Hundreds of programmers were assembled under the Lanka Software Foundation and over the course of a week created a web application to register missing persons, camps, and the swelling numbers of NGO's in Sri Lanka. This system was called Sahana - Sinhalese for 'relief'.
Since then, Sahana has been rewritten, and has been deployed at many of the large disasters over the past 5 years, and has won numerous open source awards and accolades.
The aspirations on the project are captured in the following goals:To learn more about the Sahana Software Foundation and its efforts, use the link below to visit its website:
- Primary: Help alleviate human suffering and help save lives through the efficient use of IT during a disaster
- Bring together a diverse set of actors from Government, Emergency Management, NGOs, INGOs, spontaneous volunteers and victims themselves in responding effectively to a disaster
- Empower the victims and their next of kin and better enable them to help themselves
- Protect victim data and reduce the opportunity for data abuse
- Provide a Free and Open Source solution end-to-end available to everyone
Comment: It's truly inspiring to see that out of the tragedy that was the Boxing Day Tsunami, an effort continues to this day that is providing free and open disaster management software to groups and individuals who could otherwise not afford the technology. Very cool - big kudos to all the Sahana volunteers and those who are financially supporting them!
Lead graphic: Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment