The next CrisisCampTO will be Sat Feb 27 10am to 4pm at Camaraderie (102 Adelaide St E)
Please register at http://bit.ly/asPyX6.
Looking forward to seeing you for another productive day!
We’re presenting about CrisisCommons and CrisisCamp (Haiti) at Podcamp this weekend:
Session title: Crowdsourcing Volunteer Technical Communities with CrisisCommons
When: Saturday, February 20, 2010 2pm
Where: PODCAMP Ryerson University, RCC 204 at 2pm
Who: Brian, Rachel, Jeff and Heather will be presenting, but volunteers can help too : )
How?
We would love any CrisisCamper to join us for the session. Please bring a laptop. If you can join, please contact heatherleson AT gmail DOT com and I’ll fill you in on the plan. We will get questions and have been assigned a large room to showcase this great project that you have all made happen in Toronto. (Thank you). You deserve to stand up and say: you are part of a movement of folks trying to use our skills differently.
Summary of the presentation:
How can you use your technology and social media skills to help NGOs during emergencies?
All you need is a computer and Internet access. CrisisCommons.org is a Volunteer Technical Community (VTC) made up of a growing group of technical, project manager, emergency planner and social media knowledge workers. After the earthquake in Haiti, cities around North America and the UK started CrisisCamp (Haiti) in their locations to volunteer their time to “help the helpers”. They are using social media tools to crowdsource collaboration on various projects from software development to opensource mapping to social media translation – work that is new and evolving every minute.
Heather, Brian, Rachel and others from CrisisCommons (Toronto) will be addressing the question how can technology and knowledge workers volunteer their skills with one click of a mouse.
The CNW press release for Podcamp.
More next week about the coming CrisisCommons and CrisisCamp (Haiti) plans.
For those of you who weren’t able to see the CBC item from our first CrisisCamp Toronto… here’s the YouTube version.
Today was another successful day for CrisisCampTO. Though today’s event was smaller, it sure was mighty. Thank you to everyone who came out today.
Also, we are grateful for the support from our sponsors:
Thank you!
It has been almost a month since the first CrisisCamps assembled following the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Since the first five cities gathered on January 16, camps were held in more than 20 more cities.
Hundreds of volunteers have given up their nights and weekends to work on more than 40 different projects performing tasks ranging from hardcore development, to data collection, to graphic design, to research, to outreach, to story telling, to translation, to project management, to blogging, to… the list is endless.
In the past month, Crisis Camps have produced websites, applications, data sets, and countless other hacks that made information more easily available to those who need it. Databases were tied to maps and made available to the people providing relief on the ground in Haiti. Computers and telephones became translation tools, people finders, and the route to empty hospital beds. All through the work of hundreds of people, thousands of miles apart. For a complete list of projects , click here.
Working closely with the United Nations, the World Bank, and other groups providing aid, Crisis Camps everywhere have used the internet to create a powerful community with a positive purpose. Using every sort of collaborative and social media tool (open source projects, shared workspaces, Wikis, blogs, skype, chat, twitter, facebook, etc.) this group has pioneered a new kind of aid organization, working hard to provide tools and information vital the mission of helping Haiti recover.
With four camps happening today in the U.S. and Canada, and more planned in coming weeks, it appears that the Crisis Camp movement is showing no signs of slowing down. These cities have contributed so far… (apologies if I missed any).
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Baton Rouge
- Bogata, Columbia
- Boston
- Brooklyn
- Calgary
- Chicago
- Boulder/Denver
- Kansas City
- London
- Los Angeles
- Ottawa
- Miami
- Montreal
- New Orleans
- New York City
- Northern California
- Pittsburgh
- Portland
- Rochester
- Santa Barbara
- Seattle
- Silicon Valley
- Toronto
- Washington DC
The Bulletin is a bi-weekly publication produced by the University of Toronto, featuring articles about the university, its students, and other happenings on campus. This week’s featured an article on the first Crisis Camp Toronto meeting, which happened at U of T’s downtown campus. You can view the whole publication here. The Crisis Camp article is on page 6, or see below…
The location for this weekends CrisisCamp gathering has been confirmed. We’ll be meeting on Saturday at the Camaraderie offices at 102 Adelaide St E, 2nd floor (Between Church and Jarvis). As previously stated, we’re still looking for volunteers for all kinds of technical projects, so if you’re a developer, a coder, a blogger, a tweeter, please join us! Please confirm your attendance at here
CrisisCamp Toronto organizers have decided to run another camp (on fairly short notice) Saturday, February 13th, at 10am. The location will be confirmed shortly.
