Last week, the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) announced the winners of its 2011 awards program, awarding the prize for first place in the Technology and Innovation category in both the European and Global competitions to the groups behind the Libyan Crisis Map. Those groups include NetHope, the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), the Stand-By Volunteer Task Force and a group of UN volunteers led by Andrej Verity.
To create the Libyan Crisis Map, the groups came together pulling information from both social and traditional media platforms, as well as from humanitarian organizations’ reports, to build a common operational picture that helped the humanitarian community understand the rapidly evolving situation in Libya.
The Libyan Crisis Map exemplifies the transformative possibilities of both technology and collaboration. Through the collective work of NGOs, the UN and a group of passionate volunteers, this project showcases how resourceful relationships can be in crisis situations. Groups can band together to create innovative ICT solutions at the beginning of the relief process so they can build their response around comprehensive, real-time assessments of the situation. Additionally, they can partner with each other to mobilize the global volunteer community in the process. We believe that this is a best practice for the humanitarian response community moving forward.
Congratulations to our Emergency Response Director Gisli Olafsson for his leadership on behalf of NetHope in this project, as well as to Andrej Verity, UN OCHA, the Stand-By Volunteer Task Force and all of the volunteers for a job well done!
