Shown below is a broad overview of five applications of how these media tools were applied to urgent tasks in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Gulf of Gonave
HAITI Saint-Marc DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Gonave Island
Cayes
Port-AuPrince
Petit Goave EPICENTER
Humanitarian Open Street Map team (H.O.T.) build a functional dynamic map to help emergency services find their way to affected areas.
Jan. 12, 2010: A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hits Haiti. An estimated 230,000 people die and more than a million are left homeless.
The crowdsourced maps became the standard/default maps for responders.
Cap-Hatien
Users of the maps included not just information technology platforms suc h as Ushahidi, but also large providers of humanitarian services:
N 20 MILES
US Coast World Food Guard Program US State Plan Department International Red Cross USAID Charity Water FEMA International SOUTHCOM Medical Corps OFDA UNDP
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with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, working tem platform, InSTEDD Emergency Information Sys e for a public used the Mission 4636 SMS short cod vice, creating a health-focused SMS broadcast ser health messages one-way service to send out public s. to approximately 26,000 subscriber
Separate from the Short Code, International Federation of the Red its Cross & Red Cresent (IFRC) institutes tnership own SMS broadcast system in par IFRC issues with the cell phone company Voila. ices, general public health messages on relief serv malaria, and health, hygiene, vaccines, sanitation, lish and Creole. SMS HIV/AIDS and condoms, in both Eng blasts sent to all Voila subscribers.
S M S B R OA D C A S TS
itarian Re n a m sp u H o ti
WDSOUR ED MAPS C
The Haiti relief efforts quickly became a living laboratory for new applications of SMS texting, interactive online maps and radio-cell phone hybrids.