Talk given to Open ITP meetup in New York City, January 2013.

1. Crisis and Development Data:
(Starting to) Fix the System
Sara-Jayne Farmer
Change Assembly

2. Broken Systems
• Communities
• Processes
• Tech
• Innovation

3. (Some of) What’s Broken
• Development Data
– Broken data formats, access, coverage, standards
– Ignored data sources
– Human vs Data disconnect
• Crisis Data
– Remote vs Ground disconnect
– Crisis vs Development disconnect
– Deployment lead overload
• Communities
– Stovepipes, fiefdoms, imperialism, finding…

4. DEVELOPMENT DATA

5. Typical Workflow
W ebsites:
H TM L , X L S,
CSV ,A P Is etc
Scrapers Tem plate V olunteer
A nalysts
& A P Is Creator R esearcher s
CSV stores P ar tially­
Com pleted
(online and filled DNA
spr eadsheet
offline) spreadsheet

6. Data Access
Online, under an open license
Structured (e.g. Excel, not PDF)
Non-proprietary (e.g. CSV, not Arcgis)
URI / API (so people can point at it)
Linked to other data (to give context)

7. Clean

8. Standardise
DR Congo in Data.UN.Org:
•“Congo, Democratic Republic of the”, “Congo Democratic”,
“Democratic Republic of the Congo”, “Congo (Democratic Republic of
the)”, “Congo, Dem. Rep.”, “Congo Dem. Rep.”, “Congo, Democratic
Republic of”, “Dem. Rep. of Congo”, “Dem. Rep. of the Congo”
DR Congo in common standards:
•“Democratic Republic of the Congo” (UN Stats), “Congo, The
Democratic Republic of the” (ISO3166), “Congo, Democratic Republic
of the” (FIPS10, Stanag), “180” (UN Stats), “COD” (ISO3166, Stanag),
“CG” (FIPS10)

9. Cross-Correlate

10. Use

11. CRISIS DATA

12. Typical Workflow

13. Find…

14. Listen…

15. Estimate…

16. Geolocate…

17. Erm… you also need a map…

18. Cross-Correlate

19. Use

20. COMMUNITIES

21. Support Communities

22. Combine Experts with Data Science

23. sara@changeassembly.com
@bodaceacat
www.ChangeAssembly.com
blog.standbytaskforce.com
www.meetup.com/crisismappersnyc