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Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data Is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response, by Patrick Meier
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The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. Making sense of this information--Big Data--is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations, which is precisely why they're turning to Digital Humanitarians. This new humanitarians mobilize online to make sense of vast volumes of data--social media and text messages; satellite and aerial imagery--in direct support of relief efforts worldwide. How? They craft ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence. This book charts the spectacular rise of Digital Humanitarians, highlighting how their humanity coupled with innovative Big Data solutions is changing humanitarian relief for forever.
Praise for the book:
...�examines how new uses of technology and vast quantities of digital data are transforming the way societies prepare for, respond to, cope with, and ultimately understand humanitarian disasters. --Dr. Enzo Bollettino,�Executive Director,�The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative,�Harvard University
...�explains the strengths and potential weaknesses of using big data and crowdsourced analytics in crisis situations. It is at once a deeply personal and intellectually satisfying book.--Professor Steven Livingston, Professor of Media & Public and International Affairs,�Elliott School of International Affairs,�George Washington University
- Sales Rank: #456991 in Books
- Published on: 2015-01-24
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .60" w x 6.10" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 259 pages
Review
Patrick Meier is a passionate evangelist for the power of big data to help us respond to natural disasters and other crises. He is also a careful scholar who thinks deeply about the limits and potential dangers of data-centric approaches. His book offers both inspiration for those around the world who want to improve our disaster response and a set of fertile challenges to ensure we use data wisely and ethically.
―Ethan Zuckerman, Director, MIT Center for Civic Media and author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection
I dare you to read this book and not have both your heart and mind opened. Patrick Meier writes compellingly about his first-hand accounts of people around the world working together to help disaster victims through advanced computing solutions.
―Leysia Palen, Associate Professor and Director of Project EPIC―Empowering the Public with Information during Crises, University of Colorado, Boulder
Something very like the fog of war afflicts crisis response. On the ground, simply knowing what is wrong ― who is suffering? where is the danger? ― is both critical and difficult. In Digital Humanitarians, Patrick Meier, a scholar and practitioner of crisis response, shows us how simple digital tools, built and staffed by a worldwide network of volunteers, are providing faster and more comprehensive data for disaster response efforts. Working from examples like the Haitian earthquake and the Arab Spring, Meier shows how tools from artificial intelligence to aerial drones, and techniques from crowdmapping to distributed fact-checking, are helping to dispel some of that fog.
―Clay Shirky, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University and author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
An insider’s guide to the humanitarian data revolution, seen through the eyes of a thought leader, scholar, and expert practitioner on the front lines of a global movement that is already transforming how we understand and respond to crises.
―Robert Kirkpatrick, United Nations Global Pulse
Business, economics and governance are transforming as traditional state-based institutions are supplemented and indeed eclipsed by non-state networks of civil society. New technologies are enabling regular citizens to connect, collaborate, and save lives. In his book, Meier shows these same trends emerging in the field of humanitarian response. Global problem solving is rapidly evolving and Meier will help get you on board.
―Don Tapscott, Global Solutions Network and co-author of Wikinomics
This book breaks new ground, as Patrick Meier charts the optimism, the possibilities, and the dilemmas of a new Digital Humanitarianism from his own first hand experience. For anyone in the Humanitarian sector - ignore this book at your own peril.
―Tarun Sarwal, Innovation Advisor, International Committee of the Red Cross
Meier offers an illuminating look at how digital humanitarian have been creating value from big data for nearly a half-decade. He changes the narrative surrounding the "traditional" humanitarian community - often thought to be intransigent and inflexible - by presenting examples of how humanitarian organizations are actively exploring how to incorporate big data and crowdsourcing into their decision-making processes. His authoritative volume crackles with honest insights about the current and future state of humanitarian response.
―Albert Gembara, Technology Integration Officer, United States Agency for International Development
Patrick Meier has been the leading figure in creating a new type of disaster responders, digital humanitarians and in this groundbreaking book he takes us through the story of how technology can truly revolutionize how we deal with some of the most chaotic events we experience.
―Gisli Olafsson, Emergency Response Director, NetHope and author of The Crisis Leader
For all the technology firsts, this is first a story about volunteers. It is also a story about the relentless application of fundamental information technology skills, collecting, processing and making understandable an avalanche of data. Not only is this about the heart of information technology professionals, it is about the application of information technology skills; and in a crisis, any professional wants to contribute what they know best.
