In Case of Emergency, Read This Blog

In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

A Citizen’s Eye View of Public Preparedness

“Random Hacks Of Kindness” Starts Today; “Give Camp” Brings Together Tech Competitors (Incl. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo) With Disaster Experts To Help On Crisis Preparedness/Response

November 12th, 2009 · No Comments

As part of the inaugural “Random Hacks Of Kindness: Disaster Relief Codejam” (RHoK), a group of more than 150 leading crisis and technology experts are coming together for the next several days to work on identifying key challenges and developing solutions to ‘real world’ problems related to emergency management and response here in the U.S. and around the world.

This so-called “Give Camp” came out of discussions at the inaugural Crisis Camp held in May of 2009 in Washington, D.C. According to the RHoK website, “During one of the opening sessions an industry panel including representatives from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! agreed that some matters supersede competitive concerns. We agreed to cooperate to mobilize our developer communities to create interoperable solutions/code that will have real impact in the field.”

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, who has made the role of technology in emergency management a major point of emphasis at his agency, will be giving the keynote address tomorrow. Fugate has already reached out to the technology community for help in disaster preparedness and response.

During the RHoK, being held at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, California, programmers will partner with subject matter experts with the aim of building “a global community dedicated to solving disaster relief challenges through technology.” The software created will be openly shared with the international community. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, NASA and the World Bank are the founding sponsors.

As of this writing, there were still a few spots left. If you are interested in attending or for more information, go to the RHoK EventBrite page here. I attended the Washington Crisis Camp, and wish I could get to this one. But I will be following it through its Twitter tag, #rhok.

We will be organizing a Crisis Camp in New York City in early 2010. If you would like to help on that event, please get in touch with me at jsolomon@incaseofemergencyblog.com

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati

Tags: Preparedness 2.0

0 responses so far ↓

  • There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.

Leave a Comment