit. While it’s difficult to estimate exactly how much value has been returned to the community, gutting just one of the houses was estimated at $5,000-$8,000 for a homeowner without insurance (in this case a 91-year-old), making a direct value-add beyond food and shelter relief. And each house was tied to a work order and a map on Morgenstein’s clip board, just like while canvassing before the election.

But this particular software by Palantir Technologies wasn’t designed for campaigns, rather having been used recently for finding IEDs in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a post on CNN (10/4/12), Palantir “software ties together intelligence data to improve information for troops about the possible location of roadside bombs planted by insurgents.” Nonetheless, it was also a perfect fit for an organization like Team Rubicon, which “unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with medical professionals to rapidly deploy emergency response teams into crisis situations.”  While the outpouring of people wanting to help has been heartening, new problems arise when organizing large groups of ad-hoc volunteers.

Volunteers from the Clinton Foundation  (Credit: Jon Morgenstein)

Volunteers from the Clinton Foundation

Fortunately, the tech fit the mission. Far from having an existing organizational structure or a known set of capabilities (like a proper military unit), this had been a seat-of-the-pants improvised human logistics, making those most in need with those most capable.  Palantir’s philanthropic team had been discussing doing some disaster-relief simulations to test its capabilities for this use.  When Sandy suddenly threatened the eastern seaboard, the drill became the real thing, with Palantir scrambling to set up the server infrastructure and mobile handsets for Team Rubicon’s use. (“Philanthropy Engineers Embed with Team Rubicon for Hurricane Sandy Relief,” Palantir Blog, 11/14/12)

The setup was ready by November 4th, just as recovery operations were swinging into gear. Imagined as operating system for data problems, Palantir’s software was able to pull in information from multiple sources of data, fuse it together into a coherent picture of the state of the peninsula, and then allow Team Rubicon operators to efficiently dispatch volunteers (say, a chainsaw team) to where they were needed the most (a list of the fifteen biggest downed trees). But tech isn’t perfect. “Check the data. At the end of the day, just because it’s in Palantir doesn’t make it right.” stated Brian Fishman of Palantir from inside the bus HQ. “Circumstances change, and a functional technology infrastructure requires regular updates to the data in the system.”

So, will Palantir and Team Rubicon change the way organizations think about disaster response? “I don’t know, maybe,” stated Morgenstein, “In the military we say, ‘Amateurs talk strategy, pros talk logistics’. These tech guys have made the logistics a lot easier at the operational level, and the military culture you see in Team Rubicon of delegating decision-making downwards to the person closest to the problem, is perfectly suited to an operation like this.”

Brian Fishman of Palantir at Team Rubicon FOB Hope

What we do know, however, is that putting the right tools in the right hands has the potential to create a team where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. With Palantir and Team Rubicon, response operations will continue to iterate and improve over time, with the ultimate goal being to develop better response mechanisms for the next time disaster strikes. The best indicator of Team Rubicon as a learning organization may have nothing to do with the technology. At the end of the “Day of Action,” our team leader Zach (pictured, below right) turned to the group and asked us: “What could we do differently? If you see something you think we could be doing better, please let us know so that we can keep getting better at this.” Even when it comes to disaster response, tech is only ten percent.

TechChange provides online training in Tech Tools for Emergency Management. If you’re interested in learning more, consider applying for our next course. Class starts Jan. 14!

Interested in joining Team Rubicon? Please consider donating time or money to further their work. Learn more about Team Rubicon.

Zach and Dan of Team Rubicon

Zach and Dan of Team Rubicon

This post was originally published on the NDITech DemocracyWorks blog by Lindsay Beck (view original post), a student in TechChange’s recent course at George Washington University. For more information, please consider following @BeckLindsay and @NDITech.

As technology closes the time between when events happen and when they are shared with the world, understanding what approaches and tools are the best solutions to implement in crisis response and good governance programs is increasingly important. During the “Technology for Crisis Response and Good Governance” course, which I took earlier this month offered by TechChange at GW, our class was able to simulate different scenarios of how such tools can be used effectively.

The first simulation we did was on how to use FrontlineSMS and Crowdmap to track and respond to incidents in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Each team was responsible for managing FrontlineSMS, mapping incidents and other information on Crowdmap, and going into the field to get more information and verify reports. Management of the incoming data at this point becomes the highest priority. Designating specific responsibilities to different individuals, and determining how to categorize data (reports to be mapped, questions to be answered by other officials, overly panicked individuals, etc.) helps to more efficiently handle processing a large amount of information during a short timeframe.

