MobileActive.org

This article seeks to explore the influence of the mobile phone on the public sphere, in particular with regard to its effect on news agendas, gatekeepers and primary definers. Using the examples of the Chinese SARS outbreak (2003), the south-east Asian tsunami (December 2004), and the London bombings (July 2005), the author questions the extent to which the mobile phone is challenging conventional and official sources of information.

At times of national and personal calamity, mobile phone is used to document and report events from eyewitnesses and those closely involved. Using multimedia messages (MMS) or text messages (SMS) to communities of friends and families, as well as audio phone calls, mobile phone users may precede and scoop official sources and thwart censorship and news blackouts. They can also provide valuable evidence of what actually occurred. Users are able to take pictures and short films and transmit these rapidly to others along with reports of what is happening where they are; they are also able to access other media broadcasts and the internet. They are what have become known as `citizen journalists'.

The evidence suggests that mobile phone usage is contributing to the public sphere and in some instances is circumventing official repression or inadequate information. There is also an indication that the `mobcam' is capturing images that would otherwise be lost. However, the mainstream media has been quick to take advantage of this citizen journalism and mediate it within its own parameters.

In this how-to, we test out two systems for SMS incident mapping: Ushahidi and Managing News. Incident mapping is a simple but powerful concept that does what it says - using SMS to report a given incidence and mapping the data geographically. This article compares the two platforms, their pros and cons, and outlines when to use either.

Kenya was one of the first countries to use mobile phones for cash transfers; through a service called M‐PESA, developed by Safaricom Limited. Concern Worldwide has pioneered the use of M‐PESA for emergency cash transfers in Kenya. This paper highlights Concern’s experience, which shows that despite initial software and logistical challenges, mobile phone technology offers a unique and empowering approach to efficiently deliver assistance to the most vulnerable people living in insecure and remote rural areas.

Experience also shows that cash transfers are a better option than food distributions in areas where adequate supplies of food are locally available. In addition, the partnership between Concern and Safaricom demonstrates that the private sector has significant and unique abilities to enhance the effectiveness of emergency response, and more importantly they can do so while maintaining their core business principles. The case study also demonstrates how technology can empower poor, marginalised and vulnerable people.

Large-scale disasters are growing. On the one hand, global warming and unprecedented
environmental change are resulting in disasters more frequent and calamitous than before.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes (Kashmir, 2005), floods (Bangladesh, India and
Nepal, 2007), landslides and mudslides (Bam, 2003; Chittagong, 2007), volcanic eruptions
(Merapi, 2006), tsunamis (South and Southeast Asia, 2005) and forest fires (across
Europe, 2007) continue to severely affect the lives and livelihoods of millions. On the other,
the iconic images of the London bombings (7 July 2006), the Twin Towers in New York on
11 September 2001, Madrid train bombs (2004) and the Bali bombings (2002 and 2005)
coupled with hundreds of gruesome local incidents -- including suicide bombings in coun-
tries such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq -- are a stark reminder that man made disas-
ters, often the result of terrorism, are a permanent feature of domestic life in many coun-
tries.

But how do we make sense of such disasters -- their causes, their impact on those in-
volved as victims and perpetrators? How do we maintain compassion in a world with com-
peting human tragedies? Does the increasing availability and affordability of Information
and Communications Technologies (ICT) -- covering PCs, radio, mobile phones, blogs,
SMS and the Internet -- result in the coverage and awareness of disasters qualitatively bet-
ter than before? Or does reportage across a hundred thousand websites and blogs by
those who are untrained in professional journalism diminish the importance of and, by ex-
tension, the response towards a disaster?

There are no easy answers to these questions. Whether we like it or not, new technologies
are changing the manner in which we gather, store, disseminate, consume and comment
on news. The overall experience after the tsunami in Sri Lanka and the subsequent design
of ICTs for humanitarian aid suggests that ordinary citizens can play a pivotal role in facili-
tating the flow of information in relief and conflict management mechanisms.

