Technical development ~ Application Development

 

 

Summary

 

"Software developed specifically for peace operations – or, more specifically, for organizations involved in peace operations – is relatively rare. However some important initiatives have emerged in the last few years, from both for profit and non-profit organizations. These organizations are beginning to demonstrate that there is a market for such specialized applications, and hopefully they will lead the way for future developments"

 

Excerpt from The Role of ICT in Preventing, Responding to and Recovering from Conflict, published by the ICT4Peace Foundation.

 

 

Resources

 

Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSA)

http://www.imsma.ethz.ch is a management tool, continuously revised and upgraded based on input from users, that combines a relational database with a GIS to provide managers and practitioners with up-to-date information needed to facilitate decision making.

 

 

Fritz Institute

http://www.fritzinstitute.org works to bring private sector expertise to bear on the logistical organization of humanitarian relief operations. Recognizing that many humanitarian relief organizations have staff, mandate, and resource limitations, the institute seeks to foster the development of communities of logistical practice, develop solutions to challenges in the delivery of aid, improve learning through measurement, and accumulate and disseminate knowledge through an academic network and

publications.

 

 

Martus

http://www.martus.org is a software tool that allows users to document incidents of human rights abuses by creating bulletins and uploading them for storage on redundant servers located around the world.

 

 

Analyzer

http://hrdag.org/resources/software_projects.shtml Analyzer is used to collect, maintain and analyze information about large-scale human rights violations. The methodology and concepts behind this application are based on the efforts and techniques that have been pioneered for over a decade by human rights professionals in countries all over the world.

 

 

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

http://www.osce.org, which has developed an entirely new management application, the Integrated Resource Management System (IRMA). IRMA is a dedicated software application that incorporates all of OSCE’s management functions, enabling managers within the organization to deal with all financial and administrative matters quickly and easily – such as monthly accounts, or recruitment processes – and in a way that is completely integrated throughout the organization. The intention behind IRMA is to eliminate the complicated and confusing International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ FedNet [https://fednet.ifrc.org] maintains an extranet, a secure, password-protected private web site accessible via the Internet. The system is intended to the posting and sharing of multilingual information – documents, photos, maps, contact lists, etc – by national societies, Geneva staff, and field delegations, and to serve as an interactive forum for online collaboration.

 

 

Groove

http://www.groove.net - Previously a small technology start-upestablished by the creator of Lotus Notes, Groove has recently been acquired by Microsoft. Groove has been used in Iraq, the Asia tsunami response and other emergencies, mainly by US organizations and particularly by the military. They are now aiming to expand their services in the NGO market with the Groove Virtual Office, an application that offers advanced collaboration and communication tools, as well as the capacity to work both online and offline. Voxiva is another technology start-up with a specific philanthropic intent.

 

 

Voxiva

http://www.voxiva.net Originally providing reporting services (especially in the health sector) to governments in developing countries, Voxiva is now also targeting the NGO and UN market. Voxiva offers an integrated monitoring and reporting function through an online platform, and they are currently developing a new application for programme management in the field.

 

 

Disaster Assistance Technology Grants program, Microsoft Corporation

http://www.microsoft.com has teamed up with Mercy Corps http://www.mercycorps.org and other NGOs to developthe Food and Commodity Tracking System (FACTS). FACTS is a tool designed to promote the coordinated management of relief and development supplies during disaster response and reconstruction operations. It allows relief workers to track commodities into, through and out of distribution channels at both the headquarters and field level via standardized Internet based inventory information that can be retrieved from offices and via personal digital assistants (PDAs).

 

 

Oracle Corporation

http://www.oracle.com has been active on a number of fronts, most notably by working with the OSCE to develop its above-mentioned Integrated Resource Management System (IRMA) to facilitate the vertical coordination of conflict management operations.

 

 

Crisis Management Initiative (CMI)

http://www.cmi.fi has been involved in a number of these initiatives, and has also worked with Finnish private sector companies to begin development of key applications. One example of this is the ITCM/SKIES http://www.itcm.org/approach/tools.html system is a web-based communication, cooperation and management tool for humanitarian and crisis management field operations.

 

 

The Department of Defense sponsors the Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA)

http://www.darpa.mil, which supports Strong Angel II http://www.strongangel.telascience.org, a civil-military operations exercise to simulate a crisis in an ‘austere environment’ (a phrase which the DoD uses to describe field-based relief operations). The aim is to design and implement a capacity for rapid and appropriate information management drawing on resources within and across civil-military sectors.

 

 

Sahana

http://www.sahana.lk, a project originating in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. Sahana is an integrated set of pluggable, web based disaster management applications that provide solutions to large-scale humanitarian problems in the aftermath of a disaster. Our aspirations are as follows:

 

1. Primary: Help alleviate human suffering and help save lives through the efficient use of IT during a disaster
2. Bring together a diverse set of actors from Government, Emergency Management, NGOs, INGOs, spontaneous volunteers and victims themselves in responding effectively to a disaster
3. Empower the victims, responders, volunteer to better enable them to help themselves and others
4. Protect victim data and reduce the opportunity for data abuse
5. Provide a Free and Open Source solution end-to-end available to everyone

 

With the above aspirations, the main applications built into Sahana and problems they address so far are as follows:

 

1. Missing Person Registry - Helping to reduce trauma by effectively finding missing persons
2. Organization Registry - Coordinating and balancing the distribution of relief organizations in the affected areas and connecting relief groups allowing them to operate as one
3. Request Management System - Registering and Tracking all incoming requests for support and relief upto fulfillment and helping donors connect to relief requirements
4. Camp Registry - Tracking the location and numbers of victims in the various camps and temporary shelters setup all around the affected area
5. Volunteer Management - Coordinate the contact info, skills, assignments and availability of volunteers and responders
6. Inventory Management - Tracking the location, quantities, expiry of supplies stored for utilization in a disaster
7. Situation Awareness - Providing a GIS overview of the situation at hand for the benefit of the decision makers

 

 

Aptivate

http://www.aptivate.org/Home.html a UK-based project to develop field solutions to connectivity problems for web browsing and email access; with input from the private sector, their first application LoBand is available for testing (http://www.aptivate.org/Projects.Loband.html).

 

 

The Base Edition of NGO-in-a-box

http://base.ngoinabox.org/

 

The Base Edition of NGO-in-a-box is a collection of essential tools for running a small-to-medium sized NGO. You can use this toolkit to set up and coordinate your office, organise and manage projects, collaborate online and support your campaigns. The Box contains a set of peer-reviewed Free and Open Source Software tools, with associated guides and tutorials.

 

Open Mobile Consortium

The Open Mobile Consortium (http://www.open-mobile.org) is a thriving community of mobile technologists and practitioners working to drive open source mobile solutions for more effective and efficient humanitarian relief and global social development.

The Open Mobile Consortium aims to:

• Implement joint mobile solutions in the field.
• Maximize interoperability and data-sharing capabilities between our technologies.
• Streamline development, deployment, and use of open source mobile technologies.

 

Members of the Open Mobile Consortium cooperate on open source mobile solution development, system testing, program implementation, and evaluation, while sharing code, standards, plans, progress, and lessons learned.  We promote sustainable innovation, advocate for and practice increases in efficiency, and aim to maximize the impact of mobile technology for social good.