Texting to Save Lives: New Software to Coordinate Crisis Information
Finally, the internet and wireless phones can be put to work on the side of good rather than just porn.
A test run of a new software suite called INSTEDD in Southeast Asia holds a world of promise when it comes to coordinating information across multiple users and agencies, locations, database configurations. Think of it as social networking among emergency and crisis workers and the people locally by anything from disease outbreaks to natural disasters.
I think everyone can agree that recent disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina has shown everyone that communication can be an effective key to mitigating the most profound effects of emergency situations. And as our methods of communication have expanded beyond telephones and telegraphs, so too must our tools for responding to disasters and epidemics.
As an example, the “test run” in Stung Treng Province, Cambodia was meant to simulate an outbreak of a disease scattered among many small villages throughout the region. Text messages, emails, and even blogs are useful tools to communicate, but with this new suite of three programs, INSTEDD can coordinate all methods of communication and can turn all that info into useful data for government agencies, relief workers, local residents, health officials, and anyone else who would be involved in relief efforts.
The INSTEDD suite consists of GeoChat, which “enables team members to communicate their position and important information using text messages, email or a web browser, with data instantly synchronized on every team members’ mobile phone or laptops.” The second component of the suite is Mesh4X, which translates all the different software among different agencies (stuff like which database software they use) among all the users. Finally, INSTEDD gives us Evolve, a tool that mines data and then provides vizualization tools like maps and charts to better understand all that information that is coming in now that all forms of communicating are linked up, with no software compatibility issues.
INSTEDD comes from a Palo Alto, California non-profit of the same acronym, which stands for Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters. INSTEDD has received money from Google, so it’s no surprise that Google Maps and Google Earth are part of the visualization tools.
natural disasters, emergency, relief, disease, outbreak, epidemic, Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters, INSTEDD, Google, Google Maps, Google Earth
