March 31, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Aid organizations providing relief after the earthquake and tsunamis in Indonesia have tested a new tool — a 50-pound suitcase that opens up to provide a ready-to-go computer network and access to the Internet — that they hope they can use to quickly set up relief operations after future emergencies.
Over the past year, NetHope — a consortium of 15 international organizations, including CARE, Habitat for Humanity International, Relief International, and World Vision, that are trying to adapt technology to improve their relief efforts — has been working with Cisco Systems and other technology companies to develop the NetReliefKits.
Each kit can link up to 50 laptops on a wireless network, connect to the Internet using a mobile satellite terminal included in the kit, and support wireless phones and phone lines in which messages move over the Internet. Designed to be transported over rugged terrain, the kits can be powered by battery or generator.
Information technology too often takes a back seat in the early days of an emergency response, says Paul J. Cunningham, director of management-information technology for Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore.
After a disaster, he says, relief workers sent to assess an area often have just a laptop and a wireless or satellite phone for communications. They then cobble together makeshift computer and communications systems and may not establish formal systems until the organization begins to move into the long-term reconstruction phase of its response — which may be two or three months after the initial crisis.
“But as the emergency response begins to build up, there’s a real need for better collaboration, information sharing, for passing files back and forth, for e-mail, and for better telecommunications,” says Mr. Cunningham. “So we were looking for something that would help us bridge that gap.”
ActionAid, Catholic Relief Services, and World Vision are among the organizations to use the NetReliefKits in Indonesia.
NetHope was founded in 2002 by Dipak Basu, a Cisco employee who worked at Save the Children as part of the company’s nonprofit fellowship program.
NetHope members say that while the technology projects they work on together are critical, they also value the opportunity to talk to their peers at other organizations.
In addition, NetHope gives international organizations the ability to approach corporations together, rather than as lone charities, to ask for donations and to negotiate purchases.
Rui Lopes, director of networks, operations, and support at Save the Children, in Westport, Conn., says it was difficult for his organization to get a good deal on satellite equipment and bandwidth on its own. But, “lo and behold,” he says, “the minute we band together we represent a completely new level of income and interest to these providers.”
For more information: Go to http://www.nethope.org.
