Social Media for Good

Mobile phones can be a great tool to help people in emergencies. To help organizations or activists decide when and how to use SMS, the GSMA recently published a draft “Code of Conduct for the Use of SMS in Natural Disaster”.

Stormpins is an iPhone app that tries to close the information -> decision loop by providing responders with a smart way to use crowdsourced data about hazards.

I’m honoured and pleased to have been quoted on the “Impatient Optimist” blog of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Author Jennifer James contacted me about two weeks ago and asked, what my one piece of social media advice to non-profit organizations would be.

Over the last four weeks I gave three lectures during Fordham University’s “International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance. One was on the Cluster approach, one on the use of social media in emergencies and one was a case study looking at the international response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This is the presentation on social media in emergency response operations.

Google has decided to close Google Reader. A good reason to take another look at the news gathering and browsing services I wrote about last summer.

Earlier this week, the UN’s refugee agency counted 1,000,000 Syrian refugees. The problem with big numbers is that they get lost in the noise and in the news; the key is to personalize these numbers. Here is what UNHCR has done.

Mobile-enabled early warning systems are transforming the way humanitarian organisations deliver aid, and also how we build long-term resilience in concert with affected communities. With the International Telecommunication Union reporting nearly six billion mobile-cellular subscriptions worldwide in 2011 – and a notable 79 per cent penetration in the developing world – the rise of mobile communication continues to shape aid innovation.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is looking for ideas that can help improve humanitarian response and is willing to pay for them.