Category Archives: Humanitarian Technologies

Dialup Radio for Communication in Conflict Zones?

Posted on June 20, 2008 | 2 comments

I blogged about Tad Hirsch‘s TXTmob project back in April and spoke to him this week about his Dialup Radio project. The intuitive web-based interface allows anyone to upload brief radio-style audio files to make them available via phone along with the option of using different menu options. For example, one could broadcast news about electoral-related violence in difference cities and towns across Zimbabwe: “For today’s news on Bulawayo, press 1, for news on Gweru, press 2,” etc.

Dialup Radio has been designed specifically to meet the needs of human rights activists in the developing world. The system can be installed locally or may be operated across national borders. Particular attention has been paid to system security and to minimizing costs of operation

The Dialup Radio project is currently being used in Zimbabwe where independent radio stations have been outlawed. Other tactics include copying broadcasts on cassette tapes and disseminating the tapes widely among taxi and long-distance bus drivers across the country. Indeed, the best place to get accurate reporting in Zimbabwe may very well be from a taxi driver. I certainly found this to be the case while in Nairobi following the December 2007 presidential elections and the ensuing violence.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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Crimson Hexagon: Early Warning 2.0?

Posted on May 23, 2008 | 11 comments

The future of automated textual analysis is Crimson Hexagon, a patent pending text reading technology that allows users to define the questions they want to ask, and crawl the blogosphere (or any text-based source) for fast, accurate answers. The technology was created under the aegis of Harvard University Professor Gary King.

I met with the new company’s CEO this week to learn more about the group’s parsing technology and underlying statistical models. Some UN colleagues and I are particularly interested in the technology’s potential application to conflict monitoring and analysis. At present, early warning units within the UN, and other international (regional) organizations such as the OSCE, use manual labor to collect relevant information from online sources. Most units employ full-time staff for this, often meaning that 80% of an analyst’s time is actually used to collect pertinent articles and reports, leaving only 20% of the time for actual analysis, interpretation and policy recommendations. We can do better. Analysts ought to be spending 80% of their time analyzing.

Crimson Hexagon is of course not the first company to carry out automated textual analysis. Virtual Research Associates (VRA) and the EC’s Joint Research Center (JRC) have both been important players in this space. VRA developed GeoMonitor, a natural language parser that reads the headlines of Reuters and AFP news wires and codes “who did what, to who, where and when?” for each event reported by the two media companies. According to an independent review of the VRA parser by Gary King and Will Lowe (2003),

The results are sufficient to warrant a serious reconsideration of the apparent bias against using events data, and especially automatically created events data, in the study of international relations. If events data are to be used at all, there would now seem to be little contest between the machine and human coding methods. With one exception, performance is virtually identical, and that exception (the higher propensity of the machine to find “events” when none exist in news reports) is strongly counterbalanced by both the fact that these false events are not correlated with the degree of conflict of the event category, and by the overwhelming strength of the machine: the ability to code huge numbers of events extremely quickly and inexpensively.

However, as Gary King mentioned in a recent meeting I had with him this month, VRA’s approach faces some important limitations. First, the parser can only parse the headline of each newswire. Second, adding new media sources such as BBC requires significant investment in adjusting the parser. Third, the parser cannot draw on languages other than English.

The JRC has developed the European Media Monitor (EMM). Unlike VRA’s tool, EMM is based on a key-word search algorithm, i.e., it uses a search engine like Google. EMM crawls online news media for key words and places each article into a corresponding category, such as terrorism. The advantage of this approach over VRA’s is that EMM can parse thousands of different news sources, and in different languages. The JRC recently set up an “African Media Monitor” for the African Union’s Continental Early Warning System (CEWS). However, this approach nevertheless faces limitations since analysts still need to read each article to understand the nature of the terrorist event.

Google.org is also pursuing text-based parsing. This initiative stems from Larry Brilliant’s TED 2006 prize to expand the Global Public Health Information Network (GPHIN) for the purposes of prediction and prevention:

Rapid ecological and social changes are increasing the risk of emerging threats, from infectious diseases to drought and other environmental disasters. This initiative will use information and technology to empower communities to predict and prevent emerging threats before they become local, regional, or global crises.

