natural disasters
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Online Tools To Use To Track Hurricane Sandy's Power
Hurricane Sandy is proving to be a storm not to be trifled with. If you need to stay abreast of the latest developments, there are plenty of useful resources you can find online. Read More »
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Online Volunteers Map Philippines After Typhoon Haiyan
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team coordinates mapping effort after enormous storm devastated country Read More »
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Op-Ed: There’s A Leadership Void In Addressing Critical Geospatial Issues
Last month, nearly 1,000 global government and industry representatives from around the world attended a Mexico-hosted conference on the economic, societal and governmental benefits of geospatial technology. Notably absent were U.S. government officials. [...] Read More »
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Open Source Resources for major Disaster & Emergency Management Situations
As everyone knows by now, the superstorm known as 'Hurricane Sandy' has caused considerable devastation across the East Coast of the United States and all the way up to the Great Lakes region. The effects of the storm will continue to be felt for days and weeks as major portions of the East Coast are without electricity and flooding is expected to continue for days. Under these circumstances, it seemed appropriate to put together a listing of open source applications that have been successfully used in emergencies and disaster recovery all over the world. In times of man-made crises or natural disasters, there is a range of organizations, websites, open source tools, mobile apps, and more that might be of use to first responders and citizens in general. Check out some of the following resources...
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OpenStreetMap Response To Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda
The Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda in Philippines is the worst ever registered. The Humanitarian OpenSteetMap Team (HOT) has activated to provide geographic base data in areas affected by typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan in the Philippines. Currently we are supporting the active OpenStreetMap Philippines community. [...] Read More »
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OSEHRA Community Responds to the Federal Government's Proposed Open Source Policy
The OSEHRA community today submitted a response to the "Draft Open Source Policy for Federal Agencies" released by the White House on March 10. The policy was open for comments through today. This is a major milestone for the OSEHRA community as well as the open source community as a whole. Currently the US Government spends nearly a hundred billion dollars a year on software purchased from the private sector or procured from government contractors. Most of this software acquisition ends up in failure. President Barack Obama has made it a priority to shift technology acquisition policies to solve this problem and restore technology innovation by embracing open source.
- The Future Is Open
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Recovering from Disasters: Social Networks Matter More than Bottled Water and Batteries
Standard advice about preparing for disasters focuses on building shelters and stockpiling things like food, water and batteries. But resilience - the ability to recover from shocks, including natural disasters - comes from our connections to others, and not from physical infrastructure or disaster kits. Almost six years ago, Japan faced a paralyzing triple disaster: a massive earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns that forced 470,000 people to evacuate from more than 80 towns, villages and cities. My colleagues and I investigated how communities in the hardest-hit areas reacted to these shocks, and found that social networks - the horizontal and vertical ties that connect us to others - are our most important defense against disasters...
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Social Engagement Shouldn't Wait Until After A Crisis Hits
One of the greatest challenges social media emergency managers face is that the public isn’t very interested in hearing from them unless and until a disaster strikes, they told lawmakers on Tuesday. Read More »
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State HIEs Prep For Disaster Recovery
Direct protocol to enable data exchange among providers caring for patients displaced from their homes Read More »
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Strengthening Participatory Organization Uses FrontlineSMS In Pakistan To Improve Service Delivery After Floods
When monsoons flooded southern Pakistan in 2011, the Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) quickly implemented a disaster relief project to distribute food items and shelter. This case study takes a look at their work, in collaboration with the Popular Engagement Policy Lab and Raabta Consultants, using FrontlineSMS to improve services in the aftermath of disaster. Read More »
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The Disaster Response Innovation Fund Is Open for Applications
Since the inception of GSMA’s Disaster Response programme in 2012, we have worked with our GSMA members, humanitarian partners and the wider private and humanitarian sectors to drive the creation and adoption of coordinated, impactful solutions and practices that leverage the ubiquity of the mobile technology. Since 2015 we have done this under the umbrella of the Humanitarian Connectivity Charter, a global initiative which now has over 115 Mobile Network Operator (MNO) signatories across 78 countries...
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The EHR Debacle: Has Organized Medicine Failed Us?
By now, it should be no secret that physicians in the United States, although largely receptive to the idea of electronic health records (EHRs), are widely dissatisfied with the current state of the art, and with the way that EHR adoption is being implemented.[1] Indeed, Congress[2] has shown continuing – but sometimes seemingly perfunctory – interest in the concerns of physicians and other health care providers, and I am at this point pessimistic about seeing any results of its efforts in the near future unless a more fundamental change is made in our approach. As Einstein noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.”
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The Government’s Hurricane Sandy Pages Play By Play
With its satellites, scanners and links to local officials, the federal government is often the best source for trusted information during a hurricane, tornado or other natural disaster. Read More »
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The Ransomware Attacks on Hospitals Are (Cyber) Criminal
One of the redeeming aspects of crises is that, amidst all the confusion, suffering, and loss, there are usually moments of grace, of humans showing their best nature... Unfortunately, crises also tend to bring out the worst of our natures... And then there are the cyberattacks. Last week the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, and HHS issued a joint alert Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector, warning that they have "credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers." I'll spare you the technical details of the expected attack strategies or suggested mitigation efforts, but I will note that they warned: "CISA, FBI, and HHS do not recommend paying ransom." Read More »
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The Secret History of FEMA
FEMA gets no respect. Consider: The two men who are supposed to be helping run the federal government’s disaster response agency had a pretty quiet late August. Even as a once-in-a-thousand-year storm barreled into Houston, these two veterans of disaster response—Daniel A. Craig and Daniel J. Kaniewski—found themselves sitting on their hands. Both had been nominated as deputy administrators in July, but Congress went on its long August recess without taking action on either selection—despite the fact that both are eminently qualified for the jobs.
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