IO Deeds of Peace – Page 17 – Public Intelligence Blog

Crowdsourcing a Crisis Map of the Beijing Floods: Volunteers vs Government

Flash floods in Beijing have killed over 70 people and forced the evacuation of more than 50,000 after destroying over 8,000 homes and causing $1.6 billion in damages. In total, some 1.5 million people have been affected by the floods after Beijing recorded the heaviest rainfall the city has seen in more than 60 years.

The heavy rains began on July 21. Within hours, users of the Guokr.com social network launched a campaign to create a live crisis map of the flood’s impact using Google Maps. According to TechPresident, “the result was not only more accurate than the government output—it was available almost a day earlier. According to People’s Daily Online, these crowd-sourced maps were widely circulated on Weibo [China's version of Twitter] the Monday and Tuesday after the flooding.” The crowdsourced, citizen-generated flood map of Beijing is available here and looks like this:

Read rest of post with photos and screen shots.

2012/07/302012/07/30

Patrick Meier: Twitter Dashboard & Media Analysis for Crisis Response

Analysis, Civil Society, CrisisWatch reports, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, Geospatial, IO Deeds of Peace, P2P / Panarchy, Peace Intelligence

CrisisTracker: Collaborative Social Media Analysis For Disaster Response

I just had the pleasure of speaking with my new colleague Jakob Rogstadius from Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (Madeira-TTI). Jakob is working on CrisisTracker, a very interesting platform designed to facilitate collaborative social media analysis for disaster response. The rationale for CrisisTracker is the same one behind Ushahidi's SwiftRiver project and could be hugely helpful for crisis mapping projects carried out by the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF).

Read post see screen shots.

Towards a Twitter Dashboard for the Humanitarian Cluster System

One of the principal Research and Development (R&D) projects I'm spearheading with colleagues at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) has been getting a great response from several key contacts at the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In fact, their input has been instrumental in laying the foundations for our early R&D efforts. I therefore highlighted the initiative during my recent talk at the UN's ECOSOC panel in New York, which was moderated by OCHA Under-Secretary General Valerie Amos. The response there was also very positive. So what's the idea? To develop the foundations for a Twitter Dashboard for the Humanitarian Cluster System.

Read post see screen shots.

2012/07/042012/07/04

Patrick Meier: Towards a Match.com for Economic Resilience in a Crisis-Stricken World

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collaboration Zones, Geospatial, IO Deeds of Peace, Key Players, Knowledge, Liberation Technology, Mobile, Policies

Towards a Match.com for Economic Resilience in a Crisis-Stricken World

So that’s what he’s been up to! My good friend and mentor Ken Banks of Kiwanja fame has just launched a very interesting initiative entitled “Means of Exchange“. Ken wants to democratize opportunities for radical economic self-sufficiency and thus render local communities more resilient to exogenous shocks. “I’ve been taking an increasing interest in economic resilience,” writes Ken, “particularly how technology might help buffer local communities from global economic down-turns. Ironically, since I started my research the world has entered a period of growing economic uncertainty. The causes–although fascinating–don’t so much interest me, more the response at local, grassroots level.”

Photo at Source

To say that Ken’s ideas directly resonate with my ideals would be a huge understatement. My iRevolution blog is currently in its fifth year of production and as the About page explains, “This blog features short thought pieces on how innovation and technology are revolutionizing the power of the individual through radical self-sufficiency, self-determination, independence, survival and resilience.” I’m incredibly excited by Ken’s new initiative. He quotes this excellent comment by Calvin Coolidge, which really hits home:

“We pay too little attention to the reserve power of the people to take care of themselves. We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.”

I have written many a blog post on this very people-centered notion as applied to crisis early warning and humanitarian response. Hence my pitch two years ago for a Match.com applied to humanitarian relief. Take this blog post, for example: “The Crowd is Always There: A Marketplace for Crowdsourcing Crisis Response.” But Ken is not just advocating for a “Match.com for Economic Resilience,” he is also building the infrastructure to make it happen: “A number of apps to support this work are planned for rollout during the year, with the first due for release in summer 2012.”