Larry’s idea led to the new non-profit InSTEDD, but last time I spoke with the team, they were not pursuing this initiative. In any case, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google.com were to express an interest in buying out Crimson Hexagon before year’s end. Hexagon’s immediate clients are private sector companies who want to monitor in real-time their brand perception as reported in the blogosphere. The challenge?

115 million blogs, with 120,000 more added each day. As pundits proclaim the death of email, social web content is exploding. Consumers are generating their own media through blogs and comments, social network profiles and interactions, and myriad microcontent publishing tools. How do we begin to know and accurately quantify the relevant opinion that’s out there? How can we get answers to specific questions about online opinion as it relates to a particular topic?

The accuracy and reliability of Crimson Hexagon is truly astounding. Equally remarkable is the fact that the technology developed by Gary King’s group parses every word in a given text. How does the system work? Say we were interested in monitoring the Iranian blogosphere—like the Berkman Center’s recent study. If we were interested in liberal bloggers and their opinion on riots (hypothetically taking place now in Tehran), we would select 10-30 examples of pro-democratic blog entries addressing the ongoing riots. These would then be fed into the system to teach the algorithm about what to look for. A useful analogy that Gary likes to give is speech recognition.

The Crimson Hexagon parser uses a stemming approach, meaning that every word in a given text is reduced to it’s root word. For example, “rioting”, “riots”, “rioters”, etc., is reduced to riot. The technology creates a vector of stem words to characterize each blog entry so that thousands of Iranian blogs can be automatically compared. By providing the algorithm with a sample of 10 or more blogs on, say, positive perceptions of rioting in Tehran were this happening now, the technology would be able to quantify the liberal Iranian bloggers’ changing opinion on the rioting in real time by aggregating the stem vectors.

Crimson Hexagon is truly pioneering a fundamental shift in the paradigm of textual analysis. Instead of trying to find the needle in the haystack as it were, the technology seeks to characterize the hay stack with astonishing reliability such that any changes in the hay stack (amount of hay, density, structure) can be immediately picked up by the parser in real time. Furthermore, the technology can parse any language, say Farsi, just as long as the sample blogs provided are in Farsi. In addition, the system has returned highly reliable results even when using less than 10 samples, and even when the actual blog entry had less than 10 words. Finally, the parser is by no means limited to blog entries, any piece of text will do.

The potential for significantly improving conflict monitoring and analysis is, in my opinion, considerable. Imagine parsing Global Voices in real time, or Reliefweb and weekly situation reports across all field-based agencies world wide. Crimson Hexagon’s CEO immediately saw the potential during our meeting. We therefore hope to carry out a joint pilot study with colleagues of mine at the UN and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). Of course, like any early warning initiative, the link to early response will dictate the ultimate success or failure of this project.

Patrick Phillipe Meier

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Technology and Survival

Posted on May 1, 2008 | Leave a comment

People-centered early warning is about empowering at-risk communities so that they may get out of harm’s way when conflict escalates in their direction. I have already blogged about the use of technology for survival in areas of conflict: see Fallujah, El Salvador and an overview here. I have also noted that the disaster management community tends to adopt new technology long before the conflict prevention community does. Today’s Wired magazine features a neat review of “Survival Gear that’s Just Crazy Enough to Work.” While the review does not evaluate the gear for purposes of survival in conflict zones, at least two types of gear reviewed may be relevant.

Take for example the Bedu Emergency Rapid Response kit below. The kit fits in a keg-sized drum and is designed to “support eight adults for up to five years and it includes a water-filtration system, medicine and tool kits, a multi-fuel stove, a radio and a hand-crank generator with a photovoltaic battery pack and a strip-cell blanket. Not only that, but the skeleton of the barrel can be used to create a shelter.”

As Wired’s editors note, packing up the drum may take hours, which is not particularly useful in crisis zones when minutes can make the difference between life and death. However, alternative versions of the kit could be designed for quick set-up and quick packing. The drum could also be buried for later use if carrying it with were not an option.

