Geo-Interactive Technology is the New Superhero in Times of Crisis

By Nicole Kok, former Sales Manager, Lava Protocols

Move over Marvel and DC characters because there’s someone (more like something) new that’s out to save the day in times of need. You might have noticed the media outburst on the sudden series of natural disasters that has struck our country in recent years. From the Tsunami in 2004, to hurricanes in the northern region, and to the 2014 flooding disaster which is said to have been the worst in decades and forced evacuations of 100,000 Malaysians, mostly from the East Coast region.

For Malaysians, most of us anticipate the flood that strikes the east coast every year as well as the catastrophic impact to that region. But, this time around, the disaster was alarming enough to make us realise that there is a dire need for a better solution with our Disaster and Crisis Response system.

The foundation of a crisis response system is real-time and accurate information. With the evolution of technology and social media at this age, it is undeniable that an integrated Geo-interactive platform needs to be implemented to create a means of reaching out to potential victims. Of course, proper planning of real-time risk assessment has to be done by the authorities as well.

Application of Geo-Interactive Technology 

Let’s go back in time and look at how technology and social media provided by mostly the internet and technology giants have helped other parts of the world during their disaster relief.

1. Flood in Pakistan

In August 2010, when Pakistan was hit by flood that submerged 20 percent of the country, an efficient emergency response was set up in a short period. This was made possible when Google enabled volunteers to contribute data about regions that Google Maps could not reach and the authorities relied on the data that the users updated. The internet giant obtained high resolution satellite photos and aerial imagery with resolution as fine as 15 centimeters. This information became critical for organisations which were making damage assessments and deciding where to set up clinics and send aid.

2. Earthquake in Haiti and Japan

In 2010, when Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake and left 158,000 dead, Google Person Finder was developed to ease the pain of the victim’s’ family. It enables victims’ families to find their loved ones who were hurt or missing. When Japan was ripped up in 2011 by the biggest earthquake in its history, Google Person Finder was live within 90 minutes. The tool compiled more than 600,000 names and received 36 million page views in the first two days, according to Shona Brown, Senior Vice-President of Google.org — the company’s philanthropic arm — in 2011’s Congressional Testimony. Normally, that kind of volume would crash a website without the infrastructure of an entity like Google.

Using the powerful Google Maps, Google had also built a Google Crisis Map which is constantly updated by people on the ground on pivotal information such as evacuation centers, relief drop zone areas, road washouts and infrastructure damage. Public, residents, relief workers and also the authorities can optimize their logistics, relief planning, resources and better navigate crisis terrain. To add to this, with the surge of searches in Google during a disaster, Google had created a Google Response team and a website to serve as the main hub to make information accessible in times of disaster.

Facts gathered by researchers found that on the day after the Japan earthquake and tsunami disasters, tweets spiked at 5,000 per second. In most cases, social media would probably be an outlet of mourning and the information re-tweeted and posted might not be exactly useful. However, one study of 64,000 disaster tweets posted during Thailand’s 2011 floods found that 39 percent of them contained valuable location-based information and alerts.

Imagine if you wanted to contribute but did not know how to do so. Having a mobile app to point you to the nearest relief and collection centre on an interactive map would be so much easier. The app would also enable you to locate your loved ones who might be affected by the disaster.

Or say you are one of the victims in the affected area and you happen to snap a picture of a fallen tree. You can post that up as a warning to others in real-time. If people were willing to turn on geo-tagging on Twitter during an emergency, it would be possible to create dynamic maps from people’s tweets, enabling tracking for everything — from fallen trees to food delivery to looting.

Governments and authorities would be able to utilise all of these centralised updates and map it accordingly in their GIS (geographic information system) and mapping systems and lay out the affected areas. They can plan dynamically on the map against the location of shelter points, strategic placements of Wi-Fi towers, blocked paths and many more.

In a Nutshell 

With these few examples of how technology and social media play a role in times of crisis, we would now have a higher probability of getting to safety when the waves of crisis hit our shore.  

As Neil deGrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist and author, puts it, “Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we’re still at the mercy of nature.”

One cannot prevent natural disasters from happening, but we can be better prepared based on our past experience with the enablement and evolution of both technology and social media. It is time for us to refine and reconstruct our very own Geo-Interactive Technology for Disaster and Crisis Management System.

The article above goes to show the power of the combination of location + technology + intelligence. Location intelligence, when used in a business, can give you pertinent customer insights such as stores/ branches which attract the most customers, areas with high foot traffic, etc. all of which can help in your marketing strategy.

Email us at asklabs@lavalabs.net and we can help you understand how location intelligence can help drive your business forwards.

Read this: This is How Location Intelligence Can Help Move Your Business

Lava is an authorised Salesforce and CARTO Partner in Malaysia and an authorised reseller of G Suite (previously known as Google Apps, Google Maps for Work, and Google Cloud Platform). Lava has more than a decade of experience in cloud solutions which includes marketing automation, CRM implementation, change management, and consultation. We pride ourselves in not just being a CRM partner but in also understanding the needs of our customers and taking their business to the next level.