Vine, Disaster Tech From Microsoft

Last week Microsoft will started inviting users into Vine, a public-service tool that will be especially useful during disasters. In case of an emergency or everyday life, Vine will be a multi-platform, ad-free method of staying in touch with networks. Once Vine is launched it has the potential to become a very powerful communication platform. Last week I had a phone call with Tammy Savage, the GM of Microsoft’s Public Safety Initiative.

Vine's primary goal is to connect you with a small group of people, reach them wherever they are, and allow you to determine what conditions are like where they are. Vine will do this by letting you connect to it as you desire. Initially that means Facebook, LinkedIn, email, SMS, and the Vine Windows client.

Vine has three main functions and many supporting features:

Send An Alert - You can send a message to a pre-constructed group via its own email address and SMS keyword. All replies go to the group and the messages can later be found on the group's report.

Post A Report - You can also post to the report. This is structured info that can be shared It's also a way to share information. You can "Check In Safe and Well", "Report Upcoming Plans", "Report a Situation", or share "General Information". Each option is associated with a timestamp, a location, and provides different data fields (for example "Check In Safe and Well" has a toggle for "Okay"/"Not Okay"; "Report Upcoming Plans" includes a date range). Tammy said that this isn't blogging , however it seems like it will be very similar.

Research News and Safety Info - On Vine you can search for news and alerts in a geographic area. You you will be able to include GeoRSS feeds from around the web. It provides situational awareness in cases of emergencies.

Vine will need to support many different platforms. In my discussion with Tammy she said that there will be web access, Twitter integration, and access for non-Windows users and mobile users. Tammy would not make a commitment to any platform however the most logical ones are Mac, Windows Mobile and the iPhone. An API is under consideration. Right now is a time of experimentation for the group. After they see their users' behavior the team will start making decisions about how to expand access.

Vine is a mashup made into a product. It uses a combination of eleven Microsoft services. The ones that I am aware of include: Live Search (for alerts), Messenger (for chat), Live ID (for identity), Hotmail/ Live Mail, VE Maps and SQL Server on the backend. In the future we can expect Tellme's voice recognition to be added. The Vine Windows Client will use the new Windows 7 Location and Sensing API in the future.

Vine will not have ads. The team is rightly concerned that ads could be distracting in a crisis. Instead they will add on premium services, but their will always be a free version. I would bet that premium services will be web services (not clients). Enterprises and governments will also be interested in hosting their own version.

Vine is going to start testing in the Seattle area. I asked Tammy if this meant that there would be staged emergencies (ala Strong Angel) to test; there won't be. Instead they want people to use it in their daily lives. Over that time they'll see how people integrate Vine into their lives.

In times of crisis people fall back on what they know. Twitter has quite famously been used during emergencies, but it does not have all of the functionality necessary to be the only method of communication used. Vine will use Twitter's powerful ability to to broadcast bits of information to many people from anywhere and supplement it with social networks, news reports, research ability and location-awareness. Tools like Twitter and Facebook need champions to make them suitable for disaster relief scenarios. Hopefully Vine (and InSTEDD's GeoChat) can create a platform that can and will save lives.

For more on Disaster Technology champions watch Jesse Robbins and Mikel Maron in their talk on DisasterTech at Where 2.0.

DisasterTech: "Decisions for Heroes"

One of the most interesting DisasterTech projects I've been following is "Decisions for Heroes" led by developer and Irish Coast Guard volunteer Robin Blandford.

Decisions is like Basecamp for volunteer Search & Rescue teams. The focus is on providing "just enough" process to compliment the real-world workflow of a rescue team, without unnecessary complexity. One of Robin's design goals is that:

User requirements are nil. Nobody likes reading manuals - if we have to write one, we've gotten too complicated.

This is the winning approach for building systems that "serve those that serve others", and is echoed by InSTEDD's design philosophy and the Sahana disaster management system.

Teams begin by entering their responses to incidents and training exercises. They then tag them with things like the weather conditions, the tools and skills required, and who from the team was deployed.

As a team's incident database grows this information can be used to show heatmaps, and provide powerful insight on the locations, weather conditions, and times of year that various incidents occur. Over time this kind of data could be analyzed in aggregate across multiple teams and regions and create an incredibly powerful resource for Emergency Managers. This is very similar to what Wesabe does for consumers with financial transaction data today (disclosure: OATV investment).