Perhaps of more interest is the Grundig Eton Radio below. This device “includes AM/FM and weather-band frequencies, a two-way walkie-talkie channel, a flashlight, a siren, a beacon light and a cellphone charger.” According to Wired, the radio is also incredibly tough and only $150.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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The Economist and NYT on Mobile Phones

Posted on April 15, 2008 | 2 comments

The New York Times asks “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?” while The Economist asks what happens “When Everybody Becomes a Nomadic Monitor”? The two articles provide interesting insights into future iRevolutions.

The trend towards “human-centered design” as identified in the NYT article has important implications for iRevolutions (see my previous blog on people-centered conflict early warning). Technology companies initially catered their designs to large firms and organizations. Indeed, the name IBM says it all: International Business Machines. The information communication technologies (ICTs) of the time necessarily took on “institution-centered designs” since they sought to enhance existing institutional processes.

Today, however, the final frontier for mobile companies is the 3 billion people who don’t own mobile phones, yet. The profit potential is astronomical. Indeed, “people in the mobile-handset business talk about adding customers not by the millions but by the billions.” (NYT).

According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network, which is double the level in 2000 (NYT).

One of the last barriers remains that of price. Not to worry though, where there is profit to be made, competition oft follows. Nokia, Vodafone and the new kid on the block, Spice Limited, are entangled in a tight race to tap into the multi-billion dollar potential. Spice Limited recently announced plans to roll out a $20 mobile phone and there’s even talk of a $5 phone on the horizon. Meanwhile, a new study cited by the NYT found that “even very poor families invested a significant amount of money in the I.C.T. category.”

So what are the implications for future iRevolutions? Are we likely to see more spontaneous organization and just-in-time mobilization of political protests and social resistance? Or will repressive regimes gain the upper hand? In her interview with The Economist, Katrin Verclas of MobileActive sums up her views:

Like every other technology human beings have ever invented […] the tools of nomadism arm both sides in the eternal tug-of-war between good and evil. But there is room for optimism, she thinks, because the side with good intentions is more numerous and—so far, at least—has proved more imaginative.

Is this indeed the case? That is the question and subject of my dissertation—and I don’t have an answer yet. Whether these ICTs are made for activism and whether that’s just what they’ll do remains for now an open-ended question. As Karl Popper noted in “The Poverty of Historicism”, we can’t predict the future precisely because technological breakthroughs are inherently unpredictable.

At the moment, the latest empirical study on state censorship by the Berkman Center suggests repressive regimes remain in control of the information revolution. On the other hand, The Economist suggests that mobile phones lend themselves to more mobile activisim since “nomadic technology can expose human-rights abuses as honest citizens use technology to monitor and expose crimes and co-ordinate the response.” To be sure, ICTs today are increasingly distributed, decentralized and mobile—three characteristics that certainly do not describe repressive regimes.

(Incidentally, the use of the term nomadic is particularly apt. I was in the Western Sahara some five years ago doing field research on the conflict between the POLISARIO and the Moroccan Monarchy. I happened upon a Sahraoui Sheikh, who would delight in telling me, repeatedly, that mobile phones were made especially for nomads).

At the same time, however, repressive regimes have shown guile and aptitude in their ability to monitor and censor information. They continue to mount “information blockades” rendering “data smuggling” at times more challenging. So how significant is it that those with good intentions are more numerous? How important is imagination and tactical innovation? What other factors might determine the winner of the tug-of-war? Stay tuned, I’ll be frequently blogging about my findings as I pursue my dissertation over the next two years.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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Escape from Fallujah: Survival and Technology

Posted on April 13, 2008 | 4 comments

Who are the most targeted Iraqis? Who among the millions of displaced Iraqis are actively sought out for assassination? They are none other than those who served as interpreters for the US armed forces, as civil society experts for the State Department and USAID, or those employed with the many US companies and NGOs contracted to rebuild the country. They are the most hunted class of Iraqis in the war-torn country. So what is the US government doing to thank them for their services? Nothing.

