Deployment of Disaster Information Distribution System and Service

Model by NGO Exemplar Platforms

21st Century FoundationAssociation of Digital Culture Taiwan

Chinese Taipei May 10-12, 2010

Agenda

• Project Initiation– Typhoon Morakot Experience– Project Importance – Partnership Formed

• Project– Scope– Budget (self-funding)– Outcomes

• Conclusion

Project Initiation

Typhoon Morakot ExperienceProject Importance

Partnership Selection

Worst hit in Taiwan by Typhoon Morakot

Disaster info map

flood

mud slide

evacuation

caution

Power failure

Typhoon Morakot caused severe damage to the southern part of Taiwan with record breaking rainfall of 2,900 millimeters (114 inches) in 3 days.

ADCT ‘s cooperation with emergency operation centers

The Traffic on GBT(god bless Taiwan website)

Media Cooperation

TV scrolling text:Please check GBT to get the disaster info.

ADCT’s participation in Morakot

• Web traffic

– PV: 760,000

– Visitors: 260,000

• User participation

– More than 10,000 blogs installed our widgets

• Volunteer mobilization

– HQ: 15, Content: 17, Tainan EOC: 8, Pingtung EOC: 13,

Kaohsiung: 3EOC: 5

– Total: 61

• Media partnership

– Digital media: ETTC, TVBS, Chunghwa TV

– Web giants: Yahoo! Taiwan, Google Taiwan

ADCT in Pingtung EOC

What ADCT did

• Aggregating disaster information from only three largest social media

• Clawing government websites and data

• Distributing disaster relief information through social media

• Cooperating with mainstream media

• Conducting field operations in local and HQ EOCs

Project Initiation

Typhoon Morakot ExperienceProject Importance

Partnership Selection

Source:http://www.slideshare.net/gislio/crowds-clouds-and-crisis

Information gap between Gov. and people

Information gap between Gov. and people

InternetInternet

•Bottom upBottom up•Real-timeReal-time•Social mediaSocial media•Mass contentMass content

Real World

NGOs bridging Gov. and people

Source:http://www.slideshare.net/gislio/crowds-clouds-and-crisis

Why NGO?• In the area of disaster prevention, the last decade has

shown that governments have limited information, limited manpower to cope alone with emergency situations.

• Real-time information can get really unorganized and therefore inaccurate. If government receives this information directly, it is hard for them to know where exactly to send their rescue resources.

• To be timely, information directly from citizens in the disaster area is crucial; however, the accuracy gets compromised when there is a flood of real-time information. This is where NGOs come in.

ADCT Reached out the both sides

Project highlights

• 1. People in this region are asking for more emergency/relief information and governmental transparency to be published online due to the increasing use of social media.

• 2. The role that NGOs play during disasters is becoming more and more crucial and it is time to develop more consolidatory relationship between public and private sectors.

• 3.The platform is multilingual and suitable for a variety of operation systems, and components can be built up immediately.

Project Initiation

Typhoon Morakot ExperienceProject Importance

Partnership Selection

Partnership Formed

• Chinese Taipei ： the main project executer based on the latest experience on disaster relief response.

• Japan ： Demonstrating advanced disaster response technologies and providing abundant disaster response data.

• Thailand ： Providing a cross social/institutional context for project implementation.

Project Description

Project ScopeExecution Plan

Project OutcomesPotential Influence

Social MediaSocial Media

Source:http://www.slideshare.net/gislio/crowds-clouds-and-crisis

Project Scope• To conduct a research of how cloud-computing technology,

open source content managing system, and online social media aggregation can be utilized in response to hazards and catastrophes in Asia-Pacific region.

• To study the experience of how Chinese Taipei NGOs helped to aggregate and distribute disaster/relief-related information.

• To establish a partnership between civil organizations and emergency operation centers(EOCs) on information dissemination over the Internet during catastrophes.

• To build civil disaster information network and an exemplar platform for relief and supplement.

• To focus on real-time information sharing and inter –exchange between government agencies and citizens.

Project Description

Project ScopeExecution Plan

Project OutcomesPotential Influence

Execution Plan• to sort out related literature about how new ICT can be

integrated into disaster response mechanisms.

• to study the nature of disaster information and how it was distributed in the countries of Asia-Pacific region.

• to conduct in-depth interviews as how NGOs and government cooperate on message distribution during Typhoon Morakot.

• to aggregate the data from literature review and in-depth interviews, and to develop a theoretical model.

• to construct an exemplar NGO disaster information distribution platform.

• to trial and test this platform, and to develop and modify the guidebook based on the trial results.

Project Description

Project ScopeExecution Plan

Project OutcomesPotential Inluence

Project Outcomes• A report of how new information and communication

technologies including cloud-computing, open source content managing system, and online social media can change the landscape of disaster response.

• A report of how Chinese Taipei NGOs helped the government to aggregate and distribute disaster/relief information during Morakot Typhoon.

• Building an exemplar platform of disaster information that can be operated by NGOs. Through actual implementation, this project will invent a partnership relationship between NGO and governmental units.

Project Description

Project ScopeExecution Plan

Project OutcomesPotential Influence

• For ICT developers, this project will study into how create a do-able emergency information system.

• For government, the social and political stability order can thus be maintained while earning public trust.

• For public, information are more transparent and immediate so the panic can be decreased.

• For victims of disaster, the relief efficiency will be leveled up and more sos channels for asking for help are constituted.

Expected Impacts

Expected Impacts

• This project's results and actual implementation of the example platform will provide TFEP for strengthening member economies' preparedness and their ability to respond to disasters.

Technological Innovation in this Project

• Data Clawing: developing a data clawing system that collects mass messages generated by millions of people simultaneously.

• Information Aggregation: designing the Semantic-Web that extracts the meaningful user-generated information in avoidance of flooding of simultaneous mass user-oriented messages.

• High Availability: building a system that can handle millions of requests at short time due to the focal attention from mass people and media.

Conclusion

Conclusion• By sharing expertise and collaborating on emergency

preparedness issues, APEC members could strengthen their capacity in mitigating, preparing for, and responding to emergencies and disasters. 

• Partnering NGOs with the EOCs empowers citizens and maximizes the effectiveness of disaster relief.

• Utilizing Web 2.0-based technologies and concepts to have all citizens collaborate in aggregating useful disaster information and thereby making it true the global village.

• Channeling disaster information through the Web enables the transparency and accessibility to the information so that citizens are free from the fear lacking of reliable information and therefore creates a collective sense of safety.