How open collaboration helps disaster-affected people

http://sinsai.info/

• What happened after the earthquake?

• What is sinsai.info? and its challenges ?

• What can you do to help?

TOPICS

• Lives in London

• In charge of international communication at sinsai.info (@sinsai_info_en)

• A developer (Ruby On Rails) with No prior volunteer experience nor interests until Mar 11th 2011

@makoto_inoue

Mar.11th 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/5541815267/in/set-72157626305323978

• More than 14,000 people were killed.

• There are still another 13,000 people missing.

Infrastructure was disrupted

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/5549191112/in/set-72157626305323978

• Roads were completely disrupted.

• Electricity and cell-phones were washed away.

• Cell-phone were useless more than 24hrs even in Tokyo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/5549191112/in/set-72157626305323978

Internet worked fine• Data explosion

• Data curation

• Curated system

Data Explosion

- Report by NEC Big Globe- 3/11 ~ 4/11- 73,694,790- Average Tweet per day (before) = 18,000,000- Average Tweet per day (3/11) = 33,000,000- Average Tweet per day (after) = 22,000,000

http://gigazine.net/news/20110427_earthquake_twitter/

Data Explosion

- Report by NEC Big Globe- 3/11 ~ 4/11- 73,694,790- Average Tweet per day (before) = 18,000,000- Average Tweet per day (3/11) = 33,000,000- Average Tweet per day (after) = 22,000,000

http://gigazine.net/news/20110427_earthquake_twitter/

- Before (31 % entertaintment, 25 % animation, 7% transportation, 5% earthquake)- After (72% earthquake, 8% transportation)

Data Curation

Data Curation

- initially people were spreading hashtags- Twitter announced official hashtags and advised not to put more than 2 hashtags per tweet. #311sppt is only for people requesting help from the disaster area

Data Curation

@takepon_jp [pls RT] Looking for my friends, 20 yrs old, height 150cm, black hair with partially

blonde

Data Curation

@takepon_jp [pls RT] Looking for my friends, 20 yrs old, height 150cm, black hair with partially

blonde

Celebs with many followers acted as hubs to spread important information

Data Curation

Data Curation

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-11-japan-social-media_N.htm

John Roos is US ambassador to Japan

Some people were directly reaching influential figures

Data Curation

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-11-japan-social-media_N.htm

“Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest rescue in this history of mankind.......”

- Operation “Tomodachi” -

Data Curation(or not)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-11-japan-social-media_N.htm

http://longtailworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/operation-tomodachi-is-real-but-obamas.html

“Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind........”

- Independence Day , President Speech -

Data Curation(Types of false information)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-11-japan-social-media_N.htm

http://www.kotono8.com/2011/04/08dema.html

- Confused information (Partially correct)- Lack of scientific backing- False announcement- Criticising / praising government, political parties, celebrities, companies- Joke, Racism

Not all the information was curated properly. The use of unofficial “RT” made it difficult to delete the original tweet even after the information is false. Twitter announced to encourage the use of official tweet

Curated system

Curated system

- Google person finder- launched after 2 hrs- over 600,000 records- Integrated with Picassa to convert name list from evacuation Center into the system with crowd source.

sinsai.info

Example reportWe need help! We are stuck in

isolation at Akasaka hospital and getting suffer. Please spread this

information to the others.

I made a phone-call to Self-Defence force and they said they would go help ASAP

...

sinsai.info

• Geo tagged report using Open Street Map

• Directly from the form & via twitter

• Monitored , geotagged, and moderated by volunteers

• Launched within 4 hrs

It was even used during London tube strikes.

•Over 10,000 reports

• 1,000,000+ PV in one month

• 650,000+ Visits

• 500,000+ Unique Visitors

•Accessed from Sendai the most

Usage

Current challanges

• Relief to recovery

• Sustainability

• Open Data & Collaboration

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hichako/5547226578/

Relief to recovery

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hichako/5547226578/

Relief to recovery Working on integration with Sahana

http://www.slideshare.net/nyampire/sahana-lightningtalk-20110423-7715203

Sahana is developered after 2004 Indonesia Tsunamie

- Organization Registry (OR)- Request Management System (RMS):- Hospital Management System (HMS) - Food Cluster Food Request Portal (FRP):

Working in collaboration with Hyogon Tech

Sustainability• Running by volunteers

• Main：Open Street Map Foundation

Japan (NPO)

• Volunteers (Active)- Moderators：about 40 people（increasing）- Developers：about 30 people

- Translators：about 10 people

• Supporting companies- 15 companies (Amazon, Yahoo, NTT, NTT Data)

Open data & collaborationOpen Source

Open Data encourages mash ups.

http://wiki.ushahidi.com/doku.php?id=ushahidi_apiOpen Collaboration

Open to Global

http://www.flickr.com/photos/misswired/440919666/sizes/l/

What can you do?

•Donation to Japanhttp://www.google.com/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

•Ideas, Suggestions, funding

•Get Involved

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/5572695671/

Get involved

•More skills, knowledges, and experiences can be shared, if we use common tools across different crisis

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/5572695671/

Why GPS was launched within 2hrs, and sinsai.info within 4hrs? Because they have been used in different crisis.

Get involved

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/5572695671/

•http://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi/page/index/6#english

•http://crisiscommons.org

•http://www.crisismappers.net

•http://crowdmap.com

Questions?

http://sinsai-info-en.blogspot.com@makoto_inoue

http://sinsai.info/@sinsai_info_en