Tony Surma: Is there
anybody here from
Microsoft who can help?
(laughter)
Tony Surma: So while she's
pulling that up on behalf
of Microsoft and all of
our employees, who quickly
turn into volunteers
whenever there's a natural
disaster, thank you for
the opportunity
to be here and present what we do.
In fact, one of the folks
that's going to come
up in a minute and talk is
actually one of our
employees who saw a need,
created an innovation,
and ultimately we're now
announcing
this as a proactive solution we
have to deploy
for natural disasters.
Much like the previous
folks had mentioned,
we focus on what we can do
before a disaster,
not what we could do after.
Certainly we need to
do things after
and we support emergency
responders and everyone,
individuals, after a
disaster,
but it's in preparation, it's in
building resilience
where the real impact
that we can make.
From our point of view,
what
we do is we focus on how we can
help both
organizations and individuals.
We do this in three areas.
The first thing is
with technology.
Microsoft has lots
of products,
lots of technology, lot
of capabilities.
How do we create the right
kind of licenses
and the right kind of capability
so we can deploy
those technologies quickly and
without cost
to those that are impacted?
We do this both for
response organizations,
such as yourselves, as
well as our customers,
our partners, and companies
who aren't
our customers, because we know
as soon as those individual
businesses can get up
and running
then the neighborhoods, the
communities
can get back up and running.
The next thing we do is
we use our consulting
services, our technical
expertise
to help people restore systems,
help people build new systems
in time of response, and
also create systems
that scale much farther
than they need.
The last thing we do is
focus on how
do we take our web presence, how
do we take our employees,
our partners, and our
customers, and help them
understand where are the
needs, where are the
response organizations,
the non-profits, and how
do we take the generosity
of everybody who's looking
to donate time, looking to
donate goods,
and looking to donate money and
get that to the right place.
As I mentioned we're going
to talk today about
what we're doing with a new
offering
in our portfolio of those
rapidly deployable solutions.
So Mark Margolis is going
to come
up and talk about how he started
finding a solution
and ultimately turning it into something
that we proactively can deploy.
Mark Margolis: Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Mark Margolis,
and
I'm from Microsoft in the U.K.
 I'm here today to
talk to you about the power
of social communities, of
online social networks
in helping the rehabilitation
of survivors
in the event of a disaster.
I'm here today to talk to
you about this picture
you see behind me and about
the story
that led me having this picture
taken a couple of months ago.
On the 7th of July, 2005,
on my way to work a suicide
bomber detonated
his rucksack a few feet away
from me killing 26 people.
In the following days I
tried to make
sense of what was happening to
me, I tried to make
sense of my thoughts and
my feelings.
And so with other
survivors I created
an online community, such
that we had a place
to go to offer help, get help,
get access to information.
This online community
enables people to post
messages, like messages,
collaborate together, work
together on complicated
medical forms;
for survivors it quickly
became our rock,
the place that we would go to,
to get access to information.
For survivors it gave us
an opportunity
to give back to those
that needed it.
After the Boston
Marathon bombing
I immediately saw where I could
help, and I called
up the Boston Public Health
Service, immediately
offered the Yammer network for them.
And it was a real
privilege
for me to go and visit firsthand
and see firsthand the benefit
that it provided the survivors
of the Boston bombing.
And it was that evening
that I was invited
to a fundraiser that I will
remember for the rest
of my life, and I got a
chance to meet first
responders and
survivors as well.
And I think this picture
perfectly represents
the power of technology and
its ability
to bring people together in the
face of a disaster.
What you'll see here on
my hands are the words,
"We're not afraid," which
was a social term
that came out shortly after
7/7, a way that the city
of London came together
to show solidarity.
On the right there you'll
see Dave with the words,
"Boston strong," again
another social
term showing the strength
of the city of Boston coming
together at such an awful time.
And in the middle is
Jeremy from the Boston
Public Health Service,
an administrator
of the social network with
the words Yammer,
the technology that brought
us all together.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to bring up Dave
to tell you a little
bit more about his
usage of Yammer.
(applause)
David Fortier: Hey,
thank you, guys.
I was injured at the site
of the first explosion
in Boston at the marathon,
and after everything
happened I was very quiet.
And all of us, many of the
survivors
that day were inundated with emails.
All very well wishing and
wishing to help,
but a lot of the messages got
lost in those days,
in those weeks, and in the
couple months that preceded
the -- after the bombings.
And for us we had -- we
formed a support group,
several of the folks
that were --
had similar injuries.
I've lost some hearing, I
have some shrapnel wounds,
and I was able to connect
with others that
were injured in a similar way
through the use of Yammer
when it was introduced
about four months after.
We were able to connect
with people
that are around the country
that were there that
day, folks that were injured
in a similar way.
We now -- I think one of
the biggest things
we've been able to see is we've
been able to collaborate
with each other through
utilizing Yammer.
It's a -- being -- it's a
private network we're
all able to share things
with each other that
we normally wouldn't share
on maybe a form
of social media that many
people can see.
And it's allowed me, most
recently,
to find a doctor in Boston
that's new to the area that's
actually going to be able to
help
me with some of my hearing loss.
Similarly I've got a
friend that was injured
as well; that person
now has this doctor.
So without that being
available
to us the chances of my finding
that doctor probably
would not have happened.
So I can't say thank you
enough,
and thank you to the power of
something that's there
that has the ability to be
implemented
on day one after a disaster for
people to be able to use.
And as a user of it we
still use it today.
We actually used it --
several folks that
were injured last year at the
-- or injured in 2013
at the marathon trained for,
and actually
ran the Boston Marathon this year.
There were 28 people
that were injured
at the marathon in 2013 that
trained
for and completed the marathon
this year.
Twenty-five of those
people had never
run more than 10 miles before.
And I say that because
we utilized Yammer
as a private way to
train together.
Half those people were
not from the Boston area,
they were from around
the country.
And we were able to
utilize that virtual
private network for some
really good reasons.
So thank you, guys,
and thank all of you.
Thanks.
(applause)
Tony Surma: So again,
thank you, Mark,
and thank you, Dave.
And it's exactly stories
like that we know
forms what we can do with
technology;
so the transformation and
the power of it.
So what we're announcing
today is the innovation
he started with, we deployed
in Boston,
we've really created into a
proactive solution
that we can move quickly on.
So we can deploy this
within hours,
maybe a day as opposed to
months, as we saw in the past.
We can do this quickly and
we can also
do this at national and
worldwide scale.
And so the focus here is
that how you can --
if you jump to the next slide.
If you want to find out
more about this
or any of our offerings, you
want to know how to deploy it,
it's not just something
you can go download.
We need to work on
deploying this
and getting it to the right folks.
So the best thing is, is
that work with
your local contacts for your
local community affairs
at Microsoft, any account
relationship
and such, and they will connect
you with my team.
If you don't know who that
is or you don't have
that connection my email
address, hopefully
you can read it up there, is
tony.surma@microsoft.com.
Please email me, we'll get
you connected
to the right folks, and we'll
let you know about this offering
as well as all the others
so you can build
a kit of what you want to do
with Microsoft technology
so we can enable great
stories like this.
Again, thank you
for your time today.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Wow, that
was really a pretty
incredible story about
survivors helping
survivors, and a great way
to kick off this event.
And our next speaker is
from TaskRabbit,
Vice President of Technology.
Kevin, do you
mind coming up?
(applause)
Kevin Busque: Hi,
thanks for having me.
A little bit
about TaskRabbit.
Task Rabbit is really a
consumer
internet startup in San Francisco.
Our primary goal -- if
I could get the slides.
Thanks.
So we're a consumer
internet startup
based in San Francisco.
Our primary goal is to
create
a marketplace that's safe and
efficient to connect local
service providers with those
that are in need of assistance.
We're currently in 19
cities in the U.S.
and one international
city, London.
We have approximately
2 million customers
and 30,000 TaskRabbits,
known as taskers.
Great.
So TaskRabbit the organic
platform is used everyday
as the medium to help
local individuals
find the people that they need
to get something done
in and around their home.
What we seen in the past,
especially
in Hurricane Sandy, that people
essentially
use the platform to get really
meaningful things done
in a very creative way.
So what we did we actually
built a system that
would enable us to essentially
take the task
and the payment options out of
TaskRabbit
the organic platform, and we're
releasing
this to first responders coming up.
So I'd also like to
introduce
you to the actual taskers.
These are the people
that
are on the platform everyday,
they do work everyday
in and around their communities
in a local sense.
Their makeup is about 60
percent female,
50 percent male, they're highly
educated and they're really motivated.
And these are exactly the
people
you want helping you out in a crisis.
They're also the same
people
that have volunteered to help
out in those crises
free of charge, and they're just
going to use our platform
to essentially make
that connection.
So the problem is how
do you find trusted
and skilled individuals in the
wake of a disaster,
and how do you organize them
on a single effort?
So today I'd like
to introduce
you to TaskRabbit for
First Responders.
What we've built is a
simple,
lightweight mobile interface.
It works on any
web-capable device.
It has simple inputs, and
very smart assumptions.
We take advantage
of Twilio.
We use all mediums
available --
SMS, Push, email; whatever it
takes to get the message across.
The taskers actually have
this device already,
so these people are already
available,
they already know how to use
this device.
