¶ Yesterday I spent most of the day with a group of highly motivated people – both techie and non-techie alike – at CrisisCamp Boulder. CrisisCamps are events organized by CrisisCommons, a groups formed around the concept of distributed technology development to support response to crisis situations. Their response to the Haiti earthquake has been tremendous:
“For a second straight week, hundreds of CrisisCamp volunteers will gather in an expanded number of cities to collaborate on information technology projects in support of disaster relief for post-earthquake Haiti. Initially launched last week in six locations in response to the crisis, the volunteer technology effort has rapidly grown to 12 cities in four countries.”
¶ Even though there were definitely more skill sets that ran toward the technical side, I still felt my experiences and background provided a valuable contribution to the group. I assisted with a project, coined Pict-o-Speak, an icon-based booklet and mobile phone application intended to allow responders and aid providers to communicate with the Haitian people, a population which has a literacy rate of only approximately 50%. This project is a sub-category of a larger initiative to provide language translation and emergency-related support to first responders in Haiti.
¶ The basis of the Pict-o-Speak project centers on developing a taxonomy for particular aid categories – in this case: Health, Emergency Shelter Coordination, Water and Sanitation, Protection, Early Recovery, Food and Nutrition, Education, and Agriculture. The taxonomies form the backbone for development of icons equating to each node contained in the taxonomy, thereby allowing individuals to identify a series of icons for their particular circumstances or requirements, without the need to be literate. However, each icon will also have an english-to-creole written translation, as an additional enhanced capability. My support to this project entailed developing the agriculture taxonomy for initial testing. As things move from the initial response to the recovery phase, I believe triage, support and development of the Haitian agriculture sector will become increasingly important.
¶ This was definitely a Saturday well spent and I applaud all those involved, not only in the CrisisCamps around the world, but also those who have taken their time, money, and expertise and put it to good use in assisting with the post-earthquake response.
¶ Here is an initial example of a high-level livestock taxonomy for this project. I welcome comments/suggestions:
Source: Vethno
