Welcome!

[Ka-Ping Yee]

Hello!  I see that lots of people have joined.

The purpose of this mailing list is to discuss the features and technical details of improvements to the PFIF data standard.  (Warning, XML ahead!)  I'll continue to be the editor of the specification, but my aim is for development of the standard to be as transparent and open to participation as possible.

I suggest we begin by introducing ourselves to the group, mentioning our hopes for PFIF, and the depth and type of participation each of us would like to have in this process.

Welcome!

—Ping
Google Crisis Response

[Chris Foote (Spike)]

Hello Ping and thanks for your welcome!

Firstly, please may I respectfully suggest that you add a prefix to the
subject line of messages from this group - it will make it easier for
peeps with lots of incoming messages.

Secondly, hello! I'm Spike (real name Chris Foote) and I've been part of
CrisisCampLondon since January this year.

I'm not a developer but wish to lurk on this group to see what's going
on ;-)

Spike

> �Ping
> Google Crisis Response

[Tomas A. Krag]

Hi, 

And thanks for hosting this list.

I'm Tomas, and I work as CTO at Refugees United (http://info.refunite.org), where we run a database for Refugees (and others) to create profiles and search for missing family. It's a different approach the the personfinder issue, and has less of a focus on the immediate aftermath of a disaster, and more of a focus on the 40 some million people who live as refugees and/or IDP's.

In any case, I've been a PFIF lurker since almost the beginning, and while our datamodel is currently quite far from PFIF, I'm interested in ways of building export/import into our system.

Regards

/Tomas

CTO

Refugees United

[Mark Prutsalis]

Hi--

I'm Mark Prutsalis, CEO of Sahana Software Foundation.... I'm not a coder either but understand xml....  Dominic and possibly some other of our development team will also be on this list.

As mentioned on the Crisis Commons organized call, I would like to see PFIF eventually move/mature into an open data standard that's part of OASIS or 3WC or other standards body which will help promote its use and acceptance rather than the informal organization and agreement we have now. 

That said - kudos to Ping for leading the way on this.  You've done a great job and I'm happy to have you continue to be the editor of the standard to make improvements.

Best regards,
Mark

===========================
Mark Prutsalis
President & CEO
Sahana Software Foundation
Tel +1-860-499-0332
Fax +1-801-697-8731
ma...@sahanafoundation.org
http://www.SahanaFoundation.org
Follow us on twitter @sahanafoss

The Mission of the Sahana Software Foundation is to help alleviate human suffering by giving emergency managers, disaster response professionals and communities access to the information that they need to better prepare for and respond to disasters through the development and promotion of free and open source software and open standards.

[Peter Kaminski]

Hi,

I'm Peter Kaminski. I'm interested in helping people communicate and
collaborate, and I also have had long experience in structuring and
moving data and information. The events of 9-11 (and living in
earthquake-prone California) spurred my interest in crisis response.

I am here because I have a lot of respect for Ping and what he does, and
because I enjoy collaborative brainstorming about communication,
collaboration and information.

Pete

[Gisli Olafsson]

Hi everyone,

 

I am Gisli Olafsson and my background is 25+ years in the IT business (developer, program manager, salesguy , advisor) and 17 years in the disaster space (SAR volunteer, incident manager, UNDAC member). For the last 3 1/2 years I had the opportunity to join those two passions in life working as a Disaster Management Technical Advisor for Microsoft, where I helped setting up their Disaster Response Team as well as worked with international orgs and governments in developing countries on how to utilize technology to enhance response to disasters.

 

Right now I am working freelance as a consultant but might be announcing soon my next “challenge” in life which will of course join those two passions

 

Hope to be able to contribute in this discussion using my experience from both worlds.

 

Cheers,

 

Gisli

[Dominic König]

Hi--

ahm, maybe I forgot to introduce myself...this is Dominic König (aka
nursix) - I'm working on Sahana-Eden's XML interface, and from that
perspective am interested in the further development of PFIF.

Dominic

[Asjad Naqvi]

Hi everyone,

 

My name is Ali and i am currently with the PakReport Ushahidi team working on the floods in Pakistan. I have been doing research in and on Pakistan for over 6 years now and was part of a team that set up RISEPAK to monitor the 2005 earthquake. I am currently a PhD Candidate at the New School for Social Research, New York and my dissertation focus is on how simulations can be used in disaster scenarios to understand and estimate patterns of population flows especially when data collection is poor.

 

I think i met you Ping at the crisismappers conference. i was sitting right behind you and we were discussing google resource finder. This is a great initiative and looking forward to meaningful and engaging discussions.

 

Best,

 

Ali Asjad Naqvi

http://pakreport.org

 

 

2010/10/21 Dominic König <dom...@aidiq.com>

[Gavin Treadgold]

Hi all,

I'm also from the Sahana Software Foundation. I'm also an individual non-voting member of the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee.

As Mark mentioned, I am also very keen on seeing PFIF eventually become part of the Emergency Data eXchange Language (EDXL) suite of XML standards that are managed by OASIS.

As you may or may not be aware, there is currently a phase 1 extention to EDXL for Tracking of Emergency Patients (EDXL-TEP). There are already plans a-foot to extend this to a more broad Tracking of Emergency Clients (EDXL-TEC) and this will move beyond the current medical patient approach and turn it into something more generic and broadly applicable that can be used for missing persons, as well as managing information about evacuees and those at welfare centres.

I think it is vitally important that as much as possible we consider working towards a more robust approach that not only deals with missing persons, but also evacuees etc in an integrated manner.

Cheers Gavin

[Chamindra de Silva]

Hi All,

I am from Sahana Software Foundation and also was part of the W3C EIIF XG working on assessing emergency interop standards. I am currently the also the Chair of the standards project management committee in Sahana looking at encouraging the adoption of standards in our Sahana systems. PFIF support has been a core part of our systems for a while now and is available in multiple systems, especially as Missing Persons and Displaced Persons are core modules of Sahana systems. Sahana being Open Source Foundation is also very supportive of Open Standards.

On a side note I am also organizing an interop workshop at the next ISCRAM 2011 in May to test and verify data exchange between systems on standards and we welcome a focus on PFIF. 

Chamindra de Silva
http://chamindra-de-silva.blogspot.com | http://twitter.com/ChamindraS