Humanitarian Assistance: ICT related innovations

ICT related innovation for Humanitarian
Assistance
Marc van den Homberg
March 21st, Stenden Hogeschool, Leeuwarden

Marc van den Homberg, 21032012

Contents
• Introduction

• ICT and its relation to humanitarian aid
• Three examples of ICT innovations
• Role of ICT
• Vision and mission

• ICT themes in relation to humanitarian aid
• Empowered Living, Working and Learning
• From open data to open development


TNO
TNO connects people and knowledge to create innovations that boost
the sustainable competitiveness of industry and well-being of society.

Founded in 1932 by act of parliament.
Independent and not-for-profit

14 locations in The Netherlands
14 offices abroad
35%
Government
4189 employees Market

65%
564 M€ (total income 2010)


The power of TNO
From idea to innovation

Develop
Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge
fundamental
development application exploitation
knowledge

With With With Embedded in the
universities partners customers market


Seven themes


Areas of expertise

To safeguard the consistency and quality of TNO’s knowledge and
resources, the following areas of expertise have been identified:

• Technical Sciences
• Behavioural and Societal Sciences
• Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences


Study and work background:
Ph.D. Physics and MBA
KPN Research
TNO, founded ICT4D team in 2006

Reserve officer civil-military battalion
since 2010

Private:
Living in Rotterdam, married with two kids
Hobbies: mountaineering, running


Response cards


What do you study?

1. International Hospitality Management
49%
2. Media and Entertainment
Management
3. Creative Therapy
4. Other 35%

14%

3%

1 2 3 4


What is your favorite topic?
1. Geopolitics and International
42%
Relations
2. Comprehensive Analysis of Conflicts
3. Humanitarian Response and Actors 34%

4. Planning & Project Management
5. Service Provision Logistics and
Operations
6. ICT related innovation for
humanitarian assistance

11%

5% 5%
3%

1 2 3 4 5 6


Have you travelled already to an emerging
country?
44%
1. Africa
2. America
3. Asia
4. Not yet..

23%
18%
15%

1 2 3 4


Are you thinking of pursuing a career in the
humanitarian aid sector?
1. Yes 42% 42%
2. No
3. Maybe

16%

1 2 3


Which percentage of humanitarian aid workers
goes on a second mission? 39%
1. 80%
2. 60% 34%
3. 40%
4. 20%
24%

3%

1 2 3 4


Up- and downward accountability
>> SMS


Empowerment of beneficiaries >>
Cash transfer programming + local procurement


Financial services for the Base of the Pyramid
>> Mobile banking (M-Pesa)


Developing country

Beneficiaries Consumers

“Technology can be a major force to advance financial inclusion, which can help
improve the lives of the poor in the developing world.”
– Bill Gates


However, technology is Just One Part

Physical Human Social Financial Digital
building, education, institutions, operational costs, hardware,
goods, computer literacy, norms, maintenance, software,
transport, motivation, political support training connectivity,
roads awareness content


In the Developed World…

Digital
Physical Human Social Financial
hardware,
building, education, institutions, operational costs,
software,
goods, computer literacy, norms, maintenance,
connectivity,
transport, motivation, political support training
content
roads awareness


In the Developing World…

Digital
hardware,
software,
connectivity,
content


Vision
A connected world supporting poor people in developing and emerging
countries to create their own sustainable future

Pro-poor (inclusive) ICT innovations IMPACT

Mission
Together with strategic Western and Southern partners, we develop and
apply pro-poor ICT innovations following a market based approach that
empower people to become from beneficiaries consumers and
entrepreneurs and that contributes to sustainable social and economical
development.


