2. 2
Disaster situations
• Can occur anywhere, anytime
• Occur more frequently at present and will occur more frequently
in the future
• “A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a society,
causing widespread human, material or environmental losses
which exceeds the ability of the affected society to cope using
only its own resources” - UNDP
3. 3
How can technology help?
• Scalable management of information
• No stacks of forms or files to manage
• Efficient distribution of information
• Accessibility of information on demand
• Automatic assessment and aggregation
• No delays for calculation
• Live situational awareness
• Knowledge is instantly updated
4. 4
Enter Sahana
• Implemented in response to the 2004 tsunami
• Sri Lanka’s IT industry (including Virtusa) got together to build a
system to help face the aftermath
• The core system of Sahana was built
• Tracking shelters, functioning organizations, missing people,
management of resources and aid were some of its features
6. 6
Sahana today
• Managed by Sahana Software Foundation [501 (c) (3) non-profit]
• Three main branches
• Vesuvius: PHP, based on initial code, People Locator features
• Kilauea: PHP, shelter registry features
• Eden: Python, complete disaster management features
• Deployed at:
• 2005 Kashmir earthquake
• 2010 Haiti earthquake
• 2011 Tohoku tsunami
• 2012 Hurricane Sandy
• Active (preparedness) deployments: on Lanka Government Cloud,
at the US National Library of Medicine, International Red Cross
7. 7
Sahana is HFOSS
• HFOSS : Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software
• Free to use, free to modify
• ‘Virtuous Circle of Contributions’ : Organizations branching
Sahana to develop new features are asked to contribute that
code back in to the main trunk
8. 8
Sahana to help save the world
• Disasters are a constant aspect of our world
• Sahana can help save lives during such disasters
• Sahana = Save more people
Wouldn’t you like to help save the world?
More information: http://sahanafoundation.org,
info@sahanafoundation.org