Level three emergencies, such as the Haitian earthquake, have seen huge numbers of humanitarian actors flooding in to assist those affected. The chaotic nature of these contexts and the general poor commitment to coordination often results in a disorganised response; in which some areas (e.g. those easy to access) receive excessive support, while others (those difficult to access) receive none. The lack of transparency about how these locations are selected disempowers the general public and those struggling to coordinate the response such as OCHA or the Protection Cluster.
Geo Gecko Ltd. proposes to build a simple smartphone app to populate a 'Who What Where' web-map for those assisting children in emergencies. The app will be free to download and be used by the field teams of responding agencies. A simple form will be filled out per activity in each location. The form will require two pieces of data so as to ensure a high response rate, I.E. agency name and activity type. GPS coordinates will be automatically recorded. The results will be sent to a server and will populate a basic web-map.
This web map will be a tool which will be usable by the public (interacting with it), by humanitarians (e.g. to identify gaps) and by GIS specialists (analysis and overlaying over affected populations data). It is a simple solution to the long-standing coordination problem; who is doing what where? It will be built using open source tools and data will be publicly available so as to ensure sustainability. Data will be transferred using the phone network and transcription is unnecessary; thereby ensuring it is a live product in an environment where speed of response is critical.