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Google.org funds emergency program that sounds very familiar…
By WDavidStephenson | January 17, 2008
Tip o’ the hat to David Jara of Motorola for tipping me off about this!
News today that Google.org, Google’s charitable wing (”Google.org aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease”) will give grants totaling $5 million to fund Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD) to create a tech-based system to save lives in natural disasters or public health crises.
The CNET story specifically mentions a role for Twitter and Facebook:
“… technology, which will include social software Twitter and Facebook, will be used to coordinate rescue responses and help save lives, according to Eric Rasmussen, president and CEO of InSTEDD.
“…. We’re not talking about pulling the red phone out of the bottom drawer here,” said Rasmussen, a former adviser to U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, referring to Twitter and Facebook. “We’re talking about using ubiquitous, free software that is repurposed when necessary to fit into a humanitarian need.”
Hmm. Sounds like they’re pursuing a course similar to my networked homeland security approach, to capitalize on the devices and applications that we all use daily to deal instead with serious issues.
Epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant, Google.org’s director, thought of the program TED prize. InSTEDD director Dr. Rasmussen is a legend in the disaster response field for his innovative approaches.
The initial plans for InSTEDD are definitely in line with my approaches, especially in terms of linking a wide range of wireless, packet-based devices and applications, particularly social networking ones such as Twitter:
“One such application will be the so-called Twitter bot framework, which bridges the Web service and phones with a location-detection feature that can link to a layer in Google Earth, Rasmussen said. That way, for example, Rasmussen could send a message about a patient with untreated symptoms in Laos via SMS on his phone, which might only have one signal bar of service. That message could then be broadcast to anyone subscribed to his messages, including aid workers at UNICEF or InSTEDD’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., which could show his location and note on a Google Earth map.
“‘We can send an SMS message onto Google Earth in an emergency center, and it sees a dot with a color-coded response, with my name and date. Right underneath that, there’s a button that says reply, and (aid workers can send a note that says) we have the resources you need 2 miles north…Suddenly there’s a two-way conversation using nothing but a cell phone with one bar,’ he said, adding: ‘We’ve done this.’”
“The application will also let people query for friends nearby via SMS, he said.
“At its launch Thursday, the InSTEDD Web site will also feature blogs and a directory of aid workers, where professionals can register and regularly update their locations. That way, people can easily locate others in the event of a disaster.
Rasmussen also told Reuters, “Social networking in the humanitarian space, that’s something you’re going to see.”
Twitter, Facebook, Google Earth, SMS — what’s not to like about that combo!
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