1. Help Map (Russian Fires) Crisis Mapping Case Study Alexey Sidorenko Prague, March 9 th 2011

2. Prerequisites for Wildfire Crisis in Russia, 2010 1.Unusually hot period; 2.Degraded system of wildfire protection; 3.Almost simultaneous outburst of wildfires in different Russian regions; 4.Raise of activism on the background of government’s inability to cope with the disaster;

3. What’s the Story of Help Map? Idea of implementing digital tools wasn’t new; Two persons publicly suggested usage of Ushahidi in their blogs; One of them, Gregory Asmolov, proposed to try to install Ushahidi; First reaction: “It would take at least a month” (MEH!) Second reaction: “This is actually quite easy! THIS COULD WORK!” Third reaction: IT WORKS!!!! Result: Ushahidi deployment in 2-3 days;

4. Difficulties Poor support for Cyrillic fonts; Inactive community support -> necessity to fix all the bugs by ourselves; Poor documentation / difficult customization of the platform; Unexpected high load of the server (10-15 thousand unique visitors daily) -> necessity to move to a new hosting really fast;

5. Our Main Principles At That Time CROWDSOURCING. We crowdsource everything: message moderation, PHP/JavaScript programming, server optimization, server hosting, design; TRUST. We trust all volunteers, we don’t have time for background checks – dangerous but necessary; CREDIT. We credit everyone who helps us – people need to know and feel that their effort is taken into account; NEUTRALITY. we don’t support with any political organization;

6. Help Map 1.The First Ushahidi implementation in Russia; 2.Stage 1: Monitoring of various sources concerning wildfires; 3.Stage 2: Coordination of volunteers and victims of wildfires;

7. Information Coordination Connecting random initiatives together -> creating synergy; Connecting those who asked for help and those who could provide help; Providing information on the abilities of private initiatives.

8. Information coordination Pozar_ru Igor Cherskiy Doctor Liza Russian Church Volunteer groups Random Citizen Initiatives

9. Work of Coordination Center Moderation of reports; Monitoring of sources; Coordination of the work of remote moderators; Site maintenance; Phone “Hot Line” maintenance; Coordination of help. Фотографии ottenki_serogo

10. Full cycle of help Clothes Transporta tion «We have some spare clothes”, Moscow «I have a car. Mazda 3, I am available to lift people or food to any place in the Moscow or Ryazan region. Victims «In Vladimir region we need (August 14, 2010): Утюги - 50 шт Тонометр – 1 Глюкометр (+тестполоски) – 1...» Help Report Trip report: we brought food and clothes to …

11. Weak sides of the project Limited information flow from the cell phones; Limited number of sources (mostly from the bigger cities); Mapping as a process was unusual for some less computer literate users; Technical instability; Lack of interactivity on the basis of the platform; Limited feedback functionality (volunteers and victims couldn’t connect with each other without the help of moderators); After the crisis is gone the future of the platform is unstable;

12. Perspectives: Upgrade of the platform to version 2.0 + change of design to our own platform; Integration of aerial photographs; Information support in endangered regions ; Better cooperation with the NGOs

13. Thanks! Alexey Sidorenko Sidorenko.a@gmail.com Twitter: @sidorenko_intl