On 3 May 2008, a cyclone struck Myanmar. Ten days later, state television
reported more than 34,000 dead. The United Nations (UN) estimates suggested the
death toll may exceed 60,000. Relief agencies rushed to help, but the
government in Myanmar seemed reluctant to accept assistance, even denying visas
to some of the aid workers. The “unacceptably slow response” moved the
secretary-general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, to call a press conference. “I
want to register my deep concern,” he said, “and immense frustration.”
The UN emergency relief coordinator, John Holmes, reported separately that
international relief workers were being turned back at roadblocks. Without
their expertise, essentials like rice, beans and water-purification tablets
would not reach the thousands who needed them.
As it happened, the day secretary-general Ban Ki-moon addressed the press, an
earthquake struck Sichuan, a mountainous province in China. Within days, the
death toll had reached nearly 20,000. China, which seldom accepts official
relief missions from foreign countries, asked Japan for 60 earthquake-rescue
experts. Even more remarkably, it accepted help from three Taiwanese private
relief teams and, later, from Russia, South Korea and Singapore. As Andrew
Jacobs, writing earlier in The New York Times observed: “The official
response … stands in stark contrast not only to neighboring Myanmar’s,
but also to China’s abysmal performance during a major quake in 1976,
when at least 240,000 people died in the eastern city of Tangshan.” Shi Anbin,
a professor at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, concurred, seeing in the
government’s response “a trend of Chinese openness and reform.”
Relief agencies and their staff are experts in managing fragile supply chains,
unparalleled in their ability to weld disparate groups into an effective team.
When the fate of thousands hangs in the balance, it can be heart-rending for
such experts to countenance institutional ineptitude. For them (and, indeed,
for all who wish to ensure that help reaches the needy), solace may be found in
the open-source software movement. More generally known as open innovation,
this collaborative approach to product development is often associated with
products like Linux, a computer operating system so successful that it has
prompted many investors to re-examine their expectations of the conventional
software industry. Evidence that open innovation is gaining wider popularity
comes from companies like Procter & Gamble. In the 1990s, only 20% of ideas for
its new products came from outside P&G; within 10 years, that number had risen
to about 50%.
To see how open innovation can help victims of natural disasters, look at
Sahana, a free, open source disaster management system that helps coordinate
relief efforts (www.sahana.lk). The program makes it easier for aid
organisations to coordinate resources and juggle requests for support. It helps
friends and relatives find loved ones, while enabling the authorities to look
after refugees, right down to tracking the location, quantity and expiry dates
of supplies. It can even build a geographical information system to help
decision-makers act in a chaotic, fast-changing situation.
Sahana was initiated in Sri Lanka, after the tsunami of 2004, but the community
of contributing programmers circles the globe. After the cyclone hit Myanmar,
one partner, InSTEDD (International Networked System for Total Early Disease
Detection), received a request: could it help translate Sahana into Burmese? In
response, InSTEDD, which is based in Palo Alto, California, coordinated its own
worldwide effort. Within days, 30 volunteers across four continents were hard
at work, translating key features of Sahana into Burmese. The success of the
InSTEDD-Sahana team will depend, undoubtedly, on the actions of the government
in Myanmar. But regardless of what that government does, the open-source
programmers’ efforts will strengthen a package that has already made a
difference during disasters in The Philippines, Pakistan and Peru, improving
with each iteration. We may be unable to stop a storm in its tracks, but if
Sahana’s success is anything to go by, there’s much we can do to
temper its fury – and we’re getting stronger all the time. Shreedhar Kanetkar welcomes your comments. Write to [email protected]
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