UN GLOBAL PULSEHarnessing innovation to protect the vulnerable

Robert KirkpatrickDirector, UN Global Pulse

Executive Office of the Secretary-GeneralUnited Nations Headquarters

New York, NY

Twitter: @unglobalpulse | www.unglobalpulse.org

In 2009, leaders needed real-time informationto respond to the global economic crisis• Which population groups are most

vulnerable?• Which are already being impacted?• How are they coping?

Answering these questions turned out to be a problem.

The Invisible Descent into Poverty

Crisis

Hard-to-track erosive effects of slow-onset crises

Irreversible Harm

(vast oversimplification)

Household-level statistics take years to collect and years to validate.

2-5 year-old figures just don’t cut it in a global crisis.

The Crisis Information Gap

?

First data becomes available

…and we only find out about years too late

Without accurate information to inform social protection policies, vulnerable

people slip through the cracks…

Data, Data Everywhere!Can we close the information gap with new kinds of data?

Services as sensors?

Mobile Services as Human Sensor Networks

When our lives change, we change how we use services

Flashing

Voice Calling

SMS Texting

SIM Top-offs

Mobile banking

Money transfers

Microloan repayments

Tower hopping

Health hotlines

Agriculture hotlines

Educational services

Employment services

Social networking

SMS Search

Citizen reporting

Food vouchers

Anywhere you are doing global development…

Agricultural hotlines as sensor networks?

In Spain, searching for “work in Germany”

Worldwide Arabic searches for “work in France”

Can online search reveal an intention to relocate for work?

Sketch for a “Flu Trends for Migration”

Digital Smoke Signals

Mobile Services Data

Social Media

Online News

Crowdsourced Reports

Remote Sensing

What can

tellus

about

economic stress,depression, anxiety

lost jobs, job-seeking?affordability of food, fuel,

rent, or education,Increases in debt,frustration, dashed

hopes, broken dreams, domestic strife,

road rage…

Detecting crisis-related anomalies in collective behavior

?

Making Sense of Digital Smoke SignalsWhat we can learn from Public Health outbreak surveillance:

1. Aggregate, fuse and analyze real-time data from a variety of sources

2. Combine human expertise with intelligent software to detectpatterns of concern and form hypotheses

3. Crowd-source preliminary reports of causes and impacts from local government, teachers, community health workers, radio hosts and alert them to possible risks and recommended coping strategies

4. If community leaders confirm hypotheses, work with government to collect and validate additional statistical evidence, as required.

5. Government now has the evidence needed for national response and global advocacy

Data Philanthropy?

• Individual Privacy

• Data Security

• Data Sovereignty

• Intellectual Property

Making it Safe for Everyone InvolvedDeveloping a robust framework for protecting:

UN Global PulseAn innovative blueprint for crisis awareness in the 21st century

FRAMEWORK: researching approaches to integrating new data with traditional indicators

PLATFORM: tools for real-time collaborative analysis & collective reasoning

LABS: building capacity for real-time crisis monitoring at the country-level

Thank you!

Robert KirkpatrickDirector, UN Global Pulse

United Nations Headquarterskirkpatrick@un.org

+1 (650) 796-5709

Twitter: @unglobalpulse | www.unglobalpulse.org