Using CrowdFlower to Microtask Disaster Response

Cross-posted from CrowdFlower blog

A devastating earthquake struck Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010. Two weeks later, on January 27th, a CrowdFlower was used to translate text messages from Haitian Creole to English. Tens of thousands of messages were sent by affected Haitians over the course of several months. All of these were heroically translated by hundreds of dedicated Creole-speaking volunteers based in dozens of countries across the globe. While Ushahidi took the lead by developing the initial translation platform used just days after the earthquake, the translation efforts were eventually rerouted to CrowdFlower. Why? Three simple reasons:

CrowdFlower is one of the leading and most highly robust micro-tasking platforms there is;

CrowdFlower’s leadership is highly committed to supporting digital humanitarian response efforts;

Haitians in Haiti could now be paid for their translation work.

While the CrowdFlower project was launched 15 days after the earthquake, i.e., following the completion of search and rescue operations, every single digital humanitarian effort in Haiti was reactive. The key takeaway here was the proof of concept–namely that large-scale micro-tasking could play an important role in humanitarian information management. This was confirmed months later when devastating floods inundated much of Pakistan. CrowdFlower was once again used to translate incoming messages from the disaster affected population. While still reactive, this second use of CrowdFlower demonstrated replicability.

The most recent and perhaps most powerful use of CrowdFlower for disaster response occurred right after Typhoon Pablo devastated the Philippines in early December 2012. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) activated the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN) to rapidly deliver a detailed dataset of geo-tagged pictures and video footage (posted on Twitter) depicting the damage caused by the Typhoon. The UN needed this dataset within 12 hours, which required that 20,000 tweets to be analyzed as quickly as possible. The Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), a member of Digital Huma-nitarians, immediately used CrowdFlower to identify all tweets with links to pictures & video footage. SBTF volunteers subsequently analyzed those pictures and videos for damage and geographic information using other means.

This was the most rapid use of CrowdFlower following a disaster. In fact, this use of CrowdFlower was pioneering in many respects. This was the first time that a member of the Digital Humanitarian Network made use of CrowdFlower (and thus micro-tasking) for disaster response. It was also the first time that Crowd-Flower’s existing workforce was used for disaster response. In addition, this was the first time that data processed by CrowdFlower contributed to an official crisis map produced by the UN for disaster response (see above).

These three use-cases, Haiti, Pakistan and the Philippines, clearly demonstrate the added value of micro-tasking (and hence CrowdFlower) for disaster response. If CrowdFlower had not been available in Haiti, the alternative would have been to pay a handful of professional translators. The total price could have come to some $10,000 for 50,000 text messages (at 0.20 cents per word). Thanks to CrowdFlower, Haitians in Haiti were given the chance to make some of that money by translating the text messages themselves. Income generation programs are absolutely critical to rapid recovery following major disasters. In Pakistan, the use of CrowdFlower enabled Pakistani students and the Diaspora to volunteer their time and thus accelerate the translation work for free. Following Typhoon Pablo, paid CrowdFlower workers from the Philippines, India and Australia categorized several thousand tweets in just a couple hours while the volunteers from the Standby Volunteer Task Force geo-tagged the results. Had CrowdFlower not been available then, it is highly, highly unlikely that the mission would have succeeded given the very short turn-around required by the UN.

While impressive, the above use-cases were also reactive. We need to be a lot more pro-active, which is why I’m excited to be collaborating with CrowdFlower colleagues to customize a standby platform for use by the Digital Humanitarian Network. Having a platform ready-to-go within minutes is key. And while digital volunteers will be able to use this standby platform, I strongly believe that paid CrowdFlower workers also have a key role to play in the digital huma-nitarian ecosystem. Indeed, CrowdFlower’s large, multinational and multi-lingual global workforce is simply unparalleled and has the distinct advantage of being very well versed in the CrowdFlower platform.

In sum, it is high time that the digital humanitarian space move from crowd-sourcing to micro-tasking. It has been three years since the tragic earthquake in Haiti but we have yet to adopt micro-tasking more widely. CrowdFlower should thus play a key role in promoting and enabling this important shift. Their con-tinued important leadership in digital humanitarian response should also serve as a model for other private sector companies in the US and across the globe.