In December 2006, Kirk Johnson received an email from a former Iraqi colleague he had worked with on a USAID project in Fallujah the previous year. His colleague had just received this death threat:

He had found the note on his front steps pinned to the severed head of a dog. The note reads: “Your head will be next.” When the Iraqi employee reported this to USAID, the Agency simply gave him one month of paid leave and then hired someone else, effectively firing him. Thanks Uncle Sam. So he and his wife packed what they could and fled Iraq, and this after years of service to the US.

I Just had dinner with Kirk Johnson who was recounting the story. He gravely feared for his colleague’s life and was at a loss about how to help. In desperation, he submitted an Op-Ed to the LA Times in the hopes of raising awareness about his colleague’s fate. Soon thereafter, Kirk began hearing from many other Iraqis enduring similar ordeals. His Op-Ed had been widely circulated by these Iraqis and they began to seek his help. His phone started ringing several times a day, and soon several times an hour. He also received numerous text messages from Iraqis fearing for their lives. Indeed, his phone rang several times during our dinner.

Again, he was at a loss about what to do. So he just started a spreadsheet and kept updating the list of Iraqis who made contact with him. Having been one of the only Arabic speaking employees on the USAID project, Kirk had made many Iraqi friends. So he searched for them, using email, phone and SMS. Several weeks later, the list had grown significantly and he had accounted for all his former colleagues. He then took the list to the State Department. His efforts were not well received by State but they nevertheless committed to referring the list to UNHCR for priority processing. When other Iraqis learned of Kirk’s list, he received even more emails and text messages. His efforts were recently featured on Anderson Cooper 360

What I find stunning is that this Youtube video has only been viewed 155 times (!)

Kirk Johnson‘s list grew by the hundreds and he now has some 1,000 individuals on his list. Each person on this list continues to fear for their life on a daily basis. Kirk wanted to find a way to expedite the refugee asylum process, which often takes up to a year for any given individual. So he set up the The List Project.

This initiative partners with law firms in an unprecedented effort to provide pro bono legal services for hundreds of Iraqis who worked with allies now seeking refuge in the US. The law firms involved, Holland & Knight LLP and Proskauer Rose LLP, are also using ICTs to their advantage. They set up an Intranet between the two firms so that the 100 attorneys working on The List Project can share information on effective strategies and communicate their lessons learned. A DVD has also been made to train attorneys who seek to volunteer their time to saving Iraqi lives.

Together, the firms have committed thousands of hours of pro bono work to help US-affiliated Iraqis navigate the labyrinthine resettlement process. To date, they have successfully represented the cases of more than 80 Iraqis and their families who now live in peace in America. This number includes Kirk’s colleague who had first contacted him. He and his wife are now safe.

Kirk has received funding from several anonymous donors which has enabled him to hire three of the Iraqis he helped resettle to the US. The team continues to use email, phone, SMS and also instant messaging to communicate with hundreds of Iraqis who remain the main target for insurgents. The List Project is now seeking funds to support Iraqis who do make it to the US. Until recently, all the US government provided was a measly $200 for the first two month. Even more upsetting is the fact that each refugee is required to pay back the full fare of their flight ticket to the US. So much for the symbolism represented by the Statue of Liberty.

The Iraqi refugees are given low-wage jobs in factories and warehouses. At least they’re alive, right? Sure, but these refugees are well educated, they are doctors, interpreters etc., which is why Kirk and his colleagues are looking for funds specifically geared towards resettlement once they do arrive in the land of the free. It may come as a surprise that two of the Iraqis who made it to the US, subsequently returned to the region some two weeks later given the lack of support they received from the US government when they arrived.

Kirk is as humble as his story is extraordinary. While more than 80 Iraqis have been successfully resettled to the US, he is hesitant to call this success: “There are still one thousand names on that list, and the list keeps growing.” Kirk’s story will be featured on 60 Minutes in two weeks. He hopes this will raise more awareness about the plight of US-affiliated Iraqis. The feature will only be aired once since it includes interviews with Iraqis still waiting to be resettled. I highly recommend watching the piece.