They essentially run their
lives from this device,
and this is how they
source their work
on a daily basis.
So they're already ready
and engaged
in the platform.
So today we're going to
release a new portal.
This isn't vaporware, this
is actually available.
This is the web interface,
it's also mobile
responsive and very
lightweight,
and it's very quick.
Essentially all you have
to do is name
your need inside of -- you can
put the location.
It's all geo located, all
of the taskers
are alerted based on their location.
You can say how many
you need, one to five.
We made some smart
assumptions; five to 10,
10 to 20, and then 20
plus,
and the date and time.
And it's typically
now, right?
Like you're in the
disaster
and you need help immediately.
So all of this stuff is
prefilled --
now, tomorrow -- and you can
also describe your task.
And the cool thing
about this
is the more information you put
into this description
box we can actually source those
TaskRabbits
based on those skills.
We have the technology on
the backend to actually
match people that say you
need shovels --
we were just talking about
that this morning.
We know who the gardeners
are,
they have the shovels, and we
can alert those
people in real time.
So this is what the alert
would
look like in their device.
This is just a basic
Push Notification.
It's also -- we do SMS as
well as regular email.
In the same portal you can
actually get the feedback,
which we think is
really important.
So these are the taskers
that have confirmed
that they are going to help and
rally around your cause,
and they can set -- you've
already
set the date and time so you
know when they'll be there.
But this also allows you
to end the engagement
so you don't have people
showing up after the fact.
It also allows you
to message
any of the committed
TaskRabbits, taskers to
essentially
if you need to change your
location or date or time.
That's about it.
Thank you.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Thanks
so much, Kevin.
How many of you guys
depend on volunteers
in the wake of a disaster?
That's a lot
of you guys (laughs).
Well it's great that we
can get those
resources out to you guys
through
a platform like TaskRabbit.
So our next speaker is
going to be addressing
the need for transportation.
If you're noticing,
there's a theme here.
This is the sharing
economy theme
and survivor support theme.
So, Padden.
(applause)
Padden Murphy: Thank
you very much, Brian.
So I'll just jump
right into it.
My name's Padden Murphy,
and I head up public
policy at Getaround.
So as you all know, in the
kind of immediate
hours and days following a
disaster, it's really
important that folks can
get help and supplies
to people who are in need,
and also
so that folks can get out of the
disaster if they've perhaps
lost a home or lost
their vehicle.
So this is where
Getaround can be helpful.
Getaround is a
peer-to-peer car sharing
platform that allows you
to instantly find,
rent, and unlock vehicles in
your neighborhood
all from your mobile device.
So if you own a car you
can share your
car when you're not using it to
make additional income,
and if you want to live
car free
you can walk outside and find a
car on your street and find it,
rent it, unlock it
from your phone.
So it's safe,
secure, and insured.
So here's a quick slide
just showing how simple
it is, but I'm happy to
announce today
that we are following up on our
commitment
that we've made to Brian and to
the community that
in the event of a disaster we'll
basically
a three-point policy.
So we have made a web
portal that
will be customized for the
disaster
and the location of the
community specifically where
something has occurred,
and that basically
will do a number of things.
It will educate the
community
about how they can find a car or
a truck if they need it.
And it will also
importantly educate
folks how to share their vehicle
if they
have one available very quickly.
And then it integrates
directly
into the Getaround platform.
The second thing that
we've committed
to doing similar to what
TaskRabbit has said is that
we'll notify our entire
community via SMS,
push notifications, and email
of owners
to, if they can, make their cars
and trucks available,
and if possible at a much lower
price, if not free.
And the final thing that
we're committing
to is that Getaround will waive
its commission
during the disaster.
And we're doing this
because, you know,
one, it's our civic
responsibility,
but also Getaround doesn't
own any cars.
It's -- all of the car
owners
and all of the renters are of
the communities.
They're within the cities
where we operate,
so it's definitely a part of our
culture
and part of our commitment.
So here's the web portal.
It's very basic.
This just does
three things.
It integrates directly
into the Getaround
platform, but importantly
it educates folks
who might not already
be a renter.
So it walks them through
exactly how they
can get a car, and if someone does
own the car it pushes to the product.
But importantly it also
allows
us to get their information so
that we can waive
the commission on the backend.
And so here's what it
looks like from the
renters perspective, and
I actually am a Getaround
owner so you're looking
at my real profile
here and car; it's a little
Smart car in San Francisco.
But the app is
free to download.
There's no registration
fee or anything like that.
All you need is a Facebook
account,
a valid driver's license, and
a credit card.
You download it, you find
a car nearby
you, you look at the profile,
and you rent it.
And then you can unlock,
get in the car, and get
supplies or folks
where they need to be.
From the owner perspective
the web portal will
just push you right into the
sharing your car page.
And it's really easy,
again, free to sign up.
All you need is a
Facebook login to get in.
And then you just create a
car profile,
a few photos, a description of
your car, the location,
and the price.
And this is exactly what
the owners will see.
So currently, today we are
ready to follow
up on this commitment in San
Francisco, Portland,
Chicago, San
Diego, and Austin.
But throughout 2015 we'll
be launching major market,
so we'll be coming to you.
But I also want to
make myself available.
Please reach out to
me, my email is padden,
P-A-D-D-E-N,
@getaround.com,
or you can learn more at
getaround.com
or just download the
app; it's free.
But we're excited to
helping as we move
forward, and working
together with
you in advance is important
because there are folks
who will have trucks and
cars who it might
not make sense to share normally
on the platform.
But if you own, you
know, a nursery
or a construction company and
you have a whole fleet
of vehicles, and your
employees
do you're probably not going to
share them on Getaround
normal 9:00 to 5:00, but
in the event
you're going to want to help.
And that's where we can do a lot of educating
in communities on the
front end with you.
So thank you very
much for your time.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Thank you
so much, Padden,
and that was fantastic.
Our next speaker is
Molly Turner,
who is the director of Public
Policy and Civic Partnerships
at Airbnb, here to make a
great announcement about
how we're going to -- how
they can help address
housing in the
wake of a disaster.
(applause)
Molly Turner: Hi.
I'm also joined on the
stage by two wonderful partners.
If you just introduce
yourselves?
Alicia Johnson: Good
afternoon, my name's
Alicia Johnson.
I'm the resilience and
recovery manager for the
City of San Francisco.
Carmen Merlo: And I'm
Carmen Merlo,
I'm the director of the Portland
Bureau of Emergency Management
in Portland, Oregon.
Molly Turner: Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm Molly
Turner, director
of civic partnerships at Airbnb.
Let's see, we got our
fancy new slides here.
As you all know, after
a disaster it is really
critical to provide
housing to displaced
survivors.
Several of them are able
to stay with friends or
family; however, that
might be far away from
home or away
from their work.
Most others are left
with few options,
but emergency shelters.
Additionally, relief
workers also have
difficulty finding housing
when they arrive
in the affected area
ready to help.
Well, many members of
Airbnb's global community
are both willing and able
to open their homes
to their displaced neighbors.
And that's why I'm here on
stage today,
to talk about Airbnb's new
disaster relief initiative.
The idea came from our
community
in New York when Super Storm
Sandy hit the East Coast
in 2012 we wanted to help.
So we quickly hacked our
website to allow
1,400 Airbnb hosts to open their
homes and cook meals
for their displaced neighbors.
We were inspired by their
stories and challenged
to build an initiative that
would make
it easier for anybody to open
their homes to those
in need for free anywhere
in the world.
So how does it work?
Let's say an earthquake
were
to hit Washington D.C. today, a
rare occurrence,
but we know it can happen, and
thousands
of homes sustain damage.
If you happen to live in a
home in the region that
is doing okay, and you have
extra space, you can go to
our website and click 'I'd
like to offer my space.'
If you're an existing
Airbnb host it will copy
all of the information
from your existing
listing; your pictures,
your profile information,
all of your contact
information,
and previous reviews, your
address, et cetera, et cetera.
If you've never hosted
before it will direct
you to our make your listing
page,
which very easily creates a new
profile for you.
You can take pictures with
your iPhone, et cetera.
Let's say you're displaced
and you need
a place to stay.
You go to the same landing
page and click
'I need a place to stay.' If
you're an existing
Airbnb user you can use your
existing profile;
this is my profile.
Again, all of your
information, photos about
you, all of the reviews
from previous hosts
that you've stayed with.
If you've never used
Airbnb before it will take
you to a page where you
create a new profile
and you upload as much
information
as you're able to upload.
You can search for a place
to stay with
all of the same criteria with
which you would search
on Airbnb for a vacation
spot; neighborhood,
proximity to transit, walking
distance to your work,
number of bedrooms.
However, unlike on this
page
it would all be free of cost.
Additionally, we would
provide Airbnb's
24-7 customer support, trust
and safety tools,
$1 million host guarantee,
and all other services
that are regularly
available
to Airbnb hosts and guests.
And Airbnb is in over
35,190 countries worldwide.
So this initiative has
incredible
reach and potential.
In fact since 2012 we've
activated
the initiative in San Diego in
response to major
fires, Serbia, Bosnia, and
Croatia in response
to the Balkan floods, London,
Sardinia, and Colorado
after serious flooding there,
Cephalonia in response
to a major earthquake, Toronto
and Atlanta in response
to severe ice storms, and the
Philippines
in response to Typhoon Haiyan.
