Crowdsourcing Information for Disaster Relief Efforts
Watch this illuminating TED talk to discover how crowdsourcing can aid disaster relief efforts. The talk was given by Qatar Foundation’s Patrick Meier and concentrates on the role that social media platforms such as Twitter can play in disseminating accurate, real-time information during disaster scenarios.
Social media has made the world a smaller place and one of the most popular means by which people tell their friends what’s going on in their lives. But it’s also being increasingly used to spread information during disasters.
During Hurricane Sandy 20 million tweets were posted within a couple of days and half a million Instagram pictures were taken and shared on social media.
How Valuable is the Information?
But not all of the information spread via social media during disasters is of value. When talking about the usefulness of tweets and posts they differed from country to country and disaster to disaster, Meier said. But even if less than 10% was useful that could still represent more than a million pieces of information – a volume that Meier contends humanitarian organizations are not yet resourced to deal with.
Big Data Challenges
As Meier points out, there are two fundamental challenges with all this data – one is the sheer volume and the other is its reliability. The spread of inaccurate information could be harmful to relief efforts. For example a false tweet or Facebook post could send ambulances to the wrong areas.
Meier is working on an online platform called Veri.ly that will ‘evaluate the credibility of rapidly crowdsourced evidence’. To read more about the platform click on this MIT Technology Review article.
You can watch Meier’s 15-minute TED talk below:
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