The next simulation was on how to use a variety of open source tools and resources to enact an election monitoring mission. While the temptation was there to think about what the tools could do to meet specific aspects of the electoral process, instead it was quite clear that workflow and anticipated challenges needed to be identified first before using these technologies. For example, in a country where internet and mobile phone coverage does not reach the entire population, making sure that outreach is also accomplished through “low-tech” mediums like radio broadcasts as well as distribution of leaflets or other informational materials through local community organizers will reach a wider percentage of citizens. In countries like Liberia, use of “chalkboard blogs” that share community-relevant information could even be leveraged. Tech alone, even more ubiquitous mobile tech, is not sufficient to reach all potential voters.

Using tools during significant political and social moments is useful in attracting the attention of and inform the local and international community.  However, local context has to be taken into consideration, particurlarly in countries that discourage citizen engagement and transparency of political processes like elections, can emerge.

Could sending an SMS about violations being committed against members of a community put a sender at risk? In most countries now, a mobile phone user must provide some degree of personally identifiable information (PII) in order to purchase a SIM card, ranging from a name, home address to a photocopy of a passport or national ID card and even increasingly biometric information. Match this with the increasing efforts by governments to curtail use of mobile communications (particularly use of bulk SMS), along with pre-existing insecurities of the mobile network, and it becomes nearly impossible to exchange information securely over SMS, or send them to be reported on a platform like Crowdmap. While encrypted SMS tools like TextSecure exist, they are not available on feature phones or “dumb” phones that are the most widely used internationally nor are they easily deployed for crowdmapping efforts.

When making use of crowdsourcing and mapping applications to track incidents, such as during an election, a large amount of data is collected and can be shared with a wider community. But what happens to that data? Simply putting a map on a governance- or crisis response-focused project does not ensure continuity and sustainability of a project. Instead, defining an approach to make greater use of collected information can help strengthen follow-on activities beyond the event date. Establishing a bigger picture strategy, and then incorporating ICT elements as they fit makes for more effective projects, rather than creating “technology-first” projects that consider political and social considerations after the tools.

TechChange is excited to announce a new partnership with Transitions (TOL), a Prague-based journalism and media training organization with a focus on the post-communist countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union. Running a variety of programs – from the publication of one of the first online magazines to cover political, social, economic and cultural issues in the region since 1999, to providing young reporters with intensive training on best journalistic practices  – TOL has been a regional leader on media and democracy building efforts.

Bringing their expertise on media and journalism development to their target region through our eLearning environment, TOL will be running their course: “Reporting on Education,”  adapting a course that the Guardian Foundation originally created for TOL and the BBC’s iLearn platform. And though journalist training is a broad endeavor, even when focusing on a particular region, we’re hoping that this course will help to not only train journalists, but also to elevate national and regional policy dialogue on the issues of educational reform, open governance and democratic accountability.

Counting gets underway at a polling station in Moscow following Russia’s Presidential election, 4 March 2012.*

This new institutional relationship and course topic comes at a time when the role of the media in promoting such topics is an ever salient issue, particularly in Eastern Europe. Over the past few months, the Kremlin has tightened control over various aspects of civil society and acted to counter what it views as foreign interference in Russia’s sovereign affairs, moves that included booting USAID, a key funder of media training and other efforts, out of the country.

TechChange has helped organizations address these challenges and co-authored a piece in the Huffington Post (USAID’s Eviction From Russia: An Opportunity for Online Learning as E-Development) expressing that:

“there is reason to believe that using widely-available technology, democracy promotion organizations have the potential to greatly influence dialogue by amplifying local practitioner voices, and giving domestic organizations a channel for collaboration with international experts.”

This is where we are hoping that our partnership with TOL will further distribute valuable content – including across closed or semi-closed borders – and build up the capacity of a core group of journalists to report in an informative and engaging way on the sometimes complicated field of education. After all, the task of training journalists in this case isn’t geared just toward building a better media, but also a better, more equitable education system and more modern and democratic societies. We’re hoping that this first course will be yet another worthwhile addition to this process.

*Photo Credit: Credit: OSCE/Jens Eschenbaecher

Interested in digital activism and citizen journalism? Check out our 104 course on digital organizing, which will be run January 7 – February 1!

In preparation for our upcoming course on Mobile Phones for Public Health, we wanted to share our most recent attempt to blend compelling narration with informative animation. In this short clip, Laura Walker Hudson of FrontlineSMS shares insights on why SMS offers new opportunities in every conceivable area of social change work.

How’d we do? What do you think? Would love to hear your comments below.

