Open Humanitarian Initiative August 2012

Disaster response continues to be rated as “poor” with the lack of information flow cited as one of the main reasons

Inter Agency RTE* of the Response Major Reasons Cited by RTE

“The difficulties encountered in establishing an appropriate system for collecting and analyzing data in order to provide decision makers with information ‐in a timely manner” were cited as one of the main reasons of poor response

Real Time Evaluation report found that “the overall results are considered to be both ‘scattered’ and ‘patchy’”

“The information flow was massive but with limited strategic usage (i.e. decision making and prioritization)”

“More consistent methods for and integration of assessments would have minimized the inattention to cross-sectoral issues, in particular protection and gender”

“Nearly all agencies and organizations were unable to mobilize the appropriate capacity to respond to the Darfur crisis”

“The response to the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 was a missed opportunity to translate the quick setting up of cluster coordination and the availability of substantial resources into timely results”

Having access to the right information seems to be one of the main factors that determines the difference between life and death

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*RTE = Real Time Evaluation Report

Earthquake in Haiti

Floods in Pakistan

Disaster in Darfur

A number of issues have made an effective information management solution both an important opportunity and a massive undertaking

• Lack of information sharing between humanitarian organizations

• Lack of information management capacity both within local and international humanitarian organizations as well as within governments and first responders in disaster prone countries.

High Level Issues

• Increase in the amount of time it takes to collect and analyze data resulting in reduced information availability which impacts the responders’ ability to do their job effectively

• Increase costs to emergency response agencies due to multiple data collection iterations

• Lack of data leads to an increase in operational costs such as transportation and distribution costs

These Issues are Costly

Granular Issues

• Lack of process standardization on how humanitarian data is represented during data exchangeProcess

• Lack of access to the most current information required by responders to make fully informed decisions

• Lack of a common platform for securely sharing humanitarian data

• Lack of capacity to share, manage, analyze and disseminate humanitarian data both at the national and international level

• Lack of willingness to share humanitarian information

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Technology

Organization

Governance

In order to address these issues, a number of people from different organizations came together to focus on two key objectives

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Open Humanitarian Initiative

STREAM1 - TECHNOLOGY STREAM2 - CAPACITY BUILDING

Main Objective:

• Improve information sharing between humanitarian organizations

Main Objective:

• Improve information management capacity both within local and international humanitarian organizations as well as within governments and first responders in disaster prone countries

The Open Humanitarian Initiative is divided into 6 areas to provide a complete information management solution

Project Deliverables

• Data Sharing Platform: A data sharing platform will combine, store and share humanitarian response data using the data standards schemas defined

Impact

• Interoperability: Data standards will be defined to ensure consistent terminology and to enable data sharing

• Visualization: An interface will be created where data can be processed, analyzed and displayed in different formats such as graphs, tables, charts, dashboards, maps etc…

• Capacity Building: Local disaster management authorities as well as humanitarian organization staff will be trained in the use of information management tools, such as the OHI platform

STRE

AM1

- TEC

HN

OLO

GY

STRE

AM2

- CAP

ACIT

Y BU

ILD

ING

• Digital Volunteers: Local and global digital volunteer communities will be created, fostered and trained in the use of information management tools

• Research and Innovation: A culture of research and innovation established within the information management field in disaster prone regions

• Ensures data can be shared remotely between organizations and can be accessed from any location enabling better decision making

• People trained in using information management tools, such as the OHI platform, leading to better crisis information management

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• Culture of information management established, leading to an increase in responder capacity and data availability

• Increase in the quality of the analysis performed resulting in increased OHI tool effectiveness

• Governments, NGOs and humanitarian organizations will be able to move and share information between different technical solutions

• Organizations and responders will be able to visualize the required data in the ideal format

Unique initiative built around collaboration and innovation

With subset of potential partners, we..

• Flexible funding model

• Simple, yet effective governance model

• Managed through agile project management methodology

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• Leverage existing investments

• Scale-out best practices

• Inter-operate with existing solutions

• Not do yet-another set of pilots that don’t go anywhere

• Public-private partnership at it’s fullest extend

• Work with private sector, academic community, UN agencies and digital volunteer groups

• Work closely with governments in disaster prone countries

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Utilize Broad Community

Are Flexible

Bringing together a broad set of potential partners is a key success factor

Subset of potential partners

• Support with the design and implementation of the data platform, visualization and interoperability

• Provide the technology such as hosting services and software

• Provide guidance and in-kind development support

Role within OHI

• Support with the research and innovation approach

• Help with training and learning material

• Provide guidance and in-kind support

• Support with the overall project

• Provide guidance and leadership

• Provide in-kind support

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Global Technology Companies

Academic Institutions

Humanitarian Institutions

High Level Architecture Diagram

Data Sharing Platform

Web Based, Open, server-to-server publish/subscribe protocol FreeBase

Visualization GUIExisting Platforms

SQL Azure

Fusion Tables

SQL Azure Reporting

ArcGIS Online

Other Custom VisualizationsOCHA 3W IFRC - DMIS

Etc …

HXL

Send and receive Data in HXL format (Pub/Sub)

KML/RSS

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