Bogota01232010
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CrisisCamp Bogotá Jan. 23, 2010
Press
The CrisisCamp Haiti in Bogotá initiative included iMMAP Colombia, the Humanitarian Studies Institute, the enRedo network, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Colombia. It was organized in Bogotá last Saturday on 23 January in the offices of WHO.
Some 50 attendees arrived at the event, including web developers, programmers, public information specialists and others, who were interested in working towards the interests of the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
Among the attendees were persons from Red Salvavidas, Inalambria cell phone communications, universities, the Ministerio de Interior y Justicia, and NGOs, among others. A variety of UN staff also attended the call for volunteers.
Developers and programmers worked on a list of items for Sahana, an information-sharing platform designed to improve the response to disasters (see http://www.sahana.lk) Others participated in mapping using Open Street Map (OSM http://www.openstreetmap.org/), a platform which allows for widespread participation in mapping satellite imagery.
Parallel to these activities, a public information team discussed how to improve information flows regarding the response in Colombia to the disaster in Haiti.
The biggest achievement of the day was the consolidation of a network of individuals and organizations interested in responding to the crisis in Haiti. A skype group was incorporated, and a series of tasks was divided up between developers continuing to work on software development issues in Sahana. In addition, discussions began with a group in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is interested in holding their own CrisisCamp.