This paper presents descriptive accounts of time-critical organizing in the domain of emergency response. Patterns of mobile phone interaction in such work is analyzed showing how the dyadic exchange of mobile phone numbers between the actors plays an important role in the social interactions in the organizing and sensemaking of the emergency. Enacted sensemaking is used as an analytical framework. Implications for design of emergency response information technology are outlined and discussed.

Serious crises and disasters have micro and macro social arrangements that differ
from routine situations, as the field of disaster studies has described over its 100-year history.
With increasingly pervasive information and communications technology (ICT) and a
changing political arena where terrorism is perceived as a major threat, the attention to crisis
is high. Some of these new features of social life have created real change in the sociology of
disaster that we are only beginning to understand. However, much of what might seem to be
new is not; rather ICT makes some behaviors more visible, in particular first response and
altruistic activities. Even so, with each new crisis event, the calls for technological solutions
and policy change come fast and furious, often in absence of empirical research. Our lab is
establishing an area of sociologically informed research and ICT development in the area of
crisis informatics. Here, we report on some of the challenges and findings when conducting
empirical study where the subject of attention is disperse, emergent and increasingly
expanding through on-line arenas. We specifically consider the challenge of studying citizen-
side information generation and dissemination activities during the April 16, 2007 crisis at
Virginia Tech, which we have investigated both on-site and on-lin

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Since the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami,the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)
together with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have taken initiatives to study the
current situation of emergency communications in the Asia-Pacific countries and to give
recommendation on national emergency telecommunication and national early warning system
setups.Assessments were conducted in Bangladesh,Maldives and Sri Lanka on these emergency
communication systems. To enhance early warning systems, ADPC, under the Indian Ocean
Early-Warning System programme, also introduced the Tsunami Alert Rapid Notification System
Programme with emphasis on robust ICT systems to disseminate information and warnings from
the national to the community level.

In line with this, the following is an e-Primer brought to you by the United Nations
Development Programme’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) and
the Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for
Development (APCICT).I am confident that this e-Primer will play an effective role in enhancing
and propagating awareness of various ICT tools and will serve as a guide to policy makers,
disaster management practitioners and media personnel on how best to use ICT tools to
successfully counter the threat of disaster.

The Management of the Emergency Capacity Building Project called for a final evaluation of the Project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Microsoft Corporation to assess progress towards its stated goal and outcomes “to improve the speed, quality and effectiveness of the humanitarian community in saving lives, improving welfare and protecting the rights of people in emergencies.” The main objective of the evaluation is to review progress towards project objectives and goals, to inform future endeavors, and to learn. The primary users of the Final Evaluation are the Senior Managers at the IWG agencies, the Interagency Working Group Emergency Directors, project donors, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Microsoft Corporation, as well as agency staff working on the project. The evaluation used a mixed methods approach, including interviewing individuals, holding focus group discussions with most agencies, and conducting two field surveys, one to partner organizations and one to field staff. A limitation to the evaluation was less than full access to field perspectives due to time/resource constraints and the practical inability to contact all the key staff and partners, as well as non-IWG contacts involved in the project – there simply were more than time permitted (over 500 persons). However, 93 agency staff, partners and non-IWG agencies and individuals were interviewed or surveyed. Because of the complexity of the project, evaluators were given a greater page limit to address all the points in the Terms of Reference.

Opportunities for participation by members of the public are expanding the information arena of disaster. Social
media supports “backchannel” communications, allowing for wide-scale interaction that can be collectively
resourceful, self-policing, and generative of information that is otherwise hard to obtain. Results from our study of
information practices by members of the public during the October 2007 Southern California Wildfires suggest that
community information resources and other backchannel communications activity enabled by social media are gaining
prominence in the disaster arena, despite concern by officials about the legitimacy of information shared through such
means. We argue that these emergent uses of social media are pre-cursors of broader future changes to the institutional
and organizational arrangements of disaster response.

"When danger arises, the rule in normal situations is for people to help those next to them before they help themselves."

