Abstract
Haiti. The moment is still vivid in my mind because we had been working for months with our partner, the EKTA Foundation, on a plan to make information and communication technologies (ICTs) accessible and sustainable in rural areas of Haiti. I had planned to fly to Port-au-Prince with another Inveneo cofounder on January 15, where we were to stay at the now-collapsed Hotel Montana to research opportunities and connect with the local tech community. Then the earthquake struck. It wasn’t until hours later, after trying to reach our Haitian contacts, that we realized the extent of the devastation. Our connections with Haitian colleagues made our commitment immediate and more personal. Later that day, we met with our partner NetHope, a collaboration of 31 of the world’s leading international humanitarian organizations that share technology best practices. Our conversation immediately turned to the tragedy in Haiti. We had been working with NetHope on a large-scale ICT project for relief camps across the world, but as they counted the number of their member organizations directly affected by the earthquake (20), our conversation shifted to ways we could address their urgent needs. For many disaster response veterans, the Haiti earthquake represents a turning point in our collective thinking about the value of ICTs in humanitarian relief efforts. A range of ICT-focused initiatives have demonstrated that technology— from accessing detailed maps of the affected area, to turning simple SMS messages into life-saving systems, to establishing broadband Internet connectivity to humanitarian organizations—improves both the speed and substance of relief efforts. The impact of these voluntary and even spontaneous initiatives was real, measurable, and widely publicized. Their success, even in the absence of any plan-
Highlights
I was in a meeting on January 12, 2010, when I heard about the earthquake in Haiti
We had been working with NetHope on a large-scale information and communication technologies (ICTs) project for relief camps across the world, but as they counted the number of their member organizations directly affected by the earthquake (20), our conversation shifted to ways we could address their urgent needs
A range of ICT-focused initiatives have demonstrated that technology— from accessing detailed maps of the affected area, to turning simple SMS messages into life-saving systems, to establishing broadband Internet connectivity to humanitarian organizations—improves both the speed and substance of relief efforts
Summary
I was in a meeting on January 12, 2010, when I heard about the earthquake in Haiti. The moment is still vivid in my mind because we had been working for months with our partner, the EKTA Foundation, on a plan to make information and communication technologies (ICTs) accessible and sustainable in rural areas of Haiti. For many disaster response veterans, the Haiti earthquake represents a turning point in our collective thinking about the value of ICTs in humanitarian relief efforts. A range of ICT-focused initiatives have demonstrated that technology— from accessing detailed maps of the affected area, to turning simple SMS messages into life-saving systems, to establishing broadband Internet connectivity to humanitarian organizations—improves both the speed and substance of relief efforts. The impact of these voluntary and even spontaneous initiatives was real, measurable, and widely publicized.
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