How technology can by-pass bureaucracy in times of emergency.

Over the last weeks, El Niño Phenomenom has inflicted a lot of damage all over Perú. Diluvian rains, landslides and floods have hit the Andes and coastal regions of Perú causing major damages to infrastructure, many injuries and deaths. Besides the irreparable loss that the country has suffered, there are several problems that arise after the disaster.

Fortunately, media coverage has raised awareness within our society and there are several initiatives that come from civil society and the government. One example of how people mobilized around the climatic events was the hackathon organized at UTEC (a local university in Lima) on March 25th. In here, several coders, designers and business developers gathered to come up with solutions to mitigate the damage caused by ‘El Niño’.

Participants at this hackathon started gathering together according to a theme they’d like to work on. Our team was built with the idea to generate a data-driven platform that will inform the decisions of the different stakeholders that coordinate emergency assistance and reconstruction in affected areas.

The Design Process

Developing our concept wasn’t an easy task and the team spent some serious time thinking about the features that this platform will need to bring more value to the situation. After a quick brainstorming session, it was clear that distant rural areas were very vulnerable and there’s a lack of visibility on their situation after telephone and electric services collapsed.

Our goal was to design a platform that feeds on live data that comes from different users. It is initally designed to reach remote rural areas and also can be easily adapted to urban environments. To make this happen, it was necessary to come up with a system that structures how can every actor contribute, specially when such a big number of NGOs and volunteers are rallying to help those in need.

This was a messy design process

Both connectivity and user’s digital competencies were two limitations we had in mind. To solve this, a group of data collectors would be sent to communities in order to get their demographic information, damages received and needs.

Based on the data that was collected, available resources are sent and distributed in each affected area. Also, more data will be collected at this moment, confirming that all the donations have arrived to their destination. In this moment it is also possible to get more data about emerging needs from local people.

Final version of the model constructed

This is how it works:

1. A group of ‘scouts’ with a smartphone will be able to gather data and take photos through an mobile app.
2. Information is uploaded as soon as possible into the platform to be processed.
3. After the database is updated, users can see what are the needs of each community. Anyone can see how they can offer help.
4. Users contribute with material resources or volunteer to help in person.
5. All help and volunteer work reaches its destination. Again data is uploaded in order to visualize progress and generate transparency (and make sure that nobody is taking advantage of the system).

There was a big discussion regarding who runs the platform and who feeds it with data. In the end, it was wiser to make it as open as possible, but there has to be an admin that comes from a government organization or an NGO with lots of experience in natural disasters management (or why not both).

All groups had the opportunity to share and ask for help through the day

This article features one exhausting full day of work and its resulting outcome. Can you imagine what can be done with more time and people dedicated to a common cause? So, even though this system and many of its features were not fully developed, it remains open for anyone to complete it or use it as an inspiration for future projects.

Note: this article only shows the design process of a system, but some mockups were also developed by the team. Hopefully I’ll write a post with all this information, stay connected.