When the British
government delivered emergency aid to people fleeing Islamic militants
in northern Iraq last month, one of its primary concerns was how the
refugees might charge their mobile phones. Alongside tents and drinking water, RAF planes dropped more
than 1,000 solar-powered lanterns attached to chargers for all types of
mobile handsets to the stranded members of the Yazidi religious
community below.
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Disasters like the 2010 Haiti earthquake
have spurred on technology development in disaster relief
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It is the first time the lanterns have been airdropped in
such a relief effort, but humanitarian workers say it is part of growing
efforts to develop technology designed to make a difference in disaster
zones.
In 2010, Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen, a computer systems researcher at
Flinders University in Australia, was driving to work in his car when he
first heard radio reports of the devastation of the Haiti earthquake,
more than 10,000 miles away.
With roads blocked, infrastructure reduced to rubble and
mobile networks down, he realised something needed to be done, and
quickly.
"You typically have about three days to restore the
communications before the bad people realise the good people aren't in
control any more," he says.
His solution was to develop the technology that allows mobile
phones to communicate directly with each other even where there is no
network coverage, or when mobile masts have been knocked out of action -
a system known as "mesh networking".
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More than 1,000 Sunlite solar powered lanterns and phone chargers
were airdropped in northern Iraq
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His Serval Project work means users can send text messages,
make calls and send files to other users nearby, creating a mobile
network through a web of users.
It is just one example of the dozens of technologies developed in the wake of Haiti to help relief efforts in disaster zones.
"There's plenty of technology for rich white men," Dr Gardner-Stephen says. "It's the rest of the world that we need to help."
Haiti impact
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Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen is part of a growing band of researchers
working on technological solutions for disaster relief efforts
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Another project born out of the Haiti disaster was the Trilogy
Emergency Relief Application (Tera), a mass text messaging programme
now being rolled out by the Red Cross in 40 countries around the world.
It allows aid workers to navigate a disaster-hit country from a
computer screen, identify all the mobile phones being used in a given
area, and blast them all with urgent 140-character updates with a click
of a button.
It was first developed in Haiti with the help of local mobile
network operators, allowing messages with advice on water sanitation
and medical aid to be distributed to millions of people across the
Caribbean country.
"I don't know of any other means of communication where you
could reach that many people, that quickly and that directly," says
Sharon Reader, a communications adviser for the International Red Cross
currently working on setting up the Tera system in east Africa.
"It's not like the radio when someone has to be switched on
and listening. It's a buzz in their pocket and they're going to be able
to see that information immediately."
She says the sheer volume of mobile phones now sold in developing countries makes text messaging the ideal way to communicate.
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The Tera system allows aid workers
to text millions of mobile users with a click of a button
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Crowd sourcing challenge
The Tera project also allows disaster victims to send messages
back to aid agencies, telling them where they are and what they most
urgently need.
That makes it similar to other recently developed
applications designed to harvest the huge volumes of information
generated in the immediate aftermath of a sudden-onset disaster, like a
war or earthquake.
Similar platforms became popular following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
The Japanese are the third biggest users of Twitter in the
world, and the network became a crucial communication method and
information source, typically faster and more effective than mainstream
media.
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Crowd sourcing is being used to harvest information from those worst-hit by disasters
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Several similar projects are being developed, including those through
the Digital Humanitarian Network and the Standby Taskforce -
organisations that mobilise volunteers with expertise in monitoring
social media, translating messages to and from local dialects, and
creating crisis maps around disasters.
Kim Scriven is the manager of the Humanitarian Innovation
Fund, a government-backed agency set up in 2011 that supports innovative
research in humanitarian aid.
He says the trying to harvest and filter the
vast amounts of data generated by a disaster or conflict is "the big nut
that people are trying to crack", with the real challenge being to turn
all of that data into information that humanitarian agencies can
actually act on.
Technology sea-change
"There are lots of people working on it, but in my view that hasn't happened yet," he says.
Alongside the smaller start-ups typically supported by Mr
Scriven's fund, the bigger technology players are beginning to show more
interest in humanitarian applications for their technology.
Last year, the search giant unveiled Project Loon - a plan to
deliver internet connections to hard-to-reach places through a network
of high-altitude balloons.
Both are in the early stages of development. But aid workers
say we are seeing a sea-change in the role of technology in humanitarian
relief, and how it can empower those affected by the disaster they find
themselves in.
"[Disaster relief] is no longer about just dropping items on people and leaving them to it," says the Red Cross's Sharon Reader.
"There has been a huge shift in the aid world in seeing
people who are affected by a crisis not as victims but as people who
have the capacity to look after themselves."
#Source:
How technology is changing disaster relief | By Edwin Lane
23 September 2014
Last updated at 23:21 GMT
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