In the meantime, please think about joining The List Project’s Facebook group. It is worth emphasizing that all Kirk had back in December 2006 was a mobile phone and a laptop. Technology can make the difference when used by extraordinary individuals.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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Tactical Survival in El Salvador

Posted on April 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

The story of El Salvador is one that gets little attention in the mainstream media on conflict early warning and operational response. Indeed, the story surfaces instead in the sociology and nonviolence literature. The best study on countering attack in El Salvador is Barton Meyer‘s “Defense Against Aerial Attack in El Salvador” published in 1994. Brian Martin, a prolific author in the field of nonviolent action, drew on Meyer’s case study in his excellent book on “Technology for Nonviolent Struggle” published in 2001. Finally, Casey Barrs, a Senior Protection Fellow, who has carried out substantial research in civilian protection, brought the story to my attention in 2006.

From Martin:

To survive bombing from El Salvador’s air force, both civilians and guerrillas developed and used a range of methods. No sophisticated warning systems were available, so people had to develop their own skills in detecting and identifying aircraft. When spotter planes were seen, people froze in place so they wouldn’t be seen; any moving target was subject to attack. When the spotter plane changed course, people would seek shelter, sometimes setting off a firecracker to warn others.

Concealment was widely used. Leafy trees were grown next to houses to hide them. Houses that were partly destroyed were left unrepaired to hide the fact that they were still being lived in. At the sound of aircraft, fires were quickly doused; alternatively, underground ovens were used with long tunnels to absorb smoke. Radio transmissions were not used by guerrillas to avoid being intercepted. Peasants wore dark clothing to avoid detection. They grew crops whose colour was not readily noticeable from the air and crops that were hidden by other plants.

Shelters were built and disguised. Natural features, such as forests and ravines, were also used for shelter. Guerrillas built extensive tunnel systems. In areas subject to frequent attack, shelter drills were carried out. When the government army invaded following air attack, guerrillas often would lead an evacuation of the
population, returning later.

The guerrillas, in the face of heavy air attack, dispersed their forces to groups of 4 to 15 fighters spread out over hundreds of meters. Larger units would have been more vulnerable to air power. The dispersed fighters were concentrated only for attacks or briefly at night. Another tactic was to deploy the guerrillas very near to government troops, where aerial attack might harm the government’s own soldiers.

As well as methods of surviving attack, other techniques of struggle were used, such as broadcasting reports of deaths or injuries of civilians due to air attack. Such human rights appeals were highly effective, and would be even more so in the context of a purely nonviolent resistance.

There is a great need for many more studies like that of Meyers, as well as a need to circulate the findings to people who can use them. Unfortunately, the contemporary field of disaster studies has neglected the study of war as a disaster. One factor behind this may be that most war disasters occur in poor countries whereas disaster studies are largely carried out in the rich countries which sponsor and provide weapons for these wars.

As well as knowing how to respond to aerial attack, there are many other areas in need of investigation, including firearms, landmines, biological agents, chemical weapons and nuclear weapons. A first step would be to provide basic technical information that is accessible to nonspecialists and which can be used to provide a realistic assessment of dangers and possibly to expose uses of the weapons.

My iRevolution question: some 14 years later, how can at-risk communities today use ICTs to get out of harm’s way? Conflict prevention can no longer afford to be a non cross-disciplinary effort. We in the conflict early warning community have much to learn from lessons learned in nonviolent action and tactical survival. For more examples of survival tactics in conflict, please see my previous blog entry and this piece by Casey Barrs.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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ISCRAM Summer School 2008

Posted on April 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

Call for PhD Student Applications

ISCRAM‘s 3rd International Summer School
June 18-26, 2008, the Netherlands

Theme:

Information Systems
for Grassroots Emergency Preparedness and Response

Apply by: April 25, 2008

I will be participating in this program and highly recommend others apply as well. There will be a stimulating mix of scholars and practitioners from different disciplines who will present on the most recent and fascinating developments in our field. To be sure, the past 12 months have seen many prominent uses of ICTs by grassroots communities. The program at the University of Tilburg gives us the opportunity to bring all this knowledge together and to push the agenda forward for 2009-2010. Unlike most of the conferences we participate, ISCRAM’s program will give use more than just a few hours or couple days to engage in rich and fruitful conversations.

