Technology Innovation and Data for Humanitarian Aid

Bartel Van de Walle Policy Analysis Section

Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

The development of a more

technology-oriented approach

to humanitarian action is

essential – and inescapable – to

take advantage of the

opportunities to improve, for

example, information gathering,

analysis, coordination, action or

fund-raising.

Bekele Geleta, Secretary-

General of the IFRC,

World Disasters Report

2013

17/01/2018 Bartel Van de Walle & Tina Comes: IM in Complex and Natural Disasters

Technology is a driver of change

17/01/2018 Tina Comes: ICT for Resilience 3

17/01/2018 Bartel Van de Walle & Tina Comes: IM in Complex and Natural Disasters

Realities of the Field

Office in the field…

17/01/2018 Tina Comes: ICT for Resilience 6

Matching innovation and needs

Initial Prototype of Board Game

• Board game - 4 teams of 2 players

• Fictitious crisis region - 3 locations

• Roles: NGOs

• Objective: saving the life of beneficiaries

• Resources: blankets, food, and vaccines

• Allocation of assets to a specific mission is invisible for the other players; unless communication tokens is used

• Event cards - Risk & Uncertainties

• Scoring: Saved lives & Individual mission contributions

www.comrades-project.eu

Project Objectives

COMRADES aims to empower communities with intelligent socio-technical solutions to help them reconnect, respond to,

and recover from crisis situations.

• Main objectives: – Extract the socio-technical requirements for collective resilience

platforms

– Automatically identify, process, assess, and monitor emergency events in distributed communities and social media sources

– Measure the informativeness and validity of crisis information

– Develop the intelligent COMRADES platform for community resilience

– Deploy COMRADES to support real and distributed communities during live crises events

ImProDiReT Improving disaster risk reduction in Transcarpathian region

Sinkhole caused by collapsed mine in Transcarpathia, Ukraine

Kick-off Meeting – Jan 2018 Contact: Kenny Meesters

Background •Transcarpathian region o The Transcarpathian region is situated in the West of Ukraine. It is literally

‘over’ the Carpathian Mountain range and has borders with four EU-member states. The population of Transcarpathia is multi-ethnic, with several large minority groups, for example Romanians, Hungarians, Russians and Romas.

o The region has a turbulent history, being part of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, USSR and Ukraine in recent times. Its economy is largely dependent on forestry, but other agrocultur, industry and mining are significant.

•Risks o In general the risks are flooding, flash floods, landslides, earthquakes, wild

fire and man-made, like mining.

o Large-scale and intensive salt-wining activities have led to a heavy mining industry. The mines are now largely abandoned and are at risk of collapsing. The area itself however is still being intensively used by the local population

o In 2014 two advisory mission were conducted by the Civil Protection Mechanism to Ukraine.

o In 2016 the UCPM was activated jointly by Hungary and Ukraine to tackle the emergency situation at the Solotvyno collapsing salt mines. It lead to two subsequent EUCP missions. (scoping & prevention, and preparedness)

Airports in Disaster

Airport as Nexus

@bvdwalle @k_meesters

Medevac

Search & Rescue (USAR)

Warehouse (LogBase)

Base Camp

Reception & Departure

Center (RDC)

Border Patrol &

Immigration

Customs

Coordination Center (OSOCC)

Relief supplies

Rescue team arrival

Military operations

(CivMil)

Commercial airlines

Distribution & Truck depot

Researchers

Temporary Camp (IDP)

@bvdwalle @k_meesters

People leaving (PAX)

United Nations Air Service (UNHAS)

Emergency Relief Items

(WFP)

Emergency Telco (FITTEST)

Airport in Disasters

Examine airports as: • Logistical nexus between international aid and local

implementation • Information and coordination exchange hub • Combining knowledge from the humanitarian sector

and aviation industry • Complex, multi-actor systems (not only

infrastructure) Built on: • Research & Critical examination of existing practices • Operational assistance to affected airports • Exercises and training for dissemination of knowledge • Existing networks & expertise in the Netherlands

Quickscan: Improving lead times for humanitarian intervention Kenny Meesters Policy Analysis, Delft University of Technology

Photo © © UNICEF/NYHQ2015-2018/Esiebo

Motivation

“What can we, as Dutch humanitarian organizations, do to ensure rapid aid delivery?”

• To develop adequate, grounded solutions we need to understand the challenges faced. We need to articulate the question: – State of the art and current best practices

– Understand the opportunities & barriers

– Develop clear challenges

HumTech Lab

Thank you

bvdwalle