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humanitarian action
CCGL 9061
HKU, Common Core
Reminder
In this lecture as in others, we will consider humanitarian
action in a broad sense, with innovations that go far
beyond the domain of emergency aid
Summarizing the previous lectures
A wide diversity of humanitarian
organizations: size, field of intervention,
moral stance, structure etc.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alternative_libertaire_1983_2.jpg
Introduction
Digital innovations are disrupting whole
domains of human activity
• Block chains, e.g. crypto-currencies
• Facebook’s upcoming crypto-currency, Libra, will
mark the first time in history when states are no
longer the only ones who issue money
• Predictive medicine
• From curing diseases to preventing them
https://www.h2hworks.org/channels/1470-about-the-h2h-network/posts/29394-about-h2h
Bringing Internet to places in need
Dadaab in Kenya: the largest
refugee camp in the world
(half a million people, mostly
from Somalia)
“A sparse area, Dadaab had little to offer as far as communication, digital access, and education until 2012 when
NetHope, Cisco, Microsoft, Inveneo, and USAID implemented a large-scale high-speed broadband network.
DadaabNet connects refugees to each other and the outside world, and has become the established tool for NGO
collaboration among the 43 agencies in the camp. With a reliable Internet connection, people living and working
inside the Dadaab camp are now able to learn basic ICT skills, utilize email and social media accounts to connect
with friends and loved ones, access online education, and get news updates from their home countries.”
https://nethope.org/project/dadaab-refugee-camp/
Technological breakthrough (1/3)
A number of technological breakthrough have applications in
humanitarian action (in the broad sense)
Waldrop, M. M. (2019). News Feature: What are the limits of deep learning? PNAS, 116(4): 1074-1077
Automatic tagging of social media messages
AIDR: Artificial Intelligence for Digital
Response
http://aidr.qcri.org/
Technological breakthrough (2/3)
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drones,
are also increasingly found in humanitarian
action
• Search and rescue, monitoring and surveillance,
delivery of food, medical supplies and other
small cargo
Photo: UNICEF/UN070227/Chim Chisiza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cJJT8qBjrY
Technological breakthrough (3/3)
Virtual Reality (VR) is gradually
taking ground
• Technical progress
• For training purposes (sports, medicine),
exposure therapy, gaming, education etc.
Two usages of VR
• As a way to educate the general public
• For psychological support
https://www.fdmgroup.com/5-uses-for-virtual-reality/
https://www.realitytechnologies.com/queens-university-starts-vr-medical-training-january-2019/
“Home After War”, a 20’ VR experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQa7BNThQmU
(Big) data creation, processing and storage
Data are accumulating at unprecedented speed
• Satellite imagery
• Compilation of events of all types: sales on the stock market, earthquakes…
• User data of all types (commercial websites)
Ratio: 5,81x107
A repository for
“humanitarian”
datasets
data.humdata.org/
Some “pure players” = humanitarian actors active only in the digital world
Overview
https://labs.reliefweb.int/
https://reliefweb.int/blogpost/humanitarian-videos-beta-v-2-more-3000-humanitarian-videos-now-available-reliefweb
https://www.youtube.com/user/ReliefWeb/playlists
Increased collaborations between organizations
Many smaller size NGOs do not have the possibility to develop digital
solutions on their own
https://www.unglobalpulse.org/pulse-labs
https://www.unglobalpulse.org/projects
https://library.theengineroom.org/microtasking/
Humanitarian crowd mapping
Data science for good
To take advantage of some volunteers’ expertise in data science:
propose machine learning challenges on dedicated websites
https://www.kaggle.com
Datakind.org DataKind
ML projects
(1/2)
https://www.datakind.org
DataKind
ML projects
(2/2)
Overview
https://www.oecd.org/migration/forum-migration-statistics/5.Ben-Hounsell.pdf
Humanitarian approaches to smartphones
Analyzing SMS during crises
• See lecture #7 on Oct. 23 (Analyzing social media in crisis situations)
Developing apps for aid recipients, or more generally for the public
“You install the app, join a
project, and swipe through
satellite imagery while
tapping the features you
spot. The tiles you mark will
become to the base layer of
detailed maps drawn by
other volunteers.”
https://mapswipe.org/
https://heigit.org/mapswipe-analytics/
Apps for humanitarian workers
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-humanitarian-aid-apps_b_12801422; https://www.aid-expo.com/blog/173-5-must-have-humanitarian-apps
Collecting
data in the
field
https://www.aid-expo.com/blog/174-
humanitarian-apps-kobotoolbox
Yuka, helping people to eat better?
Scanning barcodes on food packages to access the nutritive qualities of the product
https://yuka.io/
The many apps for refugees
http://appsforrefugees.com/
Learning activity – Trying an app for refugees
and immigrants
Find the FindHello – Refugee & immigrant Services app
Download it
What content can you find? What are some key aspects you can
notice?
They also point toward the notion of digital identity, i.e. how people
may exist digitally
Databases for memory
The AMPM database
ICRC’s Ante Mortem / Post Mortem Database
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/2013/ampm-database-information-sheet-icrc-2012.pdf
Digital identity
The issue: a billion people worldwide cannot prove their identity
• Lack of national identity card or similar documents
• A lack of identity means missed economical and social opportunities: opening a bank
account, register to vote, get a driver license, register at the university etc.
https://id2020.org/
https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/7-tech-trends-transforming-humanitarian-aid
Owning one’s personal digital identity
In some countries, strict rules exist with respect to what can be stored
electronically about someone
• Rights to modify or delete records
• Supervising public institutions
https://medium.com/metadium/tech-tuesday-how-digital-identity-is-developing-across-the-world-4571dcd2772b
Started in India in 2009
90% adoption rate
biometric authentication
as part of broader digital
ecosystems
Conclusions and perspectives
There is an array of digital innovations on the humanitarian sector,
some with strong impacts (although it may not be apparent at first
sight)