News
New live project: UNRWA Italia Commettee
UNRWA Italia choosed to work with us for their first steps into "digital"
UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. UNRWA provides assistance, protection and advocacy for some 5 million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory, pending a solution to their plight.
We have partnered with the newborn UNRWA Italia Commettee to kickstart the online activities of the association: a first version of the website, a mailing list and initial social media strategy.
See the project case: UNRWA Italia
Making good use of a weekend: Ushahidi Webapp
The idea is simple: provide Ushahidi with a mobile-optimized web application enabling to report both online and offline. Sounds complex to you? read on...
Reflab team, in parallel to the Rhok event on December 3-4, in the spirit of the hackathon but physically from home, will spend the weekend to add to Ushahidi the possibility to have offline-web reporting. We cannot make it to Trento this time, but we will make very good use of this weekend!
Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company that specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. They build tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. They are a disruptive organization that is willing to take risks in the pursuit of changing the traditional way that information flows.
We love Ushahidi and share their goals, so why not using our experience on online-offline web applications to contribute a small component, that might have an interesting immediate impact?
The webapp would enable anyone with a smartphone, tablet or laptop, to prepare and submit Ushahidi structured reports both online and offline, without the need to install an Ushahidi mobile application or custom application.
A prototype of the app. has already been developed and the goal is to finish a first stable version during the weekend.
In the tradition of every Free Software sprint or hackathon any developer, designer, project manager or communication/documentation expert is welcome!
The sprint will take place in Reflab premises in Cascina (Pisa), Via della Pace, 6 from Saturday 9.00 a.m. to Sunday 5.00 p.m. to participate please contact us.
A very promising start for Crisis Camp Italia
More than 50 people showed up at the first Italian Crisis Camp, an informal meeting to reflect on the role of web 2.0 and mobile activities to improve prevention and monitoring of crisis and emergencies.
CrisisCamp Italy
The term crisis can have many meanings: the humanitarian crisis, war, civil or political rights denied, or also natural or anthropogenic hazards (earthquakes, fires, floods), then the whole part in a European country is guarded by the civil protection. This is the aspect that most concerns us in Italy. In any emergency there is a problem of information management, not only as the information produced by the press and social media, but also how the information can be shared between operators (civil protection... ). Operators, therefore, have difficulties in managing this collaborative aspect, but it is essential for their action. Here, the network enters the scene: today the web is primarily a platform for sharing and collaboration and crowdsourcing the buzzword also in crisis management.
The Crisis Camp Italy follows the similar experiences of London and Paris. There, important issues and interesting topics where presented and discussed, together: operators involved in civil protection, citizens, journalists and the scientific community.
It was a very promising start, showing that there is an high level of interest in Italy for such issues and such network! All participants agreed to continue the conversation and prepare for the next camp, likely to be in 6-8 month.
And while the conversation continues, the very first concrete outcomes are already there:
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the first proposal is to equip elicopeters with cameras (read: ortofoto ad ogni elisoccorso?),
- the second proposal is to build a permanent observatory of the innovative projects developed in Italy.
- the third proposal is to workout a guideline on social media for emergencies management to be given to F3 (mass-media and information) function of the Protezione Civile.
Instead of "just talking", the newborn community is focusing on having real impact and showing results. We hope to be able very soon to make it happen!
Crisis Camp Italia is part of the worldwide Crisis Commons initiative, and has been organized by Elena Rapisardi, Marco Boscolo and Francesco Ciriaci, with the support of FormicaBlu, TagBoLab, UrbanCenterBologna and Reflab.
See the press review of the event: http://crisiscampitaly.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/piccola-rassegna-stampa/
Official CrisisCamp website: http://crisiscampitaly.wordpress.com/
Convegno Internazionale "Teoria e pratica dell'azione umanitaria", November 2011
The international conference, will be in Rome, 25-26 November 2011.
MSF - "Teoria e pratica dell'azione umanitaria"
"The Congress will be an opportunity to exchange informations, experiences and ideas about humanitarian action, which assemble experts, doctors, researchers in the world of non-governmental organizations, medicine, politics and media, to reflect and address the question. During the sessions and workshops planned, the participants will be able to compare the following topics: surgery in emergency situations, the role of military operations, policy coordination, the future of humanitarian action."
Reflab has been working for MSF International since 2009, delivering the new International Intranet (Tukul) as well as collaboration and information tools aimed to the fields users and supporting their operations. It has been always challenging and very rewarding: we have learned a lot and built on the successes, one small step at the time. We are very proud to work for MSF.
This event is a good moment for us to have a insight on the broad "humanitarian action", the very activity that we ultimately serve.
See more on "Teoria e pratica dell'azione umanitaria" event: http://www.medicisenzafrontiere.it/eventi/scheda_evento.asp?id=2775
ICCM 2011: International conference of crisis mappers, November 2011 Geneva, Switzerland
The international conference of crisis mappers, will be in Geneva, Switzerland, 14-15 November 2011.
Crisis Mappers
"The purpose of ICCM 2011 Geneva is to bring together the most engaged practitioners, scholars, software developers and policymakers at the cutting edge of crisis mapping to address and assess the role of crisis mapping and humanitarian technology in crisis response. Following the myriad of responses to the Haiti 2010 earthquake, the crisis mapper community is fanning out into new domains. A number of reports highlight a great deal of excitement over the potential of Information and Communications Technologies, new and social media as well as crowd-sourcing to strengthen planning and delivery of aid."
Francesco Ciriaci, Reflab Managing Director,will participate to this important event and contribute with his experience in the area of technology in humanitarian emergencies, particularly online-offline web and mobile applications and tools.
See more on ICCM 2011 Geneva: http://crisismappers.net/
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