Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (49305)	10/21/2005 6:27:29 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Turning an Idea Into Reality October 19, 2005—Just 24 hours after the October 8 earthquake devastated parts of South Asia, two Bank staffers began a conversation with two other people in different parts of the world. Their prime motivation was to discover exactly what was known about villages affected in the hardest hit country – Pakistan. The four were quick to discover information was scattered. And so began their idea of creating a system to easily and quickly access information about affected villages to help everyone involved in the relief effort. Within three days of their conversation, their dream began to turn into reality with work starting on creating an innovative web site– now known as www.risepak.com – with RISE standing for Relief and Information Systems for Earthquakes Pakistan. The website aims to give the latest up to date information on some 4,000 villages affected by the earthquake – providing their pre-earthquake demographics and infrastructure such as roads and schools. And in an innovative move, it’s designed to allow the government, army, donors and non-government organizations not only to access the data but also to supply information on relief efforts on the ground at the village level. It will allow relief workers on the job in villages to text message the status of damage in the village, as well as the needs of the affected people, and supplies given by any organization with the information to appear within hours on the website. “This has been an amazing spontaneous effort that’s taken on a life of its own,” says Tara Vishwanath, a lead economist in the South-Asia Region. Vishwanath was one of the four people initially behind the idea of the new website. The others were her Bank colleague, Jishnu Das, an economist with the Development Research Group, and two experts, Professor Asim Ijaz Khwaja of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Boston and Economics Professor Tahir Andrabi of Pomona College in California. However the collaborative effort has stretched far beyond the United States. The website was designed by Pakistan’s largest internet provider, World Online, which operates under the brand-name WOL. "In many disasters coordination is the biggest obstacle. We have the technology that can change that. We can get this right." says Aamer Manzoor, co-founder and Vice-President of World Online. “An information chain that starts on foot might connect to a relief worker with a cell phone and then appear on the RISE portal. Information from a remote village can now reach the internet in less than eight hours." Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority has also supported the website by supplying geographical data. That is then linked with information from the last census in Pakistan and data from the Bank’s DEC unit to give the most up to date possible description of the villages affected by the earthquake. Piet Buys “When major natural disaster events happen there is an immediate need for estimates of damage to people and infrastructure, which helps target and coordinate emergency relief,” says Piet Buys, geographical information systems consultant with DEC. “Spatial population maps allow us to integrate existing data from censuses, satellites, and topographic maps with information that comes back from the field.” The Lahore University of Management Sciences has also collaborated at an official level, with students from the university working on imputing the data onto the website. Piet Buys has worked day and night to spatially link and analyze the population data in the context of the earthquake. The basic idea behind the website is to allow for dissemination of information from the village level up. Jishnu Das Jishnu Das says at the moment, most of the information about the quake’s impact is only available at a district level. “There is no system which allows people to figure out which specific villages have been reached or how they’re affected,” Das says. “Most of these affected villages are in rural areas – this help ensure that all villages are on everyone’s radar screens.” “This new website is like a command center information tool for donors.” Donors, non government organizations as well as the government and army relief workers are being urged to supply information to ensure the new website is up to date. Professor Tahir Andrabi of Pomona College says there are various means by which the information can be passed onto the website. “People can provide information by directly uploading the data on www.risepak.com, sending us text messages, faxes, emails, or even by phone,” he says. Vishwanath says the website has support from the Government of Pakistan, as well as from the Bank’s Country Director for Pakistan, John Wall. “This spontaneous collaboration has become much bigger than just a few people,” she says. “People came together and everyone quickly realized the promise of such a website.”