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Trust, Transparency & Timeliness

Using social media to empower communities in the face of disaster

Maurits van der Vlugt

There is a need for change […]

Empower communities with Timely, Relevant

and Tailored information

Craig Lapsley, VIC FSC

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Photo: ieplexus.com

Bridging the Ecosystems

A2C Sample

Twitter Earthquake Detector (TED)• Filter Tweets for

Earthquakes (place, time, keyword)

• <60 sec detection

• Contextual info (photos, narratives)

8

Social Media & Queensland Floods

Photo: Courier Mail

Agency to Community

Community Reporting 1

Community Reporting 3

Community Reporting 2

Harvesting Crowdsourced information

The Fear Factor

The Fear Factor

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

• “Crisis Commons” worldwide community • Citizen reporting site up within hours– Using Ushahidi Platform (free & open source)– Hosted on the cloud– Hundreds of volunteers across the globe– Collect, validate & map citizen reports

http://www.sinsai.info/ushahidi

Black Saturday: Information Breakdown

• Official Agencies & Emergency Services– Slow & Overwhelmed– 000 Overloaded

• Few Alternative Sources– Rumours & Misinformation

• Confusion, Misdirection, …

Community Need

• From Strathewen Recovery Committee:– Grassroots Community Reporting

• Fast, localised, community driven

– Self-help – Integration with Official Sources

• Integrate with Agency Feeds• Inform Emergency Services (add to COP)

Bushfire Connect initiative

Bushfire Connect

• Community Powered

• Community Resilience

• Integrate Crowd Sourced and Official Information

Citizen Reports

• SMS• Web form• Emails• Twitter• Smartphone

Incident Alerts – OPT IN

• SMS• Email• RSS…

Where to from here?

• Since May 2010– ‘Live’ site up and running (launched 7 Feb)– Volunteer time & $2000 cash– Community Engagement (Trials: Eaglehawk, Flowerdale)– Very little fire activity!

• Next steps– Get ready for 2011/12 Fire Season– Partners & Sponsors– All Hazards?

Recap

• Timely– Near real time publishing of reports

• Relevant– Combining official and community reports

• Tailored– Alerts tailored to your needs

Los Angeles Fire Department

We can’t afford to keep

working at the speed

of government”

”

We are looking for partners!

• http://bushfireconnect.org• Twitter: @bushfireconnect• info@bushfireconnect.org

• Or email me: Maurits.vandervlugt@mercuryps.com.au