―Ed Happ, Global Chief Information Officer of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
If you want to be enlightened about how technology is revolutionizing humanitarian aid, then this book is for you. In Digital Humanitarians Patrick Meier depicts a humanitarian endeavour that is being enriched by the efforts of a growing global network of smart, savvy innovators. Expertly fusing front-line experience, technological expertise, and a deeply humane worldview, Meier closes with a rousing call for change: toward a more open, democratic humanitarian system. All of us working in international disaster response should be paying close attention.
―Ben Ramalingam, Chair of the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) and author of Aid on the Edge of Chaos
This book shows us once again why Patrick Meier is a thought leader in leveraging emerging technologies for social impact. His book captures the enormous possibilities and avoidable pitfalls of big data, social media and artificial intelligence in crisis contexts. Digital humanitarians can be powerful agents for social change but ground-truthing what we see and hear digitally is more important than ever.
―Aleem Walji, Chief Innovation Advisor, Leadership, Learning, and Innovation, World Bank Group
Patrick Meier is a master cartographer. He is a talented crisis mapper, sure, but he’s mapping something even bigger in this book. He’s mapping the ecosystem of digital humanitarianism – the hills of human motivations, the seas of human institutions, and the urban landscape of human technology. The ideas and stories here not only plot the path for digital humanitarians in disasters, but they illuminate a runway of opportunity for all of philanthropy and social innovation in the digital age.
―Wendy Harman, Director of Information Management and Situational Awareness, American Red Cross
There has been a lot of hype about the role of technology can play the humanitarian space, with very little to show for it. Patrick Meier – in his book and in his work – is one of the few people who has gone beyond talk to show how big ideas can translate into very concrete initiatives that help save lives. He also shows a fascinating glimpse into the early days of crisis mapping and the passionate group of volunteers who are transforming the way we work. This book is indispensable reading for anyone who is interested in finding ways to incorporate technology into their work as humanitarians.
―Sharon Morris, Senior Advisor to the President, US Institute of Peace
Patrick provides a fascinating read for anyone interested in how technology could spur the humanitarian community far into the 21st century. Building from his very personal experience that propelled him into the digital humanitarian space, Patrick lays out the amazing achievements of many who have dreamed to change the world for the better. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, Patrick also outlines what the humanitarian community can do to fully embrace new technologies and approaches--many of which are already revolutionizing other industries.
―Andrej Verity, Co-Founder of the Digital Humanitarian Network
Patrick Meier’s brilliant and inspiring book documents the power that everyday citizens have when responding to humanitarian crises or political repression. Patrick writes from the unique perspective of having played a key role in the development and evolution of the digital humanitarian field. The book provides a wonderful combination of case studies exploring many successes and challenges and also has a critical and necessary exploration of the many ethical issues around the use of technology in humanitarian work, such as privacy, safety, power and agency. This book is a must read for students, faculty, policymakers, activists, simply anyone who is engaged or seeking to engage in technology for social change.
―Craig Zelizer, Professor at Georgetown University and Associate Director of Conflict Resolution Program
In clear, compelling prose, Patrick Meier offers readers of Digital Humanitarians a front row seat into the start of the digital revolution that has swept the world since he and his colleagues created -- from scratch and on the fly -- a digitally-based response to the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti. He explains the strengths and potential weaknesses of using big data and crowdsourced analytics in crisis situations. It is at once a deeply personal and intellectually satisfying book.
―Steven Livingston, Professor of Media & Public and International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
Technological and methodological developments are rapidly changing the face of humanitarian action. We are encountering a flurry of new tools involving cell phones and internet-based platforms for data aggregation, analysis, and visualization. We are exploiting the potential of collective and artificial intelligence. We are collecting data from satellites and drones while we are also involving thousands of people in reporting events, locations of assets, and places of danger. In Digital Humanitarians, Patrick Meier provides an interesting and useful overview of these developments, and offers examples drawn from years of hard-earned experience. This is essential reading for both students and practitioners of humanitarian action. Those who read it will be able to navigate this important, exciting, and dynamic field.
―Joseph G. Bock, Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame and author of The Technology of Nonviolence: Social Media and Violence Prevention
Patrick Meier is a humanitarian in the trenches―working tirelessly to use technology for the greater good. In his new book, he highlights the latest solutions revolutionizing humanitarian response, ranging from social media platforms powered by artificial intelligence to crowd computing solutions that analyze satellite and UAV imagery. Throughout the book, however, Patrick returns to the fundamental story behind these technologies -- the human story, the digital humanitarian volunteers who mobilize across time zones to help others in need. As Patrick says, "This is the kind of world I want to live in.
―Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Director of Social Innovation, Twitter
Meier’s book is essential reading on at least two counts. First, it captures key developments on and around the use of web, Internet and mobile communications during and after disasters, cutting through the hype and grappling with critical questions related to technology and governance. Second, it is a timely publication. The preparation, response to and recovery from disasters today is inextricably entwined with technology, at local, regional and international levels. Meier looks at how what is already taken for granted came about, and looks critically at what it means for humanitarianism in the future.
―Daniel Stauffacher, Former Swiss Ambassador to the United Nations & Founder of the ICT for Peace Foundation (ICT4Peace); Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor at ICT4Peace & TED Fellow
Finally, someone who knows both the potential of mobile, networked technologies and the practicalities of how to use these tools to enhance humanitarian work. Meier’s new book, Digital Humanitarians, has the potential to relieve suffering by showing activists, citizens, and technologists how to use everything from satellite imagery to big data techniques and social media to save lives in natural disasters and other crises that require humanitarian response. This book can save lives!
―Howard Rheingold, Lecturer at Stanford University and author of the bestsellers Smart Mobs, Net Smart and Virtual Reality
The ideas and lessons in this book could save millions of lives in the 21st century. Digital tools – from crowdsourced mobile data to satellite imagery ― promise to make the world more transparent, more inclusive, and more locally empowered. Patrick Meier charts a bold new course for humanitarianism that harnesses technology’s revolutionary potential, while also addressing the need for safeguards. His brilliant combination of scholarship, real-world experience and thoughtful perspective makes this essential reading for anyone who wants understand the future of humanitarian action.
―Andrew Zolli, Director of PopTech and author of Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back
Since it became possible for nearly anyone with a cell phone or an internet connection to send data, photos and other information around the world with a few key strokes, we’ve seen a number of books attempt to catalog this incredible revolution. What makes this book different – and exceptionally important to humanitarians and peacebuilders alike – is that it has been written from the perspective of one who has helped to lead the revolution. If you want to understand both the power and the pitfalls of digital humanitarianism – a movement unprecedented in human history – read Patrick’s take on it. You’ll be richer for it.
―Sheldon Himelfarb, Director of PeaceTech Lab, United States Institute for Peace (USIP)
Patrick Meier has been at the center of the digital humanitarian movement for all of its recent history. This thoughtful collection of case studies and analyses provides a first-hand account of how the tools, practices, and community of digital humanitarians have succeeded, stumbled and evolved. There's a welcome mix of accessible technical content and, more importantly, stories about the people who've taken technology and shaped it into tools that help others when they're most in need.
―Tariq Khokhar, Data Scientist and Open Data Evangelist, World Bank
Digital Humanitarians is a MUST READ for anyone who believes that new technologies and big data, when used properly, can save millions of peoples lives during disasters and times of crisis. Meier is not only a master storyteller of real world events, he is a practitioner and visionary who is showing governments and NGO's, and all of us how to think and do disaster relief in the 21st century.
―Andrew Rasiej, Founder of Personal Democracy Media and Senior Technology Advisor at Sunlight Foundation
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
World-Changing Book Documenting Intersection of Humans, Technology, and Policy-Ethics
By Robert David STEELE Vivas
This is a hugely important work, one that responds to the critical needs outlined by Micah Sifry in The Big Disconnect: Why The Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet) and others such as myself writing these past 25 years on the need to reform the pathologically dysfunctional US secret intelligence community that is in constant betrayal of the public trust.
Digital Humanitarians are BURYING the secret world. For all the bru-ha-ha over NSA's mass surveillance and the $100 billion a year we spend doing largely technical spying (yet only processing 1% of what we waste money on in collection), there are two huge facts that this book, FOR THE FIRST TIME, documents:
01 The emphasis here is on HUMANS -- technology has been harnessed in the public interest but it is the HUMANS -- digital savants and volunteers, open source coders, and the human objects of concern (the victims in any given disaster, armed with their brains, eyes, ears, and cell phones) and their human relatives (the diaspora) that produce results. The author repeats -- a necessary repetition -- throughout the book this critical points: "It's the humans, the digital samaritans, that made this possible." He observes that the media -- to which I would add most governments and the UN -- completely missed the point: this is a human harmonization success story, NOT a technology ubber alles story.
02 The output here is DECISION-SUPPORT -- actionable usable information that saves lives and reduces costs. This is the acme of skill for any professional intelligence officer, but most are trapped in a system where the emphasis is on spending money wantonly on technology without being held accountable for results. Put bluntly, Digital Humanitarians are calling out the naked Emperor called secret intelligence. This is the lifeboat, this is Plan B, this is public intelligence in the public interest, and I am moved to tears by how much all this means for our future.
The story the author tells is a compelling one that will stand in history as a break-out moment in the uplisting of humanity. I note with interest that while the author was trained at Harvard, the break-out occurred when he was at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and that it was the Fletcher students and professors that rallied to nurture this seed crystal, not Harvard, which was slow to respond when invited to do so.
The author and his cohorts pulled together, for the first time in history, a wide range of until then isolated pieces -- one third open source technology including Ushahidi and OpenStreetMaps, one third humans, and one third responsive bureaucracies including national imagery agencies providing imagery for volunteers to convert into open accurate maps that still do not exist for most place from the National Geospatial Agency (which is also incapable of doing what these people did, create new maps in 48 hours on the basis of high-resolution imagery using thousands of distributed human volunteers none of them having a security clearance).
QUOTE: "an overflow of information can be as paralyzing as the absence of it."
Where the book starts to have a powerful message for the next generation is when the author recognizes -- as Micah Sifry and I and others have recognized -- that the tools do not exist to make sense of massive amounts of near-real-time data. This is a problem many of us confronted in 1986-1993 but the US Government (OMB, DoD, and the CIA in particular) refused to be serious about analytic tools. Although there were a couple of success stories -- DARPA STRONG ANGEL and its TOOZL flash drive come to mind, and CIA OSWR's brilliant definition of the 18 functionalities we need (CATALYST: Computer Aided Tools for the Analysis of Science & Technology), the corruption of the military-intelligence-industrial complex is such that the big money is spent on technical collection that is not processed, NOT on human or open source intelligence or analytic tool-kits. That corruption is still with us today, and nothing being overseen by the DNI, USDI, or D/CIA is relevant to our future success in this area.
Reflecting on the book as I finish it, I see an extraordinary "convergence without boundaries" that has been effected by CrisisMappers and the ecology of human good will, open source technology, and open-minded policy makers (both government and non-government). Key ingredients include:
PEOPLE (validated people - they are who they say they are -- trained and tasked responsibly)
Online training ready to go for new volunteers
Open source software and hardware and databases and so on
Micro-tasking as a concept (complex back office makes simpler front end micro possible)
High resolution imagery, increasingly from on site UAVs but also from government donors
Policy-ethics renaissance
Artificial intelligence in context -- AI in support, not ruling, AI doing tasks, not deciding)
The persistent challenge is Big (False) Data. That aspect of this book is alone priceless. The author points out that it is not just lies in social media and Short Message Service (SMS) that kill, but media lies and mistakes, government lies and mistakes, "humanitarian" agencies lies and mistakes. As one who has said for decades that "the truth at any cost lowers all other costs," I regard this book as the first bullet fired in the first modern skirmish between industrial era hierarchies willing to "pay any price" legalized crime (see Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies and Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History and an emerging hybrid governance public sector that is combining citizen integrity and intelligence with open source tools and a transparent approach to data, which in the aggregate are revolutionary.
There are a few specific companies and individuals who are highlighted in this book, I urge the purchase of the book if those specifics are of interest.
