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Crisis Camp DC participants work hard to develop applications and tools for relief workers in Haiti.

Earlier this week, I introduced a series of blog posts discussing the Good News Story in Haiti. I explained how technology and social media are playing a leading role in innovation in the aid sector and helping to bring relief to earthquake victims in Haiti.

One of the most compelling examples are the Crisis Camps that the community of developers and web geeks are leading around the world. The movement started last June with the first Crisis Camp barcamp held in Washington. I jumped at the chance to participate, as I have a background in humanitarian emergency analysis and am a self-proclaimed geek. I was impressed by the number of developers who came out to support the idea that improved technology tools could help deliver aid more quickly, coordinate large numbers of people, allow for information transparency among aid groups, and potentially forecast humanitarian disasters to avoid huge loss of life. Spending two days working on brainstorming "process" and beginning a few technology projects, the group was able to set up a framework that could be deployed when an actually emergency arose.

These preliminary efforts paid off. After the 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled Haiti, folks mobilized quickly via Facebook and Twitter to hold Crisis Camps January 16 in Washington, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. I've heard attendance numbers of 400-500 tossed around, but it's difficult to count the total contributors to project management and coding.

During the camps, groups and leaders quickly self-identified and immersed themselves in solving humanitarian relief problems like coordinating relief workers and negotiating language barriers. They brainstormed basically anything you can imagine that aid workers might need. When the east coast camps took an evening rest, the west coast, and international camps took over.

The global teams aggregated their projects in a Crisis Commons -- take a look, I think you'll be amazed at the progress they've made. Some of the highlights include:

• An English/Creole translation iPhone app.
• A We Need/We Have exchange to help get available resources to the people that need them.
• Open source maps to help aid workers navigate damaged areas and coordinate their efforts.
• A Crisis Wiki to serve as "yellow pages" for folks supporting the relief efforts in Haiti.

What's most exciting to me is the potential for long-term innovation across the field. This event has begun that real-time conversation between aid organizations and developers, and I hope over time together they can develop a regular rapport.

During the first Crisis Camp last summer, I was concerned that there weren't more relief professionals involved in the conversation. They are needed to ground the conversations and provide practical insights as to what's most helpful and achievable in a crisis. (I suspect that many relief professionals were unaware of the event, although I know that the Crisis Camp organizers would have been happy to host them).

I'm hoping that Haiti has helped bridge this gap. It would be great to see annual Crisis Camps of developers and aid worker teams together continuing to innovate on the applications that are being developed now. Working across disciplines these communities have the potential to be tremendously powerful and most importantly, save lives.

Last weekend's events were such a success that this past weekend more camps were held around the world -- from Bogota to Silicon Valley.

If you're interested in participating in a future one or volunteering your tech chops for the ongoing efforts, don't hesitate to sign-up.

Photos tagged in Flickr with Crisis Camp

Photo above by Leslie Jenkins
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesliejenkins/ / CC BY 2.0