The earthquake in Haiti became a testing ground for disaster relief platforms. Ushahidi geolocated tens of thousands of mobile messages and provided critical information. Open Street Map and Google Mapmaker provided much needed maps. Digital Globe (amongst others) provided free satellite imagery.
This Monday the U.S. State Department is pulling together many of these technology providers to review the lessons learned on the ground. The Haiti Tech Meetup will also brainstorm how technology providers can keep working on the existing problems.
I’ll be there Monday morning helping to run part of the session Ignite style. The event will be held at the George Marshall Center, E. Auditorium, U.S. Department of State this Monday (5/10) in the morning. There are still seats available if you would like to attend and share your thoughts (just RSVP to haititechRSVP@state.gov). The hashtag for the event will #haititech. The agenda is below (all the panels are starting off with Ignite talks):
08:30 WELCOME – Katie Stanton, Secretary Clinton’s Innovation Team
08:40 CASE STUDY: 4636: Integrating text into the Haitian emergency line
Moderator: Katie Stanton, State Innovation Team
Panelists:
Rob Munro, Stanford, Ushahidi Crisis Mapping Team
Denise Rosalind Sewell, Tufts/Ushahidi Crisis Mapping Team
Josh Nesbit, Frontline SMS Medic
09:30 WHITEBOARD SESSION 1: Preventing violence against women & girls
Speaker: Emily Jacobi, Co-Director, Digital Democracy
Speaker: Jocelyn Kelly, Harvard
10:15 CASE STUDY: Mobile Granting / Mobile Banking
Moderator: Priya Jaisinghani, USAID
Panelists:
Brad Blanken, CTO, Mobile Accord
Scot DiPretoro, Program Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, American Red Cross
Sean Rankin, One Cent Banking
11:15 WHITEBOARD SESSION 2: Education
Speaker: Jeff Nesbit, Legislative & Public Affairs Director, National Science Foundation
Speaker: Dan Hodges, Managing Partner, Conceptiviti
12:00 CASE STUDY: Emergency Relief Allocation
Moderator: Dan Stoneking, Director, Private Sector Office of External Affairs, FEMA
Panelists:
Prem Ramaswami, Google
J. Eddie Pickle, Senior Vice President, OpenGeo
George Reyes, COO/EVP, PayCargo LLC.
12:45 ROUND UP: Suzanne Hall, New Media Advisor, Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau