Help Map (Russian Fires)Crisis Mapping Case StudyAlexey SidorenkoPrague, March 9th 2011

Prerequisites for Wildfire Crisis in Russia, 2010

1. Unusually hot period; 2. Degraded system of wildfire protection; 3. Almost simultaneous outburst of wildfires

in different Russian regions;4. Raise of activism on the background of

government’s inability to cope with the disaster;

What’s the Story of Help Map?

• Idea of implementing digital tools wasn’t new;• Two persons publicly suggested usage of Ushahidi in their blogs;• One of them, Gregory Asmolov, proposed to try to install Ushahidi;• First reaction: “It would take at least a month” (MEH!) • Second reaction: “This is actually quite easy! THIS

COULD WORK!”

• Third reaction: IT WORKS!!!!• Result: Ushahidi deployment in 2-

3 days;

Difficulties

• Poor support for Cyrillic fonts;• Inactive community support -> necessity to fix all

the bugs by ourselves; • Poor documentation / difficult customization of

the platform;• Unexpected high load of the server (10-15

thousand unique visitors daily) -> necessity to move to a new hosting really fast;

Our Main Principles At That Time

• CROWDSOURCING. We crowdsource everything: message moderation, PHP/JavaScript programming, server optimization, server hosting, design;

• TRUST. We trust all volunteers, we don’t have time for background checks – dangerous but necessary;

• CREDIT. We credit everyone who helps us – people need to know and feel that their effort is taken into account;

• NEUTRALITY. we don’t support with any political organization;

Help Map1.The First

Ushahidi implementation in Russia;

2.Stage 1: Monitoring of various sources concerning wildfires;

3.Stage 2: Coordination of volunteers and victims of wildfires;

Information Coordination• Connecting random initiatives

together -> creating synergy;• Connecting those who asked for help

and those who could provide help; • Providing information on the abilities

of private initiatives.

Information coordinationPozar_r

uIgor Cherski

y Doctor

Liza

Russian ChurchVolunteer

groupsRandom Citizen

Initiatives

Work of Coordination Center• Moderation of reports;

• Monitoring of sources;

• Coordination of the work of remote moderators;

• Site maintenance;

• Phone “Hot Line” maintenance;

• Coordination of help.Фотографии ottenki_serogo

Full cycle of helpClothe

sTransport

ation«We have some spare clothes”, Moscow

«I have a car. Mazda 3, I am available to lift people or food to any place in the Moscow or Ryazan region.

Victims«In Vladimir region we need (August 14, 2010):• Утюги - 50 шт• Тонометр – 1• Глюкометр (+тестполоски) – 1•...»

Help Report

Trip report: we brought food and clothes to …

Weak sides of the project• Limited information flow from the cell phones;• Limited number of sources (mostly from the bigger cities);• Mapping as a process was unusual for some less computer

literate users;• Technical instability; • Lack of interactivity on the basis of the platform; • Limited feedback functionality (volunteers and victims

couldn’t connect with each other without the help of moderators);

• After the crisis is gone the future of the platform is unstable;

Perspectives:• Upgrade of the platform to version

2.0 + change of design to our own platform;

• Integration of aerial photographs; • Information support in endangered

regions ;• Better cooperation with the NGOs

Thanks!

Alexey Sidorenko• Sidorenko.a@gmail.com• Twitter: @sidorenko_intl