Mission 4636

Within hours of the earthquake, it became clear that most of Haiti’s cell phone towers were still operational and that text messages were getting though. Because text messaging (SMS) is the primary means of remote communication in Haiti – surpassing email, traditional mail and actual phone calls – this crucial fact did not escape the notice of several concerned citizens in the Diaspora.

Week 1 – Launch

Across the country, multiple organizations sought the best possible application of the Haitian technology available. Josh Nesbit, Executive Director of FrontlineSMS:Medic and the Katie Stanton of the US State Department contacted Jean-Marc of DigiCel, the country’s largest cell phone network, hoping to obtain the “4636” short code as a free aid service. David Wade of Votident established the data connection with Digicel, and sent messages were collected by Brian Herbert’s (Antonio Prize nominated) software platform, created within hours of the devastation. The next phase, mobilized by Robert Munro of Energy for Opportunity, established a workflow where thousands of Kreyol-speaking volunteers would translate and categorize SMS messages, while plotting the senders’ location in a map. The messages (now triaged with a translation and geo-coordinates) was streamed back to relief groups in Haiti. Among the most active group of volunteers were Union Haiti of Montreal, who organized teams of Kreyol-speaking volunteers to work around the clock.

Their efforts soon met with those of InSTEDD, who were already on the ground, gathering and disseminating vital information. Nicholas di Tada joined the “4636” project on InSTEDD’s behalf, working as liaison to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in partnership with Timothy Large of the Thompson Reuters Foundation. Truly, it was a cross-organizational effort – one that came together in just 48 hours.

Within days, the “4636” project became part of a much larger response effort. Patrick Meier, Head for Crisis Mapping at Ushahidi, had launched a version of their open source project within hours of the earthquake which allowed users to crowdsource crisis information from the ground in Haiti. A call-in system was in place on the 13th, and by the 18th Ushahidi Haiti was linked directly to the “4636” live feed.

Mark Prutsalis, President of Sahana, was also including the SMS messages as part of their crisis response maps, and Eric Rasmussen of InSTEDD had joined the team in Haiti. Tim Schwartz lead a second crowdsourcing effort to update the ‘People Finder’ database with information about missing/found people in the SMS messages.

Meanwhile, the volunteer translators (many of whom are still with us three weeks later: Fred (Apo), Ronny, Sebastien, Marc, Sarah, Jimi, Ronald, Jenn, Claire, Rebecca, and Jennifer) were forwarding messages to people outside of Haiti, often contacting these relatives directly. Incredibly, 99% of these were reporting someone ‘found’ to their international relatives for the first time.

The combined efforts of these groups allowed the ICRC to immediately begin directing Search and Rescue teams to the addresses that most needed them.

Week 2 – Expanding the Response

A week after the earthquake, many Search and Rescue operations were scaled back. But many members of the join relief effort had come to recognize Ushahidi as an invaluable resource, and eagerly agreed to establish direct contact with “Ushahidi @ Tufts,” enabling a coordinated response to actionable messages.

“Ushahidi @ Tufts” began refining the original translator’s coordinates through a second group of volunteers overseen by Jaroslav Valůch, Denise Sewell, and Hilde Berg-Hansento, allowing them to geographically cluster messages in order to intelligently coordinate the response on the ground.

The US Coast Guard and US Marines, working within Southern Command, became the primary response team, and extended the response effort well beyond “Search and Rescue” to specific medical emergencies and people yet to receive food and water. InSTEDD’s presence in Haiti departed, but continued to provide vigilant technical support for the Thompson Reuters Foundation. With the help of Katie Stanton – an early advocate of “4636”- they connected the second largest cell phone carrier, Comcel/Voila, to the “4636” effort.

With the new response effort and the switch from the Red Cross to the USCG as the main responders, we saw a 10-fold increase in responses to emergency text-messages and we were now targeting medical responses to hundreds of people and the first food, water, and aid deliveries to thousands. For many non-emergencies, the Kreyol-speaking translators had formed their own online community where they were sharing maps and information about distribution centers, and replying with directions to people on the ground, bringing those within Haiti into the information loop.

Week 3 – Becoming a Trusted Source

The third week marked our transition to a more sustainable long-term platform. It also marked the official arrival of two incredible organizations, CrowdFlower and Samasource (headed by Lukas Biewald and Leila Janah respectively), to our team.

In addition to generously hosting our translation step, CrowdFlower volunteered to create a new form for volunteers to use during translations, dramatically increasing efficiency. Samasource, a non-profit that bring dignified, computer-based work to women, youth, and refugees living in poverty, had been training over a hundred workers in Haiti before the earthquake through a prior initiative. By relocating the translation step of our process to these Haitian workers, we were able to both create skilled jobs, and continue the “4636” service.

A release articulating the impact of this collaboration was written by Francesca Garrett, a long time volunteer from Texas who had been coordinating the resources of the involved organizations. Through her release, the name “Mission 4636” was born, presenting a unified front in disaster relief in Haiti.

While the emergency response continued, an increasing number of organizations were using the maps to plan and coordinate relief efforts, including the Red Cross, Plan International, Charity Water, US State Department, International Medical Corps, AIDG, USAID, FEMA, US Coast Guard Task Force, World Food Program, SOUTHCOM, OFDA and UNDP.

Week 4 – Preparing the Move to a Haiti-Based Service

By the fourth week, messages to 4636 had become steady at about 1000 per day. Response teams were still targeting aid, food and water, and we had settled into a stable efficient system where messages were quickly translated, categorized, geo-coordinated and streamed to the response teams. By this stage, the ability to respond to emergencies had caught up with those coming in. Even births were being regularly attended to by emergency responders.

CrowdFlower/Samasource continued with preparations for the move to Haiti, with a team in Mirebalais ready to begin work as soon a logistics allow. Microsoft Research began a partnership with Mission 4636 to create Kreyol-English language technologies – the messages and translations have already been used to increase the accuracy of the Bing automatic translation system.

Week 5 and beyond – The Move to Haiti

Leila and Lukas traveled to Mirebalais to train workers in microtasking, and in particular the “Mission 4636″ emergency response system. The workers are all bright, motivated, hard-working and many started work immediately. The workers are part of the 1000 jobs for Haiti initiative, and the center in Mirebalais itself managed by FATEM.
Eric Nguyen and Alex Onsager of Samasource followed soon after to conduct more training, with 50 workers in Mirebalais in fulltime employment as part of this process.
Samasource and CrowdFlower are now partnered with Ushahidi @ Tufts to provide a long-term sustainable emergency response service.