But we've learned through
all of this that there's
a lot more that we can do
if we proactively
build relationships with cities
and first
responders and emergency
managers in these regions
before a disaster occurs.
So today I'm very
excited to announce
new partnerships that
will help Airbnb
work collaboratively
with cities
on this community-based model of
disaster
preparedness and response.
We've signed two
memorandums
of understanding, one with
the Portland Bureau
of Emergency Management, and
another with San Francisco
Department of
Emergency Management.
And I'm excited to be
joined
by our partners from these two
cities up here today.
As part of the agreement
we will work
with the two cities before,
during, and after disasters
to do four things.
The first is to identify
Airbnb hosts
in the city who will commit to
opening their homes
in the event of a disaster to
their displaced neighbors
if they're able.
The second is to provide
emergency preparedness
materials to hosts to help
them be the most
prepared folks on the block.
The third, we'll use our
mobile technology
to notify hosts and guests of
any
significant hazardous incidents.
And lastly, we'll help
bring our community
together for emergency
response trainings.
We're excited to work
together with
these cities to help more
residents during an emergency.
But our work in San
Francisco
and Portland is just the start.
This kind of
community-based disaster
preparedness is effective
and we look forward to
working with many more
cities as we move forward.
If you'd like more
information I happen
to have some brochures with
me after the event;
you can find out more.
Thank you very much.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Thank you
so much, Molly and team.
What a fantastic
announcement.
And that concludes the
sharing economy
and survivor support section
of the day,
or the first quarter of the day.
You know, really amazing
to see how impactful sharing
economy companies
can be in the wake of a disaster
and excited to see more
continue with their commitments
to the local communities.
And the next section that
we're going to start
on is crowdsourcing.
And so as many of you saw
in the wake of Hurricane
Sandy and subsequent
disasters,
there was a really big challenge
for improving
situational awareness; in
Hurricane Sandy, for example,
it was with gas stations.
And so what we found is
crowdsourcing
can be an incredibly powerful tool.
And so these next speakers
that will be up here
talking about the tools
that they built
out will talk about how they're
employing crowdsourcing.
And the first speaker
is Ray Bauer from NGA.
He's the technology lead
for Readiness Response
and Recovery Group, and he's
here
to talk about GeoQ, right?
(applause)
Raymond Bauer: Very much
like Brian, right
after Hurricane Sandy I received
a new job,
and I haven't been back since.
And that was to go off
and fix things,
and we're still in the process
of trying
to make things better.
Disasters are very
interesting process
to work, because they're
forever changing,
but there are some common
work flow
and some common thread that
flows throughout.
And that's what we
were trying to solve
when we started to work on GeoQ.
I'm going to talk about
a lot of things, but the common
theme I want you to think about
when you are looking at this is
everything we're
doing is open source.
Everything we're doing
can be used
on any HTML5 viewer.
We believe very much
in crowdsourcing.
Everything is OGC
compliant,
so we also use open standards
and open APIs.
We're working in some new
ideas I'll show you,
like gamification; if works for
my kids
and they can get money in my
pocket doing that, I figure
it can be also a good way to try
and get folks to work harder.
We're going to show a
little
bit about business metrics and work flow.
Next slide, please.
Oh here it is.
Thank you.
So first of all, I want to
thank the director of NGA.
She has allowed NGA to be
the first intelligence
agency to have a Github
site for the agency.
And we've had that open
for about four months now.
We have about nine projects
out there and available.
You can see one is GeoQ.
So this is a whole new
idea of trying
to do business, and putting our
code out there,
and try to work this as a community.
As you can see we've been
building this with FEMA,
the White House Innovation
Fellow Program,
and we're also working with Geo
Huntsville
and some others to develop this
code on a weekly basis.
This is hostable by
any organization.
You can go out to Github
and you can pull
this code down and you can
host it yourself.
We're not going to be
hosting
a server for everyone to hit.
We are going to give out
the code so that
we can have a common tool so
that everyone can use.
Again, it's open and
available, free,
and as you can see, it's
growing, the number of people
that go out and are working
with
us are growing everyday.
There's a few other tools;
also there's
an RFI tool available and
event page tool.
Again, we have 111 folks
who are watching this.
We've had over 24 people
who have taken
a copy of this code, and are
moving forward with it.
So here you have the
beginning
of that work flow I was talking about.
During any emergency we
try to divide
up our disaster into projects,
jobs, and then work cells,
and then this way we
can crowdsource it out.
Here you can see the --
Huntsville
has their page that they stood
up, and this
is their blueprint for safety.
And those red boxes are
the work
areas that they have.
Next, those red areas we
just
saw, we give you many different
ways to divide those
up into work cells.
You can use U.S. National
Grid or military
grid reference system
if you have a certain number
of people or you know
how big you want
the cells to be.
We also allow you
to divide up that.
Or if you have a shape
file or you have some
other way to annotate what
the disaster area
is, you can drag it in, and
it'll automatically divide
it up into these cells.
These cells then can
automatically be assigned
and sent out to
individuals who are in
your work group.
So they get an email,
email can say you have
work, and they click on a
link, and they can
go in and start working on
one of these cells.
We even have it down to
the point where it's,
green cells are completed;
yellow cells are in work.
So at any time we can take
a look and see where
we are in the disaster
assessment process.
We monitor this work
also in real time.
All data that is brought
back into this
tool is then republished
out as an open API.
This open API is available
to anyone who wants
to come in, grab it, and
display
it in any viewer that they have.
Here we have a picture
of -- this is the GeoQ tool itself.
This is what an analyst
would see using
any browser who is
connected to the web.
We have several different
layers that are available.
Whoever sets up the event
can bring
in whatever layers are open and
available for that event.
It can be changed
very quickly
with OGC standards.
We also have built in
social media feeds.
Whoever takes this tool
and then sets
it up, they can bring in
whatever feeds they want,
and during a disaster we
found that there's
a lot of this information that's
very relevant
and very helpful for disaster response.
Talked to you a little bit
about gamification,
trying to get our analysts to
engage to try and do more,
and look at trade craft
to find out who needs
a little more training in
this area and other areas,
who are the more reliable,
who are the analysts
that we need to assign
to certain tasks.
These badges and icons
that
you see at the top are starting
to -- trying to look at how
we can work gamification into
this tool itself.
Customized features,
you can bring
in any structured observation
database that you want,
and again, as long as it's
using an open API,
and then we can display and
use that
to do our data collection.
So we can bring a
commercial satellite
imagery; in the case of
in Oklahoma a year
ago we actually used some
helicopter footage
from news helicopters to bring
that
in to do a terrain assessment,
and actually
use those customized feature to
do our damage assessment.
Impact, here's one of the
products that
we actually used during the
Colorado floods.
It was very quick,
it was very easy.
We had a small
group at that time.
We are looking to
build the community.
We're inviting anyone who
would like to join
us on our Github page to come
visit, come take
a look at the code, come
participate in programming,
come participate in testing, or
come take a copy
of the code and maybe you can
use it in your products
or what you're going to
provide back
to the government, and make them
an even better
tool for all of us.
Thank you very much.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Also want to
recognize Jackie Kazil,
who is a former
presidential innovation
fellow and was one of
the great minds
behind building out GeoQ
with FEMA and NGA.
So just a round of
applause
for Jackie as well.
(applause)
Male Speaker: And
so our next speaker
is representing a
presidential innovation
fellow as well, and had
the foresight
to bring one on board
to the United States Department of Energy.
And here he is to talk
about the tool that they
built out, Lantern Live,
which
was in response to the issues
that we saw in Hurricane Sandy
with identifying which gas
stations had fuel or not.
Deputy Assistant
Secretary Bill Bryan.
(applause)
William Bryan.
Thanks, Brian, and
good afternoon.
As (unintelligible)
mentioned,
Derek Frempong is actually the
brains behind
developing this app.
He had a family emergency
and could
not be here today.
So I was the inspiration,
but he was the developer.
He actually made it happen
so -- and you are going to
see today the slides
that he actually used to brief
the President of the
United States on the app.
So you're getting it
firsthand what
he prepared for the President.
I have to start of by
saying
I had the privilege of being on
the ground during Sandy
with Rick Sereno, first 10 days
after landfall,
seeing firsthand what the
needs were out there.
So Lantern Live was
actually inspired
by some of the lessons learned
during that time
of being on the ground.
One thing certain was
we lacked situational
awareness, a lot of
situational awareness,
particularly in
the area of fuels.
So that was something we
clearly need
to try to make adjustments to
and fix, but I will tell
you that social media
was alive and well.
There were a lot of people
out there talking
about gas stations; who had gas,
who didn't have
gas, where there were power
lines down, where there
were no utility trucks.
And we knew we needed
to capture that.
In some way, shape, or
form it was very clear
that the citizens, the
people, wanted to help.
And we felt we needed to
empower them
to help them help us in going
forward in this.
So we see it as a great
effort,
and if you go to the next slide,
or do I have the next slide?
Oh you got it.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
Lantern Alive, it's
relatively simple,
but here are some of the big
lessons learned
that we had to capture.
First, status of
fuel stations.
