How Digital Jedis are Springing to Action in Response to Cyclone Pam.

Author(s)
Meier, P.
Publication language
English
Date published
07 Apr 2015
Publisher
iRevolutions
Type
Websites
Keywords
Comms, media & information, Disasters, Cyclone, Response and recovery
Countries
Vanuatu

Digital Humanitarians sprung to action just hours after the Category 5 Cyclone collided with Vanuatu’s many islands. This first deployment focused on rapidly assessing the damage by analyzing multimedia content posted on social media and in the mainstream news. This request came directly from the United Nations (OCHA), which activated the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN) to carry out the rapid damage assessment. So the Standby Task Force (SBTF), a founding member of the DHN, used QCRI′s MicroMappers platform to produce a digital, interactive Crisis Map of some 1,000+ geo-tagged pictures of disaster damage.