Rescue team members enter training dates and levels. The system tracks certification expiration dates and prompts team members & leaders to plan classes and remain current. This is a huge issue for volunteers who have to manage professional-level training requirements with the demands of a regular career.

As more incidents are entered into the system, it compares the skills required for each of the rescues with the team training exercises. This allows teams to identify areas to focus, train, and develop new skills.

DisasterTech from Where2.0

I was honored to speak with Mikel Maron at Where2.0 about innovation in Disaster Technology, a topic that is extremely important to me. Here is the video:

This talk covers the ongoing efforts of: World Shelters, the UN Joint Logistics Centre, Humanitarian.info, InSTEDD, and Humanlink.

You can read about the development of SMS GeoChat, the Sahana effort for Burma/Myanmar (Radar post), and the Mesh4x KML sync engine on Eduardo Jezierski's blog and on Jon Thompson's Aid Worker Daily.

Disaster Technology for Myanmar/Burma aid workers

There is an ongoing crisis in Myanmar (Burma) in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis. The ruling military junta is finally allowing humanitarian organizations into the region after denying access for almost a week. The situation is grim, and you can help by donating to organizations like: Doctors without Borders, Direct Relief, and UNICEF.

There has been some incredible discussion on the humanitarian tech and Geo lists in the past 24 hours around adapting/improving existing collaboration services to work with the tools in the field. Mikel Maron and I will be speaking about this at Where2.0 next week, and it looks like some exciting work will be happening there and at WhereCamp.

Eduardo Jezierski from InSTEDD is currently working to localize the Sahana Disaster Management System

Jonathan Thompson's organization, Humanlink, has been working on adapting technology for aid workers for some time. You can follow recent developments on the Aid Worker Daily blog.

Update: Paul Currion posted a big list of other projects now underway to the humanitarian.info blog:

• A Sahana instance is being set up for the use of anybody who needs it, with the support of INSTEDD and possible uptake by NetHope members.
• Direct Relief International have done up a KMZ file of health facilities in-country, based on the WHO 2002 Global Health Atlas.
• OCHA are prepping a HIC to support the existing Myanmar Information Management Unit, who have already put out some W3 maps.
• UNOSAT have also got their sat on with a KMZ file of the cyclone path and the usual satellite mapping.
• Ditto ITHACA, who have released a series of satellite maps showing the impact of Nargis.
• ReliefWeb’s info stream on Cyclone Nargis is of course like drinking water from a hose, with their map filter probably most useful.
• The WorldWideHelp blog roars into action with all the news that’s fit to blog.
• A couple of the mailing list discussions that I’m on are talking about ways in which we might leverage cellphone and/or satellite phone communications if they become available, particularly for tracking relief and relief personnel.
• Digital Globe and Geo-Eye have hopped the NASA satellite for an updating KML layer on the cyclone.
• Microsoft apparently have a team on standby to deploy the refugee tracking software that was developed for Kosovo (no reference yet).
• Telecoms sans Frontieres are also on standby out of Bangkok, waiting for access to free up.
• Also Infoworld points out that - with regards to early warning - IT didn’t fail Myanmar, people did.

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From ETech to Where 2.0: Disaster Tech and Activist Mapping

At ETech last week, Ethan Zuckerman spoke about the use of web technologies in repressive regimes. It was great -- one person even told that it was the best session he'd ever seen. I recommend reading Ethan's write-up of his talk.

He began with the hypothesis:

Sufficiently usable read/write platforms will attract porn and activists. If there's no porn, the tool doesn't work. If there are no activists, it doesn't work well.

The title of the talk was "The Cute Cat Theory of Activism". The more people use a service to post about cats the harder it is to shutdown entirely. So instead the authorities end up playing whack-a-mole. Ethan's slide shows how some of the more popular services can be used:

Ethan told us real stories of Google Maps being used to track secret prisons and jets and of Twitter being used to organize protests.

At Where 2.0, we will be joined by Erik Hersman (AKA Hash). Erik founded the activist mapping site Ushahidi (trying to keep Kenya's election safe). During his closing keynote, Enemies Around Every Corner: Mapping in an Activist World, he's going to talk about the use of maps to report incidents and keep elections free. He's going to explain the importance of clean data when people's live are at stake and he's going to share some success and failure stories with us.

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