The objective of the 2008 ISCRAM Summer School is to provide participants (PhD students and practitioners) with an intense interactive learning experience on the possible uses of information technology to support people in local communities in their communication, collaboration and decision making efforts when preparing for or responding to a disaster.

The number of participants is limited to 30.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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Tactical Survival in Conflict

Posted on April 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

An OCHA report on “the response strategies of internally displaced people found that their information-gathering systems were often highly developed and far superior to those of the humanitarian community.” So the task at hand is not to develop new tactics for survival but rather to learn from those who have survived and perished in conflict. As a seasoned practitioner with Medecins sans Frontiers stated,

“People will continue to survive as best they can, relying more on their own communities and traditional networks than on [us] … it is not the fault of the displaced persons and refugees, but our system for providing protection and assistance that does not work. They have, after all, had to learn the hard way what it takes to survive.

Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen echo this sentiment when they write,

“The empowerment of internally displaced persons has not received enough attention, despite the crucial role [they] play in meeting their own needs and influencing the course of conflict. In many situations internally displaced persons develop survival and coping strategies. In some, they and host communities develop self-defense units to ensure that people have time to flee.

To this end, studying and disseminating testimonies of those who survive violence can provide important insights into the numerous tried and true survival tactics. Luck may at times play a role in survival stories. But to quote the French scientist Louis Pasteur, “in the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.” In any event, luck can be turned into knowledge, and knowledge into future tactics.

As Casey Barrs writes, communities in crises can learn from survival testimonies; “learn what dispersed and hidden livelihoods look like. They can be shown how they might dismantle their village homes and build temporary huts near their fields as the Vietnamese sometimes did in the face of American airpower. Or use crop colors and canopies that are less noticeable from the air, as Salvadoran peasants sometimes planted.” Understandably, “no sophisticated warning systems were available, so people had to develop their own skills in detecting and identifying aircraft.”

The following short testimonies are taken from the extensive research on civilian protection and humanitarian tactical training carried out by Casey Barrs.

East Timor, 1990s: “When we hid, we always hid in the forest. There were no more villages; the Indonesian Army had burned them all down. Each family hid by itself. We were more secure if we separated into many places in a given area, rather than all camping in one restricted area. There were a few hundred people with us altogether.”

Belorussia, 1940s: “Our camp was spread out in sections over an area of ten kilometers; special scouts would ride over the area to maintain contact between the difficult subunits … we remembered the Biblical phrase ‘should one part of the camp be attacked and overcome, the other part will remain.’ This strategy was used by our forefathers.”

Burma 1990s: “The armed opposition in Burma built early warning systems for civilians to monitor the risks of government attack. Monitoring systems can be as simple as a rotating networks of villagers taking up strategic outlook positions and sending runners to inform neighbors if troops are approaching. However, more advanced early warning systems utilize the radio transmitters of the armed opposition forces to prepare villagers for evacuation.”

El Salvador 1970s: “Salvadorans sometimes did their own preemptive migrations in order to outflank military sweeps. These defensive movements were called guindas. In groups ranging from a few dozen to as many as two or three hundred” the people hid during the day and moved at night, sometimes repeating this for a few weeks. Civilians would also set off firecrackers to warn others when they saw spotter planes. Said one observer, ‘they’re human radar, practical and self-taught; who knows how to do it, but they know that there’ s going to be a military operation.”

Uganda 1990s: “The residents of some threatened villages in Northern Uganda climb the mountainsides each night and sleep under animal hides tanned to look like rocks. Dig underground rooms for supplies and services adjunct to the encampment.”

The iRevolution question: what role can ICTs play in empowering local communities to help them get out of harm’s way?

Patrick Philippe Meier

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People-Centered Conflict Early Warning

Posted on April 11, 2008 | 1 comment

Conflict early warning works. Indeed, current and historical cases of nonviolent action may be the closest systematic examples or tactical parallels we have to people-centered disaster early warning systems. Planning, preparedness and tactical evasion, in particular, are central components of strategic nonviolence: people must be capable of concealment and dispersion. Getting out of harm’s way and preparing people for the worst effects of violence requires sound intelligence and timely strategic estimates, or situation awareness.