As usual, we’re looking for developers, programmers, social media folks, and anybody who is willing to volunteer some hours on his/her Saturday to help a good cause.
Please confirm your attendance at http://crisiscampto3.eventbrite.com/
More details will follow soon!
The CrisisCampTO team is having a bit of rest for the next few days. Key organizers of CrisisCamp (Haiti) Toronto: Jeff, David, Brian, Rachel and Heather will be discussing organizational needs and setting a date for the next CrisisCamp (Haiti) Toronto.
CrisisCamp (Haiti) – Toronto: more coverage
We are so unbelievably proud of the volunteers and our team effort to contribute.
Last night, the CBC provided some coverage of the CrisisCampTo event. One of our UofT volunteers (Alexa) and talked about how the Internet allowing crisis communications use technology in new ways. We are volunteers and we all believe in the power of the Internet to make a difference. CrisisCommons.org is providing a forum for us to unite together under an evolving charter and activities to start contributing.
For more details on We Have/We Need project that I mentioned, see the Crisis Commons wiki. (This is a CrisisCamp project completed during the first weekend by teams from other cities.)
If you are from the GTA and want to join CrisisCampTo, we have a google group set up for our activities. Just drop us a line and we’d be glad to help you get connected.
How you can volunteer now
CrisisCommons continues to evolve as a grassroots organization. Every day people across Canada, United States and in the UK might be collaborating using various online and social media tools to continue these efforts. Because projects move fast, CrisisCamps might be working on brand new projects or “evergreen” projects. All CrisisCamp coordinators might have to alter project plans based on the ever-changing status updates from other contributing cities or individuals. Add to this: volunteers are matched to projects based on their choices and based on skill set.
As Brian mentioned in his last post and video, we started working on a number of diverse projects using social networking, coding, SEO, translation and user experience (UX) testing. Some of the volunteers are planning to contribute to these projects in an ongoing effort. Anyone can volunteer to work on a project virtually.
Here are a few steps to get you started:
- Review the Crisis Commons Wiki and see if a project fits your skill set and inspires you.
- Contact the project lead via email or join the associated googlegroup for that project. (if one exists)
- Document your Virtual Working so that we all know about your efforts
- Log onto our IRC room to connect with people everywhere who might know more details about the project or connect you. The main channel is #crisiscommons
(Note: IRC tutorials to help. IRC is a great collaboration tool which helps everyone connect and talk. Here’s a wiki tutorial to help with editing the wiki.)
Back to some much deserved rest and talk with you soon,
Heather
Today, several individuals joined CrisisCamp TO to assist with 5 projects. They worked together as teams in Toronto and with teams in other cities in North America (Montreal, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, DC, etc.). We were incredibly pleased with the turnout and the time and effort each individual contributed to the projects. Thank you to our fantastic volunteers.
We also want to thank several organizations for the contribution they made to Crisis Commons in support of today’s Crisis Camp TO. The support you have shown for this organization and its incredible volunteers is greatly appreciated. We hope you found your contribution as valuable as we know it was for us and will continue your partnership with Crisis Commons.
Big thank you to our sponsors:
Lunch provided by Tucows Inc.
Coffee and snacks provided by Left Button Solutions
Beverages provided by Idée Inc.
Space provided by the University of Toronto
We’ll keep you posted on our next events. For CrisisCamp attendees, we will be sending out an email to join our Googlegroup and CrisisCommons Linkedin group.
Thanks to everyone who posted blog posts, tweeted, facebooked, flickr’ed and used the power of social media and the Internet to make a difference.
Thank you!