Focus areas TNO ICT4D team:

• Empowered Living, Working
and Learning



Developing country

Humanitarian aid
Aid and action designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain
and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies
Differs from development aid, because of:

•Humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence
•Short-term in nature, immediate aftermath of a disaster

>> In practice it is often difficult to say where ‘during and in the
immediate aftermath of emergencies’ ends and other types of assistance
begin


There are no scraps of man


Empowerment
A person or organisation is empowered when these three elements are
available:

– Information: knowledge, data
– Skills: know how to…
– Drive: ambition, urgency, entrepreneurial, passion

(and the power relations make it possible)

Examples
• Autonomous and self-managing learning
• Open Data
______________________
Own responsibility


Empowered Living, Working and Learning

• Empowered Working:
• Mental Resilience
• Security incident social network

• Empowered Living:
• FP7 project VOICES: VOIce-based Community-cEntric mobile
Services for social development

• Empowered Learning:
• Conn@ct.now, new media for children in War


Mental Resilience
• Work has been done on how to train mental resilience for the military, but not
(much) yet for humanitarian aid workers
• However similar problems…, similar preparation possible?


The problem (1) Turnover during training for marines: 30-60%

1.Quality of the training
2.Self confidence
3.Dealing with problems

Intent to stop Turnover

29
Mentally stronger military 29


Military confirms Afghanistan's
"invisible" tragedy (16-11-11) The problem (2)
A just released Canadian Forces report says almost
one in three Kandahar vets has sought some degree
of mental health treatment. The most mentally- Mission impossible? The
damaged are about 8% with difficult to treat
"Afghanistan-related PTSD." Another 5% have what impact of humanitarian aid
the army calls Operational Stress Injury (OSI). context and individual features
on aid worker retention
Findings are for example: only 40% of MSF aid
Veel militairen Uruzgan workers goes on a second mission.
kampen met mentale
problemen (15-10-11)
Zeker zestienhonderd Nederlandse militairen
die op missie zijn geweest naar het Afghaanse Humanitarian Relief Workers and
Uruzgan, zeggen na terugkomst te kampen Trauma-related Mental Illness
met mentale problemen.
Ze hebben last van flashbacks van Relief workers, compared with the general population,
gevechtsacties, woedeaanvallen en experience elevated trauma rates and suffer from
depressies en veel militairen zijn kort na de more posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and
missie overmatig gaan drinken. Twintig anxiety. Organizations that employ relief workers
procent van de militairen slaat de hulp die ze have varying approaches to train for these risks, and
van defensie krijgen aangeboden af. more support in the field is needed. .

Phases: from healthy to sick

Optimal Reacting Wounded Ill

• Top achievements • Irritated • Feelings of guilt • Depression and fear
• Positive attitude • Can no longer handle it • Reduction of energy • Anger/agression
• Engaged • Sleeping problems • Fear • Danger for yourself and
• Takes on challenges • Tense • Losing interest others
• Concentration problems • Social isolation

Deployabe Continuous stress Not deployable

Moments for intervention

Optimal Reacting Wounded Ill

• Top achievements • Irritated • Feelings of guilt • Depression and fear
• Positive attitude • Can no longer handle it • Reduction of energy • Anger/agression
• Engaged • Sleeping problems • Fear • Danger for yourself and
• Takes on challenges • Tense • Losing interest others
• Concentration problems • Social isolation

Deployabe Continuous stress Not deployable

Employee, Manager, Colleague, Family (Medical) Professional aid
Social Medical Team (Geestelijk Verzorger,
Bedrijfsmaatschappelijk Werker, Doctor, Psychologue)

Education Coaching & Treatment &
& Training early therapy Re-integration

Mental resilience engages on the whole trajectory

High Performance Empowerment
Mental aspects and leadership


Biofeedback game

Psychophysiology

3. Cognition: Consciousness
• Evalution of situation
• Match situation to earlier situations
• Select/adapt behaviour
(in relation to coping strategies)

2. Mobilise!: Hormones
• Energetic means for a continued
stress reaction
• Protection of indivudual against first
(physical) reaction
(Relation with biomarkers, feedback
therapy)

1. Reflexes
• ‘Flight or fight’: immediate safety


Security incidents

The problem:
Amount of incidents with field workers has increased. NGOs leave
countries that are marked as unsafe, whereas the specific area they
are active in might be safe enough. Developmental work is stopped
and the local community left behind


Lead Incident sharing system for ngo’s


Sneak preview
newest version
Centre for Safety
and Development

Any feedback on the
current design?!

Empowered Living, Working and Learning

• Empowered Working:
• Mental Resilience
• Security incident social network

• Empowered Living:
• Voice based mobile technology to reach illiterates

• Empowered Learning:
• Conn@ct.now, new media for children in War


Voice based services for the Base of the Pyramid

Rapid growth of ICT services in developing countries
>> Opportunities and challenges

The Mobile Web for Social Development Roadmap indicated
two main challenges
Locally relevant content
Access barriers (low end mobiles, connectivity, illiteracy, visual disabilities,
language)

The VOICES project aims to tackle the access barrier with
voice based services
>> This approach can be used for relief as well as for development aid


FP7 project VOICES: VOIce-based Community-
cEntric mobile Services for social development
Voice technology
Business knowledge
knowledge

VOICES services
toolbox

m-Health Pilot m-Agro Pilot Mobile Training Lab

Example Marc van den Homberg, 21032012

development

VOICES

Example Marc van den Homberg, 21032012

relief


Conn@ct.Now program of War Child, Child Helpline
International, RNTC, T-Mobile and TNO

Goal:
Enable children in conflict zones to give a perspective to their future
using ICT and Media

Where:
Sudan, DR Congo, Burundi, Uganda


Conn@ct.now


“My name is Dembe, and I am Concentration problems
from Uganda. I like to go to
school, but I find maths very
difficult. Often, I have to think so Explaining mathematics
long that I get distracted and start Overcrowded
to talk to my friends. My teacher
then gets angry with me as she classrooms
always hears me, even though we
have 50 students in our class. I
wish there was a more fun way to
learn maths”.


“My name is Mary, and I am a
school teacher. Although I love my
work, I have such a lack of
resources and so many pupiles -
over 50! - that I cannot give them
the attention they need. I get really
frustrated that I know that some of
them will not have the knowledge
they need when they finish school.
My husband always comforts me
by saying that there is only so
much I can do. But still, I wish I
could do more”.

Lack of resources
Overcrowded classrooms
Children left behind
Teacher frustration


Struggling learners

Little support from parents
Parents are not there
Parents did not go to school themselves

Little support from teachers
There are not enough teachers
There are many children per teacher
Teachers are not always well educated

Approach
Strong basis
Explicit instruction
Engagement


E-learning System

Personal lesson plan per day per child

Within personal lesson plan, control for child

Child can move on if learning goal is mastered
Know how to do it
Can do it easily
Can do it automatically

Exercises and mini-games based on the real world

Work together, if possible


Contents

• Introduction

• ICT and its relation to humanitarian aid
• Three examples of ICT innovations
• Role of ICT
• Vision and mission

• ICT themes in relation to humanitarian aid
• Empowered Living, Working and Learning


From open data to open development

• Open development
• Open data
• Examples
• Open data and earth observation


Open development
“An emerging set of possibilities to catalyze positive change through
open information-networked activities in international development”

Possibilities are for ngo’s to increase:
their transparency and accountability (e.g. open data)
their efficiency (e.g. data management, data sharing)
participation of stakeholders (e.g. social games)
collaboration with stakeholders (e.g. crowdsourcing)

Open data is first step towards open development


Open data
“The comprehensive availability and accessibility of development flow
information in a timely and comparable manner that allows public
participation in government accountability”


Open data in raw format


Example efficiency + collaboration +
transparency (UN OCHA)


Example efficiency + transparency (Worldbank)


Other leads…
External transparency and accountability
(NGO/MinDevAid)


External transparency and accountability
(NGO sector)


Open data in combination with earth
observation


Monitoring internal displacement Harare, Zimbabwe

Quickbird 25 August 2004

Quickbird 2 August 2005
© DigitalGlobe, Inc. (2004, 2005)


ICT related innovations for humanitarian
assistance: conclusions and wrap-up
A mighty interesting, challenging and rewarding area to work in!

ICT on its own is no silver bullet, all other dimensions of the ecosystem
have to be taken into account as well

Very important to co-create with all (crucial) stakeholders, especially the
beneficiaries. It is all about empowerment.

Often reverse innovation or cross-fertilization possible from South to
North
Green field situation, e.g. M-Pesa

Marc van den Homberg,

Questions?? Ideas? 21032012

Jump in!

Feel free to contact me at:

+31 6 51069884
marc.vandenhomberg@tno.nl

Humanitarian Assistance: ICT related innovations

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