The literature on nonviolent action and civil resistance is rich with case studies on successful instances of early warning tactics for community empowerment. What are the characteristics of successful early warning case studies in the field of nonviolent action? Nonviolent early response uses local social networks as the organizational template of choice, in a mode different from our conventional and institutional approach to early warning. Networks have demonstrated a better ability to innovate tactically and learn from past mistakes. The incentives for members of local networks to respond early and get out of harm’s way are also incalculably higher than those at the institutional or international level since failure to do so in the former instance often means death.

Nonviolent action is non-institutional and operates outside the bounds of bureaucratic and institutionalized political channels. Nonviolent movements are locally led and managed. They draw on local meaning, culture, symbolism and history. They integrate local knowledge and the intimate familiarity with the geography and surrounding environment. They are qualitative and tactical, not quantitative and policy-oriented. Not surprisingly, successful cases of nonviolent action clearly reveal the pivotal importance of contingency planning and preparedness, actions that are particularly successful when embedded in local circumstances and local experience.

The iRevolution question is how social resistance groups can most effectively use ICTs to gain an asymmetric advantage over repressive regimes.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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From Intellipedia, to Virtual Osocc to WikiWarning?

Posted on April 9, 2008 | 2 comments

What can we in the humanitarian community learn from Intellipedia as described in my previous blog ?

Some thoughts:

  • Let go of our ego-centric tendencies for control
  • Decentralize user-generated content and access
  • Utilization of tagging, IM, online video posting
  • Use open source tools and make minimal modifications
  • Capture tacit and informal knowledge qualitatively via blogs and wikis
  • Keep user-interfaces simple and minimize use of sophisticated interfaces
  • Provide non-monetary incentives for information collection and sharing
  • Shift from quality control mindset to soap box approach

There are no doubt more insights to be gained from the Intellipedia project but do we have any parallel information management systems in the humanitarian community? The first one that comes to mind is Virtual Osocc:

There are currently 2,437 users. The site includes a bulletin board where discussions can take place vis-a-vis ongoing emergencies and/or issues. A photo library is also available as are sections on training and meetings. The site’s homepage points to breaking emergencies and ongoing crises. Users can subscribe to email and SMS alerts.

When I spoke with the team behind Virtual Osocc, I was surprised to learn that the project has received no official endorsement by any UN agencies. This is particularly telling since an indicator of success for humanitarian information systems is the size of the active user base. Other points worth mentioning from my conversations with the team since they relate directly to my previous blog on Intellipedia include:

  • Tensions between the UN and NGOs vis-vis information sharing is healthy since it keeps us honest;
  • Decision-making in disaster management is by consensus (so tools should be designed accordingly);
  • Our community is currently unable to communicate effectively with the beneficiaries themselves.

Another humanitarian information systems is of course ReliefWeb, which is very well known so I shan’t expand on the system here. I would just like to suggest that we think of ways to integrate more Web 2.0 tools into ReliefWeb; allowing a wiki and blogging space, for example. There’s also the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) manged out of the Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy. See my recent blog on the JRC’s satellite imagery change detection project here. The JRC is doing some phenomenal work and GDACS is an excellent reflection of this work. I will leave a more thorough overview of GDACS for a future blog entry.

Then there’s the new information system which was launched this past October 2007 in collaboration with the JRC. The system is a new web portal for leading situation centers including those at UN DPKO, the EU Council and NATO. The purpose of the new system is to facilitate the exchange and storage of unique and relevant information on emerging and ongoing crises and conflicts.The portal facilitates the exchange of unique documents including satellite images. Users can subscribe to specific email and SMS alerts. The system also include a Wiki mapping section. Needless to say, the new web portal is password protected and the user base limited to an elite few. This initiative may benefit from more Intellipedia think.

The issue that I find most pressing in all of this is the lack of two-communication (not to mention one-way) communication with beneficiaries. I find this gap upsetting. So I set up Wikiwarning some two years ago in the hope of finding the time, support and expertise to fully develop the concept and tool. Any takers?

My next blog will address the issue of intelligence for the stakeholders.

Patrick Philippe Meier

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