Achieving interoperable communication across governmental agencies and jurisdictions remains a challenge and is
simply taking time to implement. Initiatives to support agency interoperability continue. However, community
responders remain in need of two-way device quick response tactics. SMS text-messaging is one viable
interoperable communication technology that provides a bottom-up approach while offering benefits for everyday
use. This research in progress studies the use of a web-based SMS text-message training application, designed to
simulate two-way SMS text-message exchange. Speech Act Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior are
leveraged to carefully measure SMS text-message exchange. The overarching crisis scenario takes the role of the
local community responder. Initial qualitative pilot results are presented and discussed, including next steps for this
ongoing research.

Reliable communications can be a matter of life-and-death during an emergency or crisis.
First responder communication system interoperability, coverage, and flexibility are among
the most critical issues evident from events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11
2001, the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, and Hurricane Katrina.
Murray State University and research partners are addressing these issues under grants from
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Cooperating with government officials and first
responders, the team has prototyped, demonstrated, and operated robust yet affordable
mobile communications systems particularly well suited for field operation in rural
environments and small communities. Work has progressed beyond demonstrations to
deployments with first responders for actual emergencies, and initial sales of the systems.
The developed system is called the Man-portable and Interoperable, Tactical-Operations-
Center (MITOC). MITOC is a suite of mobile communications gear that upon arrival at an
emergency is quickly transfigured into a robust communications infrastructure including
satellite communications, wireless LANs, Internet access, radio interoperability, VoIP, and
other services essential for organizing and executing crisis response.
Work is currently focused on: the integration of rapidly expandable coverage using mesh
network technology that stretches the MITOC wireless bubble right to the site of an
emergency; advanced services and applications; and integration into other emergency
response systems. This paper describes requirements for mobile communications for
emergency management; the current capability of MITOC; initial manufacturing and sales of
the current system; and future research directions.

This paper presents descriptive accounts of time-critical organizing in the domain of emergency response. Patterns of mobile phone interaction in such work is analyzed showing how the dyadic exchange of mobile phone numbers between the actors plays an important role in the social interactions in the organizing and sensemaking of the emergency. Enacted sensemaking is used as an analytical framework. Implications for design of emergency response information technology are outlined and discussed.

A spate of natural disasters and other emergencies during 2003-2005 has prompted new interest
in how technology can help enhance our security. This report assesses the impact that the widespread
availability of mobile phones has had on the recovery from specific disasters and atrocities, such as the
Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the summer floods in central Europe, and terrorist attacks
in Istanbul and London.

Reliable communication systems are one of the key success factors for a successful first response mission.
Current crisis response communication systems suffer from damaged or destroyed infrastructure or are just
overstressed in the case of a large scale disaster. We provide an outline for a distributed communication
approach, which fulfills the requirements of first responders. It is based on a layered network topology and
current technology used in research projects or already established products. In addition, we propose a testing
framework for the evaluation of a crisis response communication system

This presentation provides insight into current mobile health initiatives and the current global health landscape. The presentation outlines the Thai system as an example of health informatics in resource poor setting, and introduces areas of global health and SMS application. Rwanda's implementation of TRACnet and public health for monitoring of the national HIV/AIDS program is used as an example. The presentation focuses on developing a framework for mobile computing in global health, including: standardizing Health Metrics (HMN), standardizing approaches, and integrating SSM into broader public health information systems and enterprise health information architecture. The report concludes with a look into SMS applications in emergency response, program monitoring and reporting, and patient monitoring. Key challenges are listed.

This presentation provides an overview of the InSTEDD Global Platform for Early Disease Detection, Reponse, and Evaluation. The summary includes reviews the proportion of infections detected and proposes addressing these challenges by adopting a social network and cognitive model approach. The approach facilitates: Early identification of potential health threats and verification, assessment, and investigation of threats in order to recommend measures (public health and other) to control them. The presentation describes the indicator and event-based hybrid surveillance approach and gives two examples of collaborative testing in the field.