Re: Social media and big data in crisis situations ...

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Hi Trevor, Hakim, All,

I would like to come back to the "Social media and big data in crisis situations" discussion that I missed earlier.

There is a meeting of Swiss Big Data user group in Lausanne this Monday:

http://www.bigdata-usergroup.ch/item/403730

The previous meetings were rather technical but it's a great group. So far we were meeting in Zurich! So the location is an exception.

Coming back to your message:

Having worked with the big data software since years, I can only echo your point.

The explosion of available data, knowledge and crowdsourcing potential indeed opened great possibilities. Quick web search for 

social media big data humanitarian 

...shows that various organizations explore the potential already!

In Geneva, there was a workshop already in 2011: "Social Media: Bridging the Gap. Creating Impact. "

http://genevaforumonsocialchange.com/archives/135

I recall from the presentations that social media was used by NGOs and IOs almost exclusively for information dissemination. It must have changed by now?

It would be great to meet and start discussing data mining and social media, especially in the humanitarian sector.

Unless a meeting/group is already organized, I can create a doodle and we can try to meet later this month?

Have a great weekend,

Jan 

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Jan Iwaszkiewicz | j...@scaleia.com | http://www.scaleia.com

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013 8:40:12 PM UTC+2, trev...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi everyone,

Social media and big data are playing an increasingly important role in many cultures. Most recently, when communities have had their other communication channels removed they focus on social media.  We have seen examples of this in Hurricane Sandy, Libya, Kenya and Boston to name but a few. 

Data is becoming increasingly easy to get hold of... whether it be through analytics applications, geo-tagging of messages and photos or through tele-communications service providers.   For banks, telecoms or insurance companies it is an issue of corporate survival.

 For banks, telecoms or insurance companies it is an issue of corporate survival.

What is more - the developing world is now more 'mobile' than the developed world - and this trend is set to continue.  Wrong - it's going to go exponential.

So, with enormous amounts of data available to humanitarian organisations there is a very real opportunity to target aid and resource where it matters most.

Having recently moved from London I can say for sure there is a buzz about this topic.  But my question to you is... where is this buzz in Geneva? 

Is there any collaboration happening between organisations who could make use of this data?  If not, then would the members of this group be interested in getting together for a discussion on how to approach use of data from an NGO perspective?  

Thanks for reading, 

Trevor  

trev...@gmail.com | tre...@mediafrontier.ch