Dix jours après le violent séisme en Haïti, deux techniciens d’Inveneo, CIO Mark Summer et Andris Bjornson, sont arrivés sur place pour le déploiement d’un réseau wifi longue distance dont bénéficieront les organisations partenaires de NetHope situées à Port-au-Prince. Ce réseau permettra à ces organisations humanitaires d’accéder à l’Internet, d’utiliser la téléphonie VoIP, de collaborer et de partager l’information.

Après une catastrophe naturelle, la restauration de la communication est essentielle et plusieurs organismes comme Inveneo sont en train de mettre en place leurs propres solutions TIC afin de soutenir les efforts de la reconstruction en Haïti :

• Dons par SMS : Les opérateurs mobiles dans différents pays ont lancé une collecte de dons par SMS en faveur des organisations comme la Croix-Rouge qui viennent en aide aux victimes du séisme.
• S.O.S. par SMS : Suite à une collaboration entre plusieurs organisations y comprises Samasource, Ushahidi, FrontlineSMS, CrowdFlower et le départment d’Etat américain, les abonnés de Voilà, le principal opérateur de téléphonie mobile en Haïti, peuvent envoyer gratuitement un texte au 4636 pour appeler à l’aide.
• Recherche de Personnes : Google a mis en ligne un outil permettant de rechercher une personne ou de donner des informations sur une personne trouvée.
• Bénévolat Virtuel : Samasource recrute les bénévoles pour traduire les textes en créole vers l’anglais et The Extraordinaries a tenté d’utiliser les bénévoles pour identifier les personnes perdues dans les photos.
• Kijan mwen ka ede ou? : Comment est-ce que je peux vous aider ? Google vient de lancer son traducteur créole.

Qu’il soit une solution qui connecte les donateurs à l’étranger avec les organisations sur place, une solution qui connecte les bénévoles avec les actions humanitaires virtuelles, ou une solution qui permet aux gens de surmonter les barrières de la langue, les gens peuvent se mobiliser et répondre aux besoins locaux dans une façon informée et efficace grâce aux TIC. Malgré ses coordonnées géographiques, Haïti n’est surtout pas isolé.

Last Friday, the third monthly #ICT4D Twitter Chat brought together 30 of the field's thought leaders (follow them all) to focus on and discuss ways that ICT4D can and does work with local governments, especially in situations like the recent disaster in Haiti.

Four questions guided the conversation (full transcript) which once again was a fast, free-flowing exchange of ideas:

• Do you work with local governments or bypass them? Why?
• What are the keys to project success with local governments?
• How can you work with compromised governments, like Haiti?
• What lessons for ICT have been learned so far in the Haiti relief effort?

Keys to success with local governments

One of the critical success factors identified collectively by the group was the importance of having a strategic personal relationship with a "project champion" in either a local government or other community leadership role. Because ICT4D projects by their very nature are long-term investments in the future, this local connection brings a strategic perspective and focus, as well as providing an opportunity to ensure the work is based on real, expressed needs of people in the area being served -- not just those of donors and interest groups "back home".

An interesting discussion during the event turned on the question of assigning credit for successful ICT4D implementations. While the group believed in the importance to position the local government or community champion as the driving force behind such projects, it's also important not to lose your own individual or organizational identity. Making sure people remember who helped make a solution possible will prevent costly searches for expertise in the future.

ICT networks, flattened

Learning from ICT deployments in Haiti

Working in a time-critical disaster relief context, like has been happening in Haiti in the past few weeks, brings some unique issues. Participants generally believed that when peoples' lives are on the line, it's important to "do" first, and inform others later. Waiting to get approvals from a local government in shambles is often not the best course of action.

However, major functions of ICT4D-focused relief groups should be focused on quickly identifying local "hubs" of knowledge and communication in the community, and helping rebuild communication infrastructure for these governments as well as major NGO's. Without these critical links in place, a coordinated relief effort just is not possible, resulting in wasted resources and delays in response.

In a situation like Haiti, with at least 150,000 known dead at the time of writing this article, lack of interoperability and cooperation between groups has undoubtedly cost an untold number of lives. The ICT4D community can learn from this, however, and take steps to proactively coordinate resources (e.g., local disaster contingency plans by organizations based in the community, and open standards for ICT response systems). This coordination in advance will help make the response more timely and effective in the critical hours after a disaster strikes. It's our responsibility as ICT4D professionals to work toward that end today to save lives tomorrow.

Recommended NGO's in Haiti

Finally, we asked participants to suggest some of their favorite relief organizations using ICT in Haiti. Here's a list of those shared:

• Partners In Health
• SOIL
• Sahana Foundation
• Ushahidi
• Plan International
• Hands and Feet Project
• Doctors Without Borders

Michael Downey is a graduate student in human-computer interaction and ICT4D at Indiana University School of Informatics, and is a contributor to the University's Indiana Development Informatics Group (IDIG) and OpenMRS programs.

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Don't forget - today we're having the January ICT4D Twitter Chat - Working with Local Governments

Local governments - from regional to village level - can be both a help and a hindrance to information and communication technology deployments in the developing world. Yet projects usually cannot succeed without their buy-in.

In the January Twitter Chat, we'll explore four vital questions any ICT practitioner faces when designing and deploying technology-based projects at the local level:

1. Do you work with local governments or bypass them?
2. What are the keys to project success with local government?
3. How can you work with compromised governments, like Haiti?
4. Where are examples of positive local government buy-in?

We'll start at 12-noon Eastern Time ( noon worldwide ) with introductions, then move into the discussion, using the #ICT4D hashtag in Twitter.

Be sure to follow ICT_works, Michael Downey, and Chloe Feinberg to keep up with all the Twitter Chat action, and for those not on Twitter, you can watch the action via the handy embed below or this separate webpage:

Our hope is to learn from each other to change the failure factors that we can individually control, and recognize the ones we need collective action to remedy.

In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, like the earthquake in Haiti, the need to communicate is immense. From the search for loved ones, to coordination of humanitarian relief, to simple messages of "I'm alive," between family members.

In fact, Secretary Clinton mentioned the three highest proprieties for the US government efforts will be communications, electricity, and transportation.

But much of the telecom infrastructure in and around Port-au-Prince was severely damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. And the resulting information vacuum is hampering vital emergency relief operations and recovery efforts.

Into this gap, several ICT solutions are arriving:

• Ushahidi's crisis mapping is identifying places of need
• The Inventorisation Wiki and Sahana are coordinating relief efforts online
• Inveneo will be bringing Internet connectivity to local NGOs

Establishing networks like these are a cornerstone of good disaster relief, and will support additional ICT infrastructure and facilitate long-term ICT capacity building and reconstruction. Yet the task is not easy.

Just to send two staff and equipment, Inveneo worked through the weekend to prepare:

Learn more about Inveneo's response, by subscribing to their RSS, Twitter, or Facebook feeds.