As I mentioned before,
people were
out there chasing around fuel
trucks not knowing
where there was gasoline or
where there
was not gasoline, where some
gasoline was being given
out free, other gas they
had to pay for.
The bottom line is
people were kind
of just wandering in the wind
wondering
where there was gasoline available.
Power outages
was another one.
There wasn't a clear
indication of how wide
spread the power outages
were in the area that
was impacted, and people
want to know that.
That's a good indicator;
do I stick around
a little while, do I pack
up and move on?
They want a little more
insight
into the power outages.
And just so you know, a
lot of utility companies
have very elaborate websites
that
a lot of the citizens don't even
know to access
or how to access.
So this app will
help them do that.
There's also the ability
to report outages.
One thing that would
really streamline
restoration is getting
assessments done
immediately after landfall
occurs,
and that is a process that the
utility companies
have to go through, and
sometimes can take two,
depending on the disaster, up
to three days to really
do a good assessment of the
damage to the grid.
So by putting power into
the hands
of the citizens to be able to
take pictures and geo locate
where there's damage to
infrastructure,
and our ability to get that to
the utility
it could potentially speed up
the restoration process.
So that was incorporated.
And also preparedness.
In talking to community
leaders, they --
a lot of these community
leaders, a lot of these mayors
are only in these positions
for just a couple years.
They may never ever see
a disaster,
but the ones that did made the
comment that if we only
knew how to prepare for a
long-term energy outage
that would have made a big
impact of how they would have
prepared their community
going into these events.
So we developed guidelines
for handling
energy outages for community
leaders,
for business owners, and for
home owners,
again all available on the app.
Next slide.
If you look at the gas
pump situation
as far as gas stations, what the
app does is from where
you're located it's going to
tell you within
a two and a half mile radius
what
gas stations are around you.
It's going to be color
coded red, green,
or yellow, determined based
on if they have fuel
or not, or if they're
actually moving product
out of that gas station.
If it's green they have
gas, if it's red they
don't, if it's yellow we
don't quite have enough
data yet to determine.
It's kind of like in
a transition mode.
All right, the algorithm
is built
in there so someone can't sit
there and take their competitor
and keep shutting
their competitor down.
That's not going to be
allowed to happen;
so Derek factored some of
that in there,
but it's good to have.
And so right now it's in a
big beta test that
we have going on right now, and
it seems
to be working very well.
Then there's the
power outage map.
If you go wherever you are
it knows who your utility
provider is based on
your location,
and it'll direct, take you
directly to that energy outage
map for that utility, and
you're going
to be able see firsthand and
have access to that website,
and also be able to
interact with that
utility company either through
phone calls
or reporting outages, reporting
your own personal outage.
It works right now
in my neighborhood.
I can actually work and
deal with my utility
through the app currently
while
we're in beta testing.
So it's a good app to
have,
good piece of the app.
The next one is reporting
power lines
or downed power lines, getting
back to my earlier point.
Sooner we get information
to a utility
and they know what the damage or
the extent of the damage
they know how to better prepare
to go out and
restore and respond to that event.
So after reading a
disclaimer and agreeing
to this disclaimer you're
going to be able
to take a photograph of the
downed power line
or other damaged energy
infrastructure.
It'll go to a private
Twitter account,
it'll just have the geo
location,
it'll be anonymous, we will not
know who sent
it to us, but we're going to
receive that information;
it's geo located, we're going to
be able to get that,
package that, and get it to the
utility
so they could respond to it.
And then finally the tips
and the guides,
and of course tweeting with the
Department of Energy
one-on-one is also part of
that app, but those --
the guidelines that I
mentioned
are already captured in this
app as well.
So I mentioned that it's
in beta test,
and it is, and it has been.
We are now about ready
within the next very,
very near future, probably the
next couple days,
to go into an expanded
beta test.
We plan to do that for
about 30 days
and then open it up to the
general public.
So if you are a . gov
-- if you have . gov
email address, some
out here do,
you can actually subscribe
be part of the expanded beta test.
And you can make that
request by going
to lanternlivebeta@hq.doe.gov .
That's lanternlivebeta,
all one word, @hq.doe.gov,
and we will sign you up.
As soon as we go to the
expanded beta
test you'll be part of that,
again, for about 30 days,
and shortly thereafter we hope
to make
the app available at both the
app store for iProducts,
and of course the Google store
for Android.
So that's all we have.
Thank you very much.
(applause)
Male Speaker: You know,
as Bill mentioned,
it's really amazing when we
get to see some
of these tools, and it's even
more amazing,
as Bill mentioned, that when the
President gets
to see some of these innovative
tools as well
at his most recent hurricane
brief that was publicly stated.
The other thing that we
didn't mention
is Bill is also retiring soon.
And so you know, I think
that's my new sales pitch
to bring folks on to
Innovation for Disaster.
Join Innovation for
Disaster,
retire within two years.
(laughter)
Male Speaker: Our next
speaker is Ryan Mannion,
who is head
of Government Partnerships for SeeClickFix,
and has a very exciting announcement to make.
(applause)
Ryan Mannion: So hopefully
I won't be retiring
in two years, but first I want
to say thank
you to Brian and the entire team
for putting this together.
SeeClickFix is very
honored to even
be part of this conversation,
so hopefully
this presentation gives you a
little bit of insight
in what we do and how we
can help
in a disaster situation.
So as SeeClickFix is a
company,
we work with cities --
municipalities across
the country to actually help citizens
report non-emergency service requests.
Potholes, graffiti,
things of that nature.
And we're currently
working with
191 cities across the country,
including right
here in Washington, D.C. We, in
collaboration with
the Three-in-One department,
built and launched
the D.C. Three-in-One app
two years ago now.
Collaboratively, all of these
cities have reported
1.2 million service requests
on our platform.
And we have an active user
base of 350,000 citizens.
So the question is --
how does
this help first responders?
And it's pretty simple.
It is a day-one, active
user base
for you to tap into in the event of an emergency.
So the platform that
we built is completely dynamic.
And what you see here is
an interactive
geography that covers a vast
portion of the northeast,
in this case, that was hit
by Hurricane Sandy.
What we can do is actually
overlay the service
requests that are common
with the municipal
partners that we have
in this region
with the service requests that
you as first responders
and emergency management
individuals
have targeted as the information
that you need.
So over on the right-hand
side of the screen,
you can see power outage,
damaged
tree, and flooding.
Now these are just
examples,
but we were able to run a proof
of concept of this with the data
that we collected immediately
after Sandy.
One of our developers
retroactively
went into our software and
pulled out the image
that you see here.
And although you can't see
the colors, they are --
there's three different
ones and they represent those
service requests
that I mentioned earlier.
So this is actionable and
clear data that right
now is residing on
our servers.
And so this goes into part
of what we're pledging today.
And what we're announcing
today is that
any management -- emergency
management
entity that wants to have access
to, first and foremost,
control the entire zone or
an entire region
on our mobile app, they
can do that.
And we give free and open
access to our API for
cities to actually -- or
for emergency
management to actually activate
and look into our data.
A remarkable -- so that
was a proof of concept,
what I just showed you.
A remarkable event
happened in Boston when
the marathon was
bombed last year.
We put this idea
into action.
And so, similar to what
Airbnb was talking about
earlier, we put a plea out
in this entire region for
citizens to offer up their
houses to any relatives
that were impacted
by the event.
And what you see here are
normal service
requests the day before building
up -- the week building
up before the marathon.
Again, graffiti, potholes,
things of that nature.
The day after, within 24
hours,
750 people posted their homes on
SeeClickFix.
Now, this is not what our
platform is built for.
This is information that
we're just collecting.
What we want to do is
figure out ways on how we
can work with the Airbnbs
of the world to actually
make this proactive and
actionable information.
So again, this all leads
back around to the concept
of API integrations and
access to open data.
In addition to Hurricane
Sandy
and the Boston Marathon,
SeeClickFix played a unique
and significant role in Moore
when the tornado
it, as well as the Winter
Storm Nemo
that hit the northeast.
In all four of these
occasions,
we collected different types of data.
What we want to do, again,
is make this available
for you all to work with and
control what types
of information are being
collected
through our built-in user base
and our app that's already
active in so many cities
across the country.
So that's it.
It's a pretty quick
presentation,
but I want to thank you again
for your time.
And if anybody has any
questions about
anything that I covered, I'd be
happy to talk
to you more about in the
breakout session.
I would also encourage
you to download
D.C. Three-on-One and
report a pothole
when you leave so that you could
see how
our system actually works.
(laughter)
Thank you.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Thank
you so much, Ryan.
So I'm going to call Bevin
Audible because
we are running a few
minutes late.
So we're going to switch
one speaker
in, so the next speaker is not
David Applegate;
it's actually Dr. Karen DeSalvo,
who's the National Coordinator
for Health and Information Technology
at the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services,
who has a fantastic story
to tell and an announcement to make.
So thank you
so much, Karen.
(applause)
Karen DeSalvo: Well, good
afternoon, everybody.
I'm really delighted to be
here on behalf of HHS
and on behalf of ASPR for
Dr. Nicki Lurie,
who's somewhere enjoying the
world on something
that they call a vacation,
which
I know y'all know nothing about.
This is really an
opportunity
for me to share with you a story
about a successful
collaboration between HHS
and local officials
and the local community
and tell
you some announcements about how
we're working to bring
that to scale and
bring that information
back home to those who need it most.
Before I joined ONC and
HHS about seven months
ago, I was actually the
Health Commissioner
in the City of New Orleans.
I was not Health
Commissioner
at the time that Katrina
happened,
but was Health Commissioner when we were visited
by a couple of other storms, one of which was Isaac.
And while in that role and
when Isaac brought
down our power in our city for
five days,
I was under the enormous stress
of having to find
a way to find those most in need
in our community.
And like most Health
Commissioners,
I relied upon our medical
special needs registry
to identify those in
my community
who would need help evacuating.
Help because there was a
power outage;
help because there was water.
We had a good registry and
we started working
the phones early, but most
people wanted
to evacuate in place even if
they were power-dependent.
And it was quite a
challenge
to get them to let us come get
them and put them
to a medical special needs shelter.
Much less the fact that
when we started
going door-to-door, as many
folks did in Sandy and
other power outages, we
realized that there
were people who were not
registered
who frankly didn't even know
that we existed.
The fact that we had been
standing up on podiums
and telling people to call 311
and get registered
so they could help in a time of
need was really
missing them and missing the mark.
So in partnership with
HHS as part
of the Strong City, Strong
Communities effort,
we developed a protocol and a
plan that would allow
in the event of a disaster durable
medical equipment-needing patients --
excuse me -- in our community to be identifiable.
This was a way that
through a request
to the HHS we could have data
pushed to us in a local
health department that we
could
map and see where those most in
need -- in this case
those who were oxygen-dependent
-- would be and we would have
to focus our resources.
Not just for research
and rescue,
but also for prioritizing power
restoration.
Let me be concrete.
One of the questions
Health Commissioners
get asked in the event of a
power outage
is "Which is these neighborhood
blocks do you want
to turn back on now that we're
moving down the priority list?"
And in the absence
of knowing
where the concentration of folks
who had durable
medical equipment lived, it was
a little bit of a guess.
Much -- A little informed
by our scout work, but
after having the data for
who was oxygen-dependent
helps us prioritize in a
population level
who needs to get the power restored.
The exercise was a wild
success,
if I do say so myself.
We had a terrific
experience
of the data working.
Of the data, 93 percent of
the time actually
really identifying somebody who
was oxygen-dependent
in our community, and we
validated
it by sending teams out to go
door-to-door
for a subset of the 617 folks
who we had identified
in the database.
200 doors we visited,
and we found
it was real people, really on
oxygen, who when we said
we're from the government and
we're here to help
didn't slam the door in our face
and actually were then
willing to get
registered with us.
Of those 617 folks, we
only knew of 15 in our
medical special
needs registry.
So there were more than
600 people, just from that
list in our community in
New Orleans, we would have
missed if we had not had
the opportunity
to use this data from Medicare
to begin to map
and find those most in need.
This effort in New Orleans
was the beginning
of a broader set of initiatives
that HHS is engaged
in, and today I want to tell
you about four
things that we are doing at HHS
that are available
for you to use today and into
the future
to help communities in need on the ground.
The first is that we are
launching
an open data interactive map.
Kristin Finney over
there, raise your hand.
You all can go see her
later today
at our table to learn more about
how you can see the number
of durable-medical-equipment-
using Medicare
beneficiaries in your
community
so that you can reach them in
their time of most need,
when -- not just in disaster role.
Right now in disaster, but
hopefully
over time help them prepare for disaster.
Secondly, we're starting
to roll out nationally
something called Now
Trending,
which is an application that
scours social media
to find out what's trending on
social media
and identify what are the hot
topic issues that could
turn into public health
emergencies and allow
you to do a set of analytics
that can be very tailored
to state and local health
department emergency preparedness needs.
Where's Stacey?
Raise your hand.
I remember working with
you on that when
I was in New Orleans.
Third, back to my city of
New Orleans,
which is one of Rockefeller
Foundation's
100 resilient cities.
This is a project to place
in cities resiliency
officers to focus on
not just response
and recovery, but really
building
up resilience of communities.
And we're going to be
working with
a partnership to help train
those resiliency officers
to know what tools are
available for them
in times of emergency to use
the HHS resources
that we have.
And finally, ONC is --
has made available
on its website the results of
something called
the Search Project, which was
something started in 2010,
where we convened folks
from the Gulf States --
Louisiana, Alabama,
Mississippi, Texas,
Georgia -- to come together
and see what they would be able
to leverage from their
health information exchanges,
from the electronic
health record and clinical data
that was being collected
about patients with
their consent,
and then be useful in the event,
for example,
of evacuation during disaster or
in times of need
if they had to go to other
health sites.
So we are delighted to
share our story of success
about what we did in New
Orleans with Medicare
data to help find those most in
need on durable medical
equipment and share with
you how we are bringing that
information to scale to help
you on the front lines every day.
I encourage you to visit
our table after
the event so you can learn about
where
to get the specifics on the resources.
Thank you all very much.
(applause)
Brian Forde: Well, that
was just fantastic.
Truly amazing and
fantastic commitment.
And it's great to hear
from a local Health
Commissioner, as well.
Who's now come over to the
Federal government,
about the impact that we
can have when we work together.
Our next speaker is now
Dr. David Applegate from
-- the Associate Director
for Natural Hazards,
the U.S. Geological Survey.
(applause)
David Applegate: Well,
thanks, Brian,
and I'm thrilled to be here.
It's great to hear about
some of these
exciting tools that are being
developed
and used in this arena.
You know, for the U.S. Geological Survey,
we're a
science agency
and one of our key jobs is to
provide situational
awareness across a whole range
of different hazards.
When it comes to
earthquakes, volcanoes,
landslides, we're the
direct source for that.
And for a lot of other
hazards, we support
our good friends that know we
provide the eyes and ears.
The stream gauge and storm
surge monitors
for floods, other severe weather.
And of course we're a
mapping agency,
so we provide geospatial
data layers.
And across all these
hazards,
we welcome the help and the
input from the tech community
to find, you know, new and
innovative ways
that we can that authoritative
information
out and get it used by the
emergency management community.
I'm going to be speaking
specifically about earthquakes.
And, you know, there was a
time when
the situational awareness we
provided for earthquakes
was we could tell you that it
happened, where it happened,
and how big it was.
And that's all good
information, but what --
to make it actionable,
you need to know:
where's the shaking most intense; where do we need
to prioritize our efforts;
where do we need to focus?
And so that's what
ShakeMap is all about.
This is showing
a version of it.
It's basically taking
the information
from our seismic networks,
translating
that into intensity.
This is the Los Angeles
area showing
the -- what the ShakeMap would
have been
for the Northridge earthquake.
We just celebrated the
25th anniversary
of that major disaster.
This particular version is
draped over Google Earth.
It's available.
ShakeMaps can be available
in a whole range of
different formats, and
that's something that can
be then pulled down and
adjusted into different systems.
For example, feeding
into FEMA's HAZUS loss estimation.
And part of ShakeMap is
about making
use of our seismic networks, but
it's also about making
use of human
seismometers.
So we've had over 3
million
Felt Reports through our "Did
You Feel It?"
site where people come in,
tell
us -- describe what they've experienced.
And we can, of course,
compare this
to where we do have instrumental
records
and we can see that actually
human seismometers
are pretty good, they're
pretty accurate.
And moreover, they
can provide
a lot of additional grain that
we then feed back
into the ShakeMap for these events.
This is showing the
140,000 "Did You Feel It?"
reports that we got for
the Virginia earthquake
that struck here, that was
felt right here
just a couple of years ago.
It was felt from Maine to
Georgia
all the way out to Wisconsin.
And now we're trying to
find ways
to get that information even
faster, actually tapping
into Twitter feeds.
Although we would like
everybody when
they feel an earthquake to drop
cover and hold on, people
-- well, they may do that,
but they
also Tweet "OMG earthquake"
while they're --
(laughter)
-- somehow managing
to do that.
I'm not quite sure how.
And so we can use the
geolocated
Tweets to actually get us almost
an early detection
on those events.
It also -- what we call
our TED, or our Tweet
Earthquake Dispatch, also
enables us to then feed
the authoritative
information back
into the different social media
streams,
which people want to know what
happened, what's going on.
So we need to be there in
the streams
where they're operating.
With ShakeMap, it really
forms the basis
for a whole suite of different
information
tools that we can provide.
And, of course, the reason
people want to know about
where a hazard is because
of what
it is that's at stake there.
Whether it's facilities,
people, whatnot.
So we developed the
ShakeCast system.
And this is a way to --
for folks to pull
in the ShakeMap, overlay it
against their lists
of facilities, and get a very
rapid estimation of what's
the intensity for what it
is that they care about.
And this is -- it's being
used by a whole range of
emergency managers at
different entities.
For example, L.A.
Unified School
District to the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, to the
California Department
of Transportation.
And more and more -- this
is one of the tools
we very much want to get out
there
and get broadly used.
Again, to be able to
provide
the information in as actionable
way as we can.
We've recently updated the
user interface
to be very mobile-friendly.
With now an increasing
number of the hits
that we're getting coming
through
the mobile platforms, and we've
also moved the back
end to the cloud to be more
nimble and to be able
to better support users for that.
Then the final
ShakeMap-based tool
that I want to mention
here is PAGER.
It's called Prompt
Assessment
of Global Earthquakes for Response.
And just like ShakeCast,
it's moving
from just talking about the
hazard to talking about risk.
Talking about what is
vulnerable,
what's at stake here?
And in this case, it's
providing
a very fast order of magnitude
estimate
of likely fatalities and
economic losses from an event.
And this is sent out to --
this is available within
minutes of the event.
It's useful for not just
governments, but also
relief organizations to
know both when they need
to deploy and when they
don't need to deploy.
Of course, after a
disaster
a lot of times communications are out.
The actual fatality counts
are going to rise,
you know, a few a day.
Then it turns into tens,
hundreds over days
as more and more is learned.
This is a way to try to
get a quick snapshot
of what the likely outcomes
are going to be.
In the case of the Sichuan
earthquake
that struck in China, we had
Save the Children telling
us this sped up their response
efforts in-country
by several days, and that's
the whole purpose
of having these
kinds of tools.
So these are just a few of
the tools that
we have out there in the
earthquake arena.
They're ones that we're
always looking
to innovate, to find new ways
to deliver them,
work with the tech community
again, get our information
put to work.
And of course, for the
emergency management
community, if you're not
using it already
we very much want to work with
you to make that happen.
There's information
about all of these
at earthquake.usgs.gov, as
well
as -- all of these are
applications that are --
can be found on data.gov and
safety.data.gov.
So thank you.
(applause)
Male Speaker: Thank
you so much, David.
Really appreciate it.
And the clicker.
David Applegate: And
I will give you your clicker.
Brian Forde: Thank you.
I'm sure the
next appreciate.
Paul Lemieux is the
-- from the Office
of Research and Development
at the Environmental
Protection Agency, and
is here
to talk about I-WASTE.
(applause)
Paul Lemieux:
Thanks, Brian.
One of the things that we
as a country have
to deal with are disasters of
many kinds, some of which
haven't actually happened
yet, thankfully,
but we may have to face them.
We have natural disasters
like earthquakes,
Hurricane Katrina,
Superstorm Sandy.
You might have industrial
accidents like
the Deep Water Horizon oil
spill,
or foreign animal diseases.
Incidents where you might
have a bird flu outbreak.
Or you might have
terrorist attacks
where they might spread
Anthrax in a city.
And all of these disasters
have one thing in common;
it's that they all
generate waste.
And we really don't want
to have to hassle
with the waste, is -- and have
it interfere
with our ability to do our
recovery operations.
The problem we have with
the waste when you're
dealing with a
disaster is that
we have a set of environmental
laws that
we're all working with that all
have authority
at the local, state, and federal level.
And they're used for
routine management
of waste that we have.
Like our garbage, or if
you have to tear down
a building that has asbestos
in it and you have
to send it off to a special
kind of landfill.
Those are the same
environmental laws that
we have to use during a
disaster, and they're
not really set up for that.
So you have to work with
all of the people across
all the aspects of the
regulatory authorities
in order to make this happen
in such a way that
it protects the people,
protects the environment,
and still compiles with
the relevant regulations.
So we designed the I-WASTE
tool in order
to try to gather together the
information needed
for the decision-makers to make
the appropriate decisions.
And one of the things I'd
to do is give a shout
out to all of the people who
have supported
us in developing this
tool over the years.
This was made by people
across the EPA,
across the federal government,
like FEMA,
Department of Energy.
We brought in some of
the state regulators,
in particular New York State
DEC was extremely helpful.
We had the private sector,
the people who operate
the landfills, the people who
operate the incinerator.
Because when you're
dealing with a disaster,
it's not a routine
situation where
you're just paying the landfill
to take the stuff.
They have to be willing to
accept these materials.
And they found during
the Deep Water Horizon
incident that the routine
waste that went
to the landfills one day no
longer could go there
the next day because they
weren't ready
for handling that quantity.
Or there were potentially
environmental justice
issues related to having a
huge amount
of oily waste being brought into
a potentially impacted
area that might not have
-- that might be disadvantaged.
This tool is out
online right now.
It's directed mainly as
users
for the EPA response community,
the state and local agencies,
and waste management facility
operators.
The idea is we can use
this for training,
for planning, for exercises.
But if there is an actual
incident,
we can then use this as a
starting point to support
the decision-making process
for doing the cleanup.
If you log-on, there's
four main parts.
One of them lets you
develop an inventory
of the waste and identify
where you might send it.
I'm not going to go into
that for this because
it's a little bit more
elaborate of a demo.
The other part is
databases of treatment and
disposal facilities, and
estimator to allow
you to estimate the quantity
of waste that you might
generate from different
types of buildings.
Then you can look and see
based on the incident.
Well, maybe the drywall is
not going
to be going into the waste stream.
So you can eliminate that
from your calculations.
Finally, we've tried to
gather together relevant
guidance that is out
there for people to use.
So if states have
developed emergency
response plans that
has incorporated
waste management, we try to put
a link in there
so they don't have to go hunting
through 10 pages of Google
hits in order to
get the information.
Here's an example of the
waste quantity estimator.
In general, you -- there's
different
types of buildings.
You can plug in how many
square feet
or how many office occupants
there would be for offices,
how many students there would
be for schools,
how many rooms there would be in
different sizes of hotels.
And it will give you a
rough estimate
of how much waste of different
types would be involved
in -- if you had to dispose of
them -- contents of those
buildings or to dispose of
the buildings themselves.
The structural materials.
There's databases
of facilities.
So if, for example, you
generate a lot
of wood waste, it -- you can
look up and find
out where you might be able to
send this material
to a pulp-and-paper mill
boiler,
who -- they could then use it
for energy purposes.
Or if you've generated a
bunch of scrap iron,
where might you send it
off to recycle it?
And it also lets you
filter it based
on the state or the EPA region.
And the EPA regions and
the FEMA regions
are contiguous with each
other,
so that kind of simplifies things.
We also just recently took
these facility
databases and prepared them in
a geocoded format.
So this is downloadable,
and we're working
with the EPA's geo-platform
people and the DHS geo-con
ops folks to try to make it.
So this would be available
in the appropriate
formats to any of the users
of those platforms.
Finally, there's a library
of relevant guidance.
And you can search it out
based on key words
and it will return either a link
to the article
or the original article.
We tried to gather
together
as many of the original sources
as possible.
It's online right now.
There's the URL.
You should be able to get
on and get an account,
and I'd be happy to answer
any questions
in the post room, or whatever
we call it.
Finally, I'd like
to put a plug in.
This is not the only
tool
the EPA has been developing for
these types of purposes.
And there's additional
things
out on the www.epa.gov/research
website
that are publicly available.
And I'd encourage
you to search it out.
It's got some pretty
good search capability.
So it's not as hard
to find as some
of the other things within other
parts of the government.
Thank you.
(applause)
Brian Forde: Thanks
so much, Paul.
I think what's fantastic
is if you look through
that whole group talking
about crowdsourcing,
four out of the five
presentations
are actually from the government.
Which is interesting,
because most people
don't think about the government
as a great
platform for crowdsourcing.
But actually they
are one of the original crowdsourcers.
Back in, I believe, the
late 1800's
and the head of the Smithsonian
started crowdsourcing weather
data across America, and then
later across
the Caribbean and Latin America
which became the foundation
for the National
Weather Service.
So we've been
crowdsourcing
for a few years, and it's great
to see new tools continue
to build to leverage the
knowledge of the crowds.
So we're about to
transition to open data.
So a couple quick things,
one, if there's
a seat next to you that's empty
-- if you can't
see from the livestream, it's
actually really
packed in here.
And so there are -- Looks
like there's
a couple of empty seats.
If there's a seat next to
you that's empty,
just raise your hand so that
someone
can come in and grab a comfy seat.
We got a few hands here.
So just come on in
and grab a seat.
(laughter)
This is -- We're open
sourcing,
crowdsourcing seat locations here.
Fantastic.
And also just take a
second to kind
of stretch out a bit as we head
into the second part
of the day, which is open data.
So our next speaker is
Dr. Meredith Lee
who is also one of the co-leaders
of the White House Innovation
for Disaster Response
and Recovery Initiative.
And has been an incredible
partner
to the White House in all of her
work and represented
the Department of Homeland
Security Science
and Tech incredibly well.
And this event would not
have happened
without her support.
So I just wanted to take a
moment to thank Meredith
for all of her work.
(applause)
And she'll be presenting
the future site
of disasters.data.gov which
will be a new data
initiative that we'll be
working on to highlight
a lot of these tools and
a lot of the data that's here.
And so we're excited to
give you a preview,
but we wanted to give you a
preview to actually
incorporate and start to
crowdsource
some of the ideas.
So to present all of these
to the preview
is Meredith Lee.
(applause)
Meredith Lee: Hello.
Can everyone hear me okay?
Great.
So today the Innovation
for Disaster Response
and Recovery Initiative, in collaboration
with the team at data.gov, is
very excited to share
a preview of disasters.data.gov,
a new portal.
If you could
load the preview?
Excellent, thank you.