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Towards a Match.com for Economic Resilience in a Crisis-Stricken World”

2012/07/032012/07/03

Michel Bauwens: Indignados are (not so) silently gaining strength

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace

220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

Despite appearances, Indignados are (not so) silently gaining strength

The 15-M movement has gone beyond protest: it has succeeded in altering the collective imagination and the political atmosphere at its very roots. It has generated a process of re-politicization of society. The agenda of actions has expanded and been radicalized: now we do not only occupy the squares, but we are taking back the public spaces in our own neighborhoods. We stop evictions. We crowd-fund our initiatives. We bring legal actions against bankers. We build our own parallel networks of social support. Does this show a weakened movement, running out of strength? Or does it rather show a dynamic movement, working in the underground on a silent revolution?

Far from losing strength, decentralization has allowed 15-M to become ever more dynamic, writes Martha Sanchez:

“Is the 15-M movement going invisible? Or is it rather gaining strength in the ‘underground’? The mainstream media keep claiming that the indignados have lost support since last year, that its only success is its ability to bring people together on special dates. Spanish newspaper El País concluded in May 2012 that, one year after the birth of the movement, popular support and sympathy for the indignados had decreased around 13% among the Spanish population, despite the massive mobilizations that took place from the 12th until the 15th of May, commemorating the anniversary of the movement. ABC opened its edition of May 15 stating that “the indignados movement shows less strength on their anniversary.” But the media misses the point. In reality, rather than losing strength, the movement has become stronger, more organized, better coordinated, and supported by the commitment of hundreds of people.

The decentralization of the movement

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Indignados are (not so) silently gaining strength”

2012/06/07

John Steiner: Coalition requests UN intervention to stabilize Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 at Fukushima

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace, Non-Governmental, United Nations & NGOs

Below now circulating within US green community.

Coalition requests UN intervention to stabilize Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 at Fukushima — Endorsed by nuclear expert

Title: Urgent Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
Source: Green Action Japan
Date: May 1, 2012

EXTRACT:

Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.

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2012/06/06

Patrick Meier: UN Report on Big Data for Development – Highlights

Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, IO Deeds of Peace, Non-Governmental

Big Data for Development: Challenges and Opportunities

The UN Global Pulse report on Big Data for Development ought to be required reading for anyone interested in humanitarian applications of Big Data. The purpose of this post is not to summarize this excellent 50-page document but to relay the most important insights contained therein. In addition, I question the motivation behind the unbalanced commentary on Haiti, which is my only major criticism of this otherwise authoritative report.

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: UN Report on Big Data for Development – Highlights”

2012/05/15

DefDog: The Power of OPEN – Blogger Shines Light on U.S. Shadow War in East Africa

Civil Society, IO Deeds of Peace, Knowledge, Media, Military, Peace Intelligence

The power of OPEN *. You might think that the media would be doing this, but one would be wrong….they are content to be spoon fed lies, more lies, and damn lies…..it takes the public to pull back the curtain and expose what is really going on….that may be a reason the IC doesn't like Open Source, it would continually show their inefficiencies…..

Blogger Shines Light on U.S. Shadow War in East Africa

David Axe

WIRED, 15 May 2012

An innocuous-seeming U.S. Air Force press release. A serendipitous satellite image in Google Earth. Snapshots from a photographer on assignment at a Spanish air base. The crash of an Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bomber in the United Arab Emirates. These are some of the fragments of information that Italian aviation blogger David Cenciotti has assembled to reveal the best picture yet of the Pentagon’s secretive war in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

In a series of blog posts over the past two weeks, Cenciotti has described in unprecedented detail the powerful aerial force helping wage Washington’s hush-hush campaign of air strikes, naval bombardments and commando raids along the western edge of the Indian Ocean, including
terror hot spots Yemen and Somalia. Cenciotti outlined the deployment of eight F-15Es from their home base in Idaho to the international air and naval outpost at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, north of Somalia.

. . . . . . . . .

But arguably the most interesting vessels in the area are also the least flashy. Lewis and Clark-class supply ships, normally used to carry fuel and cargo, have also been used as Afloat Forward Staging Bases — in essence, seaborne military camps for housing Special Forces and launching helicopters and small boats. The ships can be configured with makeshift jails for holding captured pirates and, in theory, terror suspects.

Read full article with many links.

Category: IO Deeds of Peace

Patrick Meier: Crowdsourcing a Crisis Map of the Beijing Floods – Volunteers vs Government