The Winners: Susanna J Smith and My Nigeria Hospitals

We are excited to announce that My Nigeria Hospitals (@mynig_hospitals) and Susanna J Smith (@SusannaJSmith) are our winners for one free seat apiece in the upcoming course on Mobile Phones for Public Health (starts November 12!).

@ trainning just be fully interactive, to yield a positive result on participants
@mynig_hospitals
My Nigeria Hospitals
Phones&health are personal. #mHealth offers new possibilities for patient engagement & empowerment &ways to reach hard-to-reach pops. #tc309
@SusannaJSmith
Susanna.J.Smith

 

Background on mHealth Twitter Chat

On October 12 at 1:00pm, TechChange hosted an mHealth Twitter Chat with the mHealth Alliance in preparation for our upcoming online certificate course on Mobile Phones for Public Health. In addition to soliciting feedback on our proposed syllabus and speakers, we were looking to award two free seats to individuals participating in the chat that would not otherwise have had access to the course.

In total, we had 44 participants exchange over 279 tweets during the one-hour chat. We’ve archived the discussion in our curated Storify of key contributions, questions, and links. If you want to dive deeper, check out the full Tweet Archive or search for hashtag #TC309.

 

Key Contributions by Tweeters

While in no way exhaustive, three key themes emerged through the constraints of 140-character contributions:

  • Engage telecommunications companies throughout the course, not just medical professionals who employ mobile-enabled strategies.
  • Explore sustainable business models for mHealth projects and organizations. Don’t just do a one-off project for the sake of doing it.
  • Understand the link between big data and mHealth. The challenges of mobile-enabled medicine are intertwined with managing information.

Thanks @ Mobile Midwife Initiative to fight staff shortages http://t.co/XFkt1v77 great #mhealth video #tc309
@Cascadia
Sherry Reynolds
@ if I win a ticket, I'll be there!! 🙂 Read the syllabus and speaker bios. Def a great opportunity to learn about mHealth #tc309
@ReemGaga
Reem Ghoneim

Winner Selection Methodology

Choosing winners at random was more complicated than we had initially anticipated. Do you select by number of Tweets or by user? Do you bias towards number of contributions or value of contribution (# of RTs)? etc. In the end, we decided was to select a random user weighted by number of tweets, but we’re open to suggestions about improved methodology for future scholarship competitions.

[Maximizing Mobile Infographic. Source: World Bank]

This is a guest post by Avatar of Joellen RaderstorfJoellen Raderstorf, a participant in the TechChange course: TC105: Mobiles for International Development. You can follow Joellen on Twitter: @actingupmama 

How many people have had the experience of telling people you are studying ICTD or working in the field of ICTD to watch their eyes glaze over. How do you explain ICTD to a friend in the grocery line, your grandmother at a family reunion, or your father who thinks technology is ruining young people?

Most commonly, ICTD is described as an attempt to bridge the digital divide—the disparity between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in the technological world. Some consider it to be the latest golden bullet—with access to technology comes the ability to improve a livelihood. A farmer can access commodity information in Cameroon to ensure a fair price and expand reach beyond the local market. A family living in a rural community, who once found doctors out of reach, can significantly improve the chances of a child surviving past the age of 5 due to a community health worker equipped with a mobile health application connecting to doctors real time. A child can grow up with access to education and the opportunity to take college courses without great expense or the necessity of leaving her community.

 

Alternatively, perhaps a less altruistic view of ICTD depicts the field as a marriage between telecom companies in search of expanding markets and NGOs in need of new solutions to addressing hunger and poverty. The proliferation of the mobile phone in the developing world has been nothing short of a technological revolution according to the World Bank. Powerful infographics from the World Bank and USAID depict an undeniable success story regardless of the original intention. On a planet of 7 billion, there are over 6 billion mobile subscriptions and over 75% of the world has access to a mobile phone. Besides providing a link to markets, education and health providers, mobile technology is employed to create a safer and less corrupt world. Of course ensuring the bandwidth to handle the mobile data traffic expected to reach 1.2 GB per user by 2016 will present a challenge to the FCCs of the world and a subject for a future blog post.

One last point of interest in the world of ICTD identity is confusion around the acronym. ICTD is often interchanged with ICT4D, a nuance on the surface, but politically charged when peering more deeply. What implications are being asserted when one says ICT for development? Some suggest this is another version of colonialism. Terminology does evolve over time and development lingo could certainly use an overhaul, perhaps alleviating the need to define what ICTD means to everyone. For an in-depth definition, refer to the Wikipedia page for ICT4D where some (or one) ICTDers have been doing a commendable job educating the world about this enigmatic field.