This site will feature
disaster-related
data sets, as well as
tools built by innovators
in the private as well as public
sector to improve
disaster preparedness, response,
and recovery.
We're currently building
out a Get Involved
section for developers, tech
entrepreneurs,
first responders, survivors,
and volunteers.
This section will feature
challenge statements
and can highlight how those
who want
to get involved can shape and
actually tap into technology
innovation in new ways.
We would love, as Brian
said, to have
your feedback to make sure that
this site is helpful
to you and to ensure that it
highlights tools that
you can leverage now.
Before, during, and
after disasters.
We've started creating
content and are thrilled
by the magnitude and the
frequency
of the support with over 100
different tools coming in.
Countless emails just
in the last few weeks.
So on behalf of the open
data enthusiasts
and civil servants behind this
growing initiative,
thank you so much for your
contributions thus
far and please keep sending your
thoughts, data, and ideas.
We look forward to
continued collaboration
in the following weeks,
months, years,
and for those
of us who are new to government, possibly decades.
(laughter)
And we are grateful that
you are here in person
as well as virtually.
Today is just the
beginning
of what's to come.
Thank you.
(applause)
Brian Forde: Awesome.
Thank you so
much, Meredith.
So because of the timing,
we're actually going
to call another audible.
I have the pleasure of
introducing
Dr. Reginald Brothers, the
Undersecretary
for Science and Technology which
I guess makes
him Meredith's boss (laughs) for the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security.
Thank you so much.
(applause)
Reginald Brothers:
Thanks so much.
Nice job, Meredith.
(laughs).
So good afternoon,
everyone.
It's good to be here.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Audience: Good afternoon.
Reginald Brothers:
Yeah, thank you.
So I want to thank you
all for inviting
me to be here.
It's a real good
opportunity.
Let me introduce the
organization,
in case you are unfamiliar.
Department of Homeland
Security Science
Technology Directorate is
essentially
the corporate research component
for Department of Homeland Security.
So that's who we are.
What I'd like to do is
give you some sense
of some of the kind of
projects we're
working on for the first
responder community.
All right?
So this is an
important day.
We're bringing together
technologists,
entrepreneurs, and members
of the response community
to learn about data
sharing tools
that will truly -- and we really
do mean truly --
make a difference for our first
responders at all levels.
I've been here for about
three of the talks
and can already see the
kinds of important
tools that you're learning about.
At our Directorate, we
work to
provide the first response
community at the tribal, local,
state, and federal levels with
the technology
that they need to best do their jobs.
To best do their jobs more
safely,
more efficiently, and more affordably.
We recognize the
importance
of operationalizing data;
taking from big data
and make it into little data.
That is information that's
both relevant and useful.
And here's some of the
ways that
we're trying to do that.
Our focus first on
gathering requirements
and why is that?
Because we have to
understand really
what types of projects we
have to undertake.
Right?
We're mostly scientists
and technologists.
We're not walking a beat
with you every
day, we're not putting out
fires, we're not responding
to calls; we don't
pretend to know what you need.
So in determining how we
can help,
we go straight to first
responders,
like some of you here.
We crafted something
called Project First Responder.
It's a broad research
initiative that
was really meant to determine
what kind of gaps
that the first responder
community might have,
in terms of sharing
of data, interoperable communications,
and personal protective equipment.
From that we work with
more than
130 first responders from
various disciplines
in our First Responder Resource Groups.
That's one of the groups
that
we have under our directorate.
And from this group,
we create detailed
requirements; we create
documents
that industry can use to develop
solutions,
then tools that can aide and
hopefully really
help the first responders.
So here's an example.
The first responder
community
said they needed a way to safely
access and share critical
incident information such as
road closures,
evacuation routes, and shelters
during emergencies.
We responded with
something
we call Virtual USA.
It's a web-based
information sharing
platform, and now an app,
that's being
used by nearly 800 members of
the emergency
management community across
30 states.
The app allows responders
to seamlessly search
and share critical information
across portals
from DHS, the National
Oceanographic,
the Atmospheric
Administration,
the Department of the
Interior,
the Environmental Protection
Agency,
the U.S. Geological Survey, the
Department of Energy,
the American Red Cross,
and dozens of others.
Virtual USA has
proven its value.
It was first used
operationally
during the Gulf oil spill.
It was providing maps with
information
merged with partnering local,
state, federal,
private sector, and non-profit
entities at all levels.
To help with
resource allocation.
You can understand the
needs for these
kinds of things that -- at
crises
of that kind of magnitude.
In 2012, as a direct
result
of a Science Technology pilot in
the Pacific Northwest,
the State of Oregon used it to
coordinate response
to the devastating winter
storms in the region.
Virtual USA was used
during
the last Presidential
Inauguration
to coordinate local, state, and
federal resources
in response to activities.
So most recently, Virtual
USA has been
used in numerous exercises
nationally and internationally.
This was including in this
month's
Central United States
Earthquakes Consortium, CUSEC.
And it's the largest ever
of its kind,
with 20 states actually
participating.
And what it was learned
earlier
is this is an exercise to
exercise our capabilities
in case of a devastating earthquake.
In coordination with these
efforts,
we created the Next Generation
Incident Command System.
It's a collaborative,
online
incident map capability -- so
it's essentially
geospatial map, right?
-- which improve
situational awareness for
first responders
in the field.
Any credentialed
responders
can access and mark up the map.
They can add data or type
their message
on the white board.
When 3,000 first
responders from across
more than 250
organizations
have been trained to use this
tool, has been
used more than 300 live
operational incidents
since its inception in 2010.
And this is including wild
land fires, floods,
search and rescue, and
special events.
Most recently, it was
used operationally
by California Fire to
coordinate
a response to the wildfire in
Yosemite, the third --
and that's the third largest
wildfire
in California's history.
The Next Generation
Incident Command System
I was talking about was also
used by responders
at 2014 Boston Marathon to
coordinate hazardous
material planning
and response.
In response to
requirements directly
from the community, we've also
created smart phone apps.
And these are to assist
with information access and sharing.
The First Responders
Support Tool
or FRST is a bomb-response smart
phone app that provides
first responders with immediate
onsite access
to critical bomb response information.
So for example -- and
there's also hazmatic
incident
information as well.
So first responders can
access this information.
They can use the app to
better conduct evacuation
from improvised explosive
devices, or IEDs,
as well as spills and share
incident data
with other members' and external
information systems.
It's fully commercialized,
it's available
for purchase on both iTunes
and Google Play.
So regardless of whether
you're iOS or Android,
you can get a copy of this.
There's also a list on the
authorized equipment
list enabling responders to use
grant funding
to purchase the app for their agency.
To date, it's been
purchased
by more than 5,000 users.
S&T is working with the
university community
on an app that enables improved
information sharing
between the agriculture
industry and government.
And in turn improve
business continuity
during animal disease incidents.
This is called AG Connect.
And AG Connect is a suite
of pluggable, mobile,
and web-based desktop
applications
that provide access to data in
actionable context
through user-defined and
access-controlled
common operating pictures.
It's currently being used
and tested
in 15 states in over 60
laboratories nationwide.
Participants in our pilots
have
included public sector officials
and private sectors
representatives such
as veterinarians
and producers of all species.
Mobile applications
are available for free
download to first
responders
immediately through the Apple's
iTunes store.
At S&T, we're also
thinking
through social media.
We're facilitating the
Responders Community
Virtual Social Media
Working Group
as an effort to help provide you
with the latest information
on how to best use social
media tools
to share info and manage response.
That's also available to
you now online
and several new reports and
lessons learned
that are documented from
Hurricane Sandy.
They provide insights on
how you can best implement
social media monitoring
and management in your regions.
Legislation just passed
the House earlier
this month formalizing the group and encouraging
further coordination with
our industry partners.
So there will be more
to come on this front.
So those are just a few
examples of what
we're doing at S&T right now to
help provide responders
to make sure they get the
critical information
that they need when
they need it.
We're working hard, but
there's still more to do.
Moving forward, reporting
resources
into improving situation awareness,
decision support algorithms,
and the operationalization of data.
We've gone around and
talked to a number
of our operational components,
whether it be FEMA,
Customs and Border
Protection, et cetera.
One of the major issues
they bring
up is the importance of
making decisions.
The importance of making
decisions quickly;
importance of making
decisions
quickly without complete data.
And these are issues we're
trying to work throughout
our portfolio right now.
We're starting some
newer projects.
We're calling these
apex projects.
These are large
consolidated programs.
Two of them that we're
thinking about
right now starting, one is on
flooding to help FEMA be
able to predict
regions of flooding.
And another one's on the
Network Operational Center
of the Future.
So these are looking for
technologies for better
situation awareness, the
fusion of information,
as well as making
better decisions.
So these are some of the
things we'll work on the
future.
I've talked to you about
some of the things
we're working on now, some
things in the past.
We very much looking
forward to working
with all of you in the future.
Thanks so much.
(applause)
Brian Forde: Wow.
And you know what I'm also
told is Dr. Brothers
is, along with Meredith have
three -- they call
it a triple-double-E, which
is three degrees
in electrical engineering.
So I know I will never
be working in DHS S& T.
(laughter)
Truly brilliant work, so
the next person
we'll have up is the United
States Deputy Chief Technology
Officer and a dear friend
and colleague of mine.
