Three Month Update: Mission 4636 & The Earthquake in Haiti

By envisionGood | April 20 2010 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

This week marks the three month anniversary of the Haitian earthquake. In the face of the disaster and its aftermath, one outcome continues to serve as a beacon of light and a source of inspiration among relief agencies, workers, and the Haitian people: Mission 4636.

If like many, you have not heard of Mission 4636, it is the short code emergency response communication system that enabled earthquake victims in Haiti to get life-saving aid by sending a free mobile text message. A joint-project of Ushahidi, FrontlineSMS: Medic, CrowdFlower and Samasource, Mission 4636 has revolutionized the way disaster relief is delivered.

(For a full transcript of our previous interview on Mission 4636, please visit our post: How Social Media & Mobile Helps Haiti | Ushahidi, Samasource, CrowdFlower, FrontlineSMS: Medic.)

Success Outcomes To-Date:
Today, CrowdFlower shared take-aways from this new emergency response system that enables anyone anywhere to pitch in via crowdsourced volunteer work on the web. According to CrowdFlower, the following outcomes were achieved as a result of using crowdsourcing in Haiti to help in disaster relief:

CrowdFlower collected over 16,000 translations on this job.
At peak volume in one hour over 5,000 SMS messages were processed.
The average response time to translate, map/geocode and categorize a message did not exceed two minutes.
Before the earthquake, Samasource had launched a work center in Haiti. This new center assumed a large amount of the earthquake relief responsibilities, which provided labor for the routing of emergency messages, and created badly-needed jobs for the local economy.
Accurate classification and geographic coordinates made possible by Mission 4636 helped rescue workers get to the right location quickly which saved lives.

What’s Next For Relief Organizations:
Maps generated by Ushahidi and some parts of the feed of emergency SMS messages are now used by a growing number of organizations, including the Red Cross, Plan International, charity:water, the U.S. State Department, International Medical Corps, AIDG, USAID, FEMA, U.S. Coast Guard Task Force, World Food Program, SOUTHCOM, OFDA and UNDP.

“I wish I had time to document to you every example, but there are too many and our operation is moving too fast… I say with confidence that there are hundreds of these kinds of [success] stories,” said Craig Clark of the U.S. Marine Corps. “The Marine Corps is using your project every second of the day to get aid and assistance to the people that need it most.”

Many other relief organizations, including the State Department, shared similar feedback on the utility of Mission 4636 and the unprecedented efficiency it added to relief efforts. Mission 4636 was brought to life because many organizations were able to work together quickly and effectively. It made clear the advantages of a flexible crowdsourcing workflow to manage disaster relief. Through viral channels and a microtask framework, thousands of people around the world were brought in to doing mission-critical work within days.

The SMS translation project was developed and launched extremely quickly, and there were numerous challenges of every shape and size throughout the process.

Two main points emerged:

Importance of information sharing: Publishing an RSS feed of the translated SMS that was accessible to many different groups was key in allowing aid agencies to access particular categories of messages most important to their work. Ushahidi’s maps of the reported incidents and the requests for help made an important delineation between the overall trends and the individual needs.
The Role Of Crowdsourcing In Future Efforts: It’s clear that new technology and cross-platform collaboration stand to make significant contributions to future relief efforts. Mobile phones will play a key role in the collection of data to assist relief agencies in future emergency situations. Crowdsourced data processing will play a critical role in these relief efforts.

As more people become connected worldwide through mobile phones, CrowdFlower reports that growth is anticipated in the coverage of SMS-based relief efforts in the event of an emergency. As Internet accessibility increases, the available pool of people available to assist with crowdsourced translation and processing of emergency messages is also expected to expand.

Finally, as governments, humanitarian relief agencies, and non-profits learn about the possibilities of crowdsourcing for emergency relief, greater lives will not only be changed, but saved.

To learn more about Mission 4636, please visit mission4636.org.