Three take-aways as I put the book down:
A Critical thinking is a vital part of all this, sits on top of training, tools, and task management
B Turn on your location! Only 3% of tweets are usable in geospatial terms because most have this feature turned off
C #NOSHARE is a hash-tag intended to shut out the machines, "for human reading only." It won't work, but it's a thought to hold
As impressed as I am by all that Patrick Meier, his co-founder Jen Ziemke and others behind the scenes (such as Eric Rasmussen, one of two principals in STRONG ANGEL, the thinks he can remain anonymous) have accomplished, I am not completely satisfied that they have prepared for the next phrase. There are some compelling stories in this book about digital data wonks supporting digital activism, but there is a great deal missing because of the deliberate schism imposed by governments that "shut out" their citizens and make decisions on the basis on religious, financial, and ideological pressures instead of ethical evidence-based decision-support, and this emergent "Puerto Allegre on Steroids" convergence without boundaries. Below I offer some additional books that complement this one. There are two tinyurls I would offer those who wish to think about what is NOT in this book that needed to be in the next edition: /EIN-UN-SDG and /Steele-Reform.
It will be a while before a Nobel Prize is awarded for information initiatives (I made this point in Sweden in December 2004), but if and when that day comes, the totality of what Patrick Meier addresses in this book, and its future potential as a foundation for creating a prosperous world at peace in which holistic analytics, true costs economics, and open source everything engineering are firmly grounded in CrisisMappers, Ushahidi and more, I for one will be applauding on that day.
See Also:
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
By Clay Shirky: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age (Hardback) - Common
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
How the global, digital crowd became a force for good
By Andrew Schroeder
On or about January 12th, 2010 global humanitarian response changed in dramatic ways. In the aftermath of the staggering destruction of the Haiti earthquake a new type of massively distributed, mobile, networked, digitally skilled and popularly empowered disaster response community took shape. Crisis mappers logged hundreds of thousands of tweets, traced tens of thousands of roads and buildings in OpenStreetMap, geo-tagged thousands of critical infrastructure points, and from an enormous range of locations around the world devoted themselves to helping make the relief effort for the Haitian people more targeted, efficient and effective than it otherwise would have been. Crisis mapping did not by itself solve any of the multitude of catastrophic problems involved in the relief and recovery effort, but it did succeed in shining a set of bright lights on significant areas of focus for the relief effort, and in bringing a significant new force from the global digital crowd to bear on the work of finding survivors, assessing damage and guiding humanitarian assistance.
Patrick Meier was present at the creation as one of the central figures of this movement. Since 2010 he has participated as our principal "crowdsourcerer" in literally dozens of crisis response activities. Along the way he has been instrumental in defining the field of big data for humanitarian assistance. His book, Digital Humanitarians, is an essential guide to how the digital crowd entered the space of humanitarian response, how that movement has both succeeded and failed at times over the past five years, the challenges and contradictions that have been faced during global crises from the Arab Spring to Typhoon Haiyan, as well as the future promise of merging big data from below with humanitarian assistance from above for building more disaster resilient communities throughout the world.
Digital Humanitarians is remarkable combination of user's manual, social history and personal memoir. In an important sense, it's maybe best understood as a kind of Bildungsroman for the digital humanitarian community told through voice of Patrick himself as he struggles in the midst of living history to build, guide and understand the new digital crisis response community. But the story never remains personal, always moving across multiple registers of technology, politics, natural disasters and social movements. Through the pages of Digital Humanitarians we get to think along with Patrick as he takes two or three giant steps forward (and sometimes two or three steps back too) in pursuit of an emergent global movement based in humanitarian ideals and the dynamic combination of millions of concerned human beings throughout the world with the new constellation of social media, geospatial technologies and mobile computing networks. Along the way he faces political obstacles, technological challenges, incessant criticism and massively inflated expectations. But to Patrick's credit, he never loses track of the actual purpose of all this activity, in the creation of a better world for the most vulnerable among us.
Read this book, absorb these lessons, travel down some of the virtual pathways suggested here by Patrick, and you too will become part of a larger world of Digital Humanitarians. You'll never look back.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
but has an amazing ability to discuss and explore complex topics in a ...
By Michael Kleinman
Patrick is one of the undisputed leaders in this field - he's not only incredibly knowledgeable, but has an amazing ability to discuss and explore complex topics in a way that speaks to both expert practioners in the field and those with a more general interest in the topic. I can't wait for his next book!
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