Nick Sinai.
(applause)
Nick Sinai: All right.
Good afternoon, everybody.
So just two months ago we
had a Energy Datapalooza.
We like to have lots of
data jams
and Datapaloozas and this was
one in the energy realm.
And there was a really
exciting announcement
that was made then, and I
thought I would read
it to because we're going to get
a little update on it.
It says, "Today a number
of electric utilities and
technology companies
agreed to the development
and use of a voluntary
open standard for the
publishing of power
outage and restoration
information.
The commitment of
utilities to publish their
already public outage
information as structured
data in an easy to use
and common format in a
consistent location will
make it easier for a wide
set of interested
parties including first
responders, public health
officials, utility
operations, mutual systems
efforts, and the public
at large to make use of and
act upon
this important information
especially during times
of natural disaster or crisis."
And the utilities that
stood up and committed
to openly publish, as open
data, their power
outage information included: Duke
Energy, BGE, ComEd, PECO,
San Diego Gas Electric,
Southern Cal Edison,
and National Grid.
The utility vendor iFactor
Consulting announced its
intent to support the
standard in its software,
and Google announced its
intent to use open power
outage data in its crisis
maps
and other crisis response products.
And so while we can't
have everyone from this
coalition up on stage, I
did want to recognize
that we have utilities who have
flown from across
the country who have committed
to open their power outage
data for the benefit of
public health, first
responders, and the
public at large.
So I know that you guys
have flown
from across the country.
If we could please give
a round of applause
to everyone involved here.
(applause)
Thank you.
So I'm super excited about
this emerging
and open collaboration, but
maybe the best way
to do this is to actually hear
from the folks doing this.
So if we could have Dave
Way from National Grid and Nigel
Snoad from Google come up and
chat.
David Way: Okay.
Thank you, Nick.
Appreciate it.
Good afternoon.
Certainly appreciate the
time this afternoon.
I'm David Way.
I'm with National Grid.
We're a utility
in the northeast.
We serve 3.3 million
electric customers
and 3.4 million gas customers.
Nigel Snoad: They've given
us the wrong slides.
David Way: Okay.
Nigel Snoad: (laughs)
David Way: And, you know,
one of the things we're
fully committed to is
this open power
data collaboration initiative.
We think it's really
important that we work
with the other utilities
and all
of you to make this information
available.
And one of the roles that
I play at National Grid
under our Incident Command
Structure is I serve
as a system planning officer.
So I've been involved in
a number of major events,
particularly through
the last few years.
And what becomes more and
more important
is that our key stakeholders and
customers
need information more than ever.
When they lose their
power, it has a huge
impact on life day-to-day.
And it's important that
we're providing
them with the information
that they need.
So at National Grid, as
well as several
other utilities -- many
represented
here today as Nick pointed out
-- we've done a lot of work
on that front to make
improvement and to continue
to provide that critical information.
We have outage websites,
we put a huge effort
into making sure that our
customer service
folks know progress that we're
making
associated with restoration.
Estimated restoration
times so that when
customers call in
they can give
them the right information.
We provide information
through texting
for those that have signed up
through
Twitter, et cetera.
So a lot of progress has
been made
as it relates to communicating
with customers
at the utility level with our
customer base.
But a huge opportunity for
us going forward
is to make sure all the
utilities are aligned
and that we've got a common
language and a common
way that we're actually
making that information available.
So again we are fully
committed
to it, we think there's a
tremendous amount of innovation
that can go along with
providing that information
once we get that right.
And we're going to
continue to work
with the utilities and all of
you to progress
that important initiative.
So with that, I'm going
to turn it over to Nigel.
Nigel Snoad: Thanks David.
So hello everybody.
I'm really proud to be
able to be up here
and represent a whole pile of
Googlers,
as we call them, volunteers.
And so a small team of
professionals working on
disaster response
full time.
And so partly what we
can do is talk just
very briefly about sort of the
citizen side of open
data in this kind of resilience
information because
this morning or this afternoon
I've heard a whole pile
about several responders
and how they can make
use of this information, and
we talked about
that this morning, which is
really critical information
for healthcare and
other providers.
But it's also really
important for citizens and
part of that is I used to
be a responder
for close to a decade working --
more than a decade
I should say, working
internationally
and in the U.S.
And I sort of left that
work because
I realized that technology was
changing how citizens
were empowered to take charge
of their own response,
their own resilience, and
the demands
that they were placing on -- and
their ability to act ultimately.
We've seen that with
the Airbnb
in the other presentations, and
so I'm completely thrilled
to see the work that our
partners and other companies
are doing to really make that
all true
for so many citizens to sort of
basically put them
at the center of their own
ability to help
out and to respond and to help
formal responses.
But ultimately I'm at
Google because people
come to Google during times of
crisis like at other
times to find out what the
heck they need to know.
Right?
And we and my team
particularly struggle to
try and find ways to get
people the information
they need from official
sources
and from other places.
And we're unique in --
we're not unique,
but one of the very few
companies that touches
basically billions of people
every month
on the web and on Android phones
and so forth.
And so it's an incredible
opportunity
to help people through the tools
they use every day.
So the next slide.
Thanks.
So just a quick example of
some of the things we do.
This is a
Crisismap we built.
A Crisismap is our name
for a mapping tool
platform and a service
that's open source
that you could download, or you
could run your
own version on our service.
But it's basically
optimized for mobile
viewing and just a quick
and dirty mash up of lots
of different types of
geodata and map data.
And we built it because
we needed
it, but we find it's useful for
lots of other people as well.
This is an example from
Sandy where
we had a whole pile of different
data mashed up together
and there's a couple things
about it that
I sort of want to observe.
One of which is that from
a Google perspective
at least but probably for
many of you operating
in crises with public's
facing websites.
The loads can be
incredible right.
This map we estimate was
possibly the most viewed
map ever right.
And if running a service
that takes millions
upon millions of hits every
single
day for mapping services is
something that we're well
positioned to go but is a
struggle for a lot.
So a piece we're saying,
whether
it's us or other partners in the
commercial space,
we're here to partly help out to
provide the load,
to have newspapers imbed these
tools, to be a channel
and a vehicle for information,
and making
sure it's flexible and mobile.
But also it's possible
only because of open
data and some licensed data
that we had there.
We worked with New York
City on evacuation zones
a year before in Irene.
That's why it's
on this map.
What's missing from this
map is actually something
that millions of users
were actually coming
to us to look.
You look at Google trends,
you see spikes and people
looking for power
outage information.
Unsurprisingly, given
what happened
in lower Manhattan and states
all over Jersey and so forth.
And that didn't work.
We didn't have
access to the data.
It wasn't openly
available.
The best that we could
do was to put up links to every
power companies' websites where
they could go and find the
data themselves.
And people could find it
if they need it,
but they couldn't find it easily
where they were looking.
Another final thing about
this is that we've
just recently added -- it's in
the --
sort of the press release is
that we've added some ability
for crowdsourcing consistently
on all of our maps.
So that you can basically
ask questions of your
users or our users
about what do they see?
Is the gas station open,
closed, got gas, is there
power, yes, no, et cetera
and putting comments.
And that's data that
we can and you can access and share.
And so we still got a lot
to figure out about
how to -- you know the services
SeeClickFix
was talking about.
There's so much
commonalities
about how do we make that
work together.
But then the next slide
just very briefly
an example of the power out.
If you wonder what you can
do with open data,
aside from make a pretty map.
We have an alerting
service
called Public Alerts where we
take alerts from official
agencies around the world,
we're in seven countries.
Something like 22
providers right now.
Hundreds of millions of
alerts
so far this year that we've
shown to people.
So to hundreds of millions
of people basically.
Showing essential
emergency information
from official providers because
it's in open, common format.
And we're able to use our
smarts to personalize
it for people about where
they are in context
to the right time and it works
even really well.
You think, okay.
CMass provides the alert
that will buzz your phone,
but the first thing that
people
do we see when they receive one
of the 90 character alerts.
Any guesses?
They go to Google and
actually search
for what the heck was that
message all about.
Right?
And we see this incredible
spike in traffic
every time there's
a CMass alert.
I don't even need to
receive the alert
to know where the heck
they've been issued.
Right?
(laughter)
And we're able to provide
the context, the what to do information.
The maps about what's
going on, the news.
And we've recently
launched a partnership with twitter
for showing
their content in crisis as well.
And then finally, I'm
really actually excited
by the fact that this is a
map built by 
our friends at National Grid,
using our Crisismap
tool, to basically explore where
we're going
to with this partnership on
open power data.
So this is an example of
just overlaying the data
from upstate New York.
Pretty sure it is, right?
And basically we can take
this data, show it to our
users, newspapers can
imbed it, the public can
find it typing in their
address and locations
and doing a whole pile more
things that I haven't
even yet imagined once this
data is available
in open standard format and
critically
under an open license.
That it's available for us
to use without
fear and worry, without having
to go through a process of --
as we've tried many times
in the middle
of a crisis to try to do a
licensing agreement.
That doesn't work when
you're trying
to scramble and sign a contract
in the middle of a large event.
Talk to me about
Hurricane Isaac one day.
Okay.
Thank you very
much, everybody.
And thanks for the White
House
for helping us host this.
(applause)
