Shelter from the sky

To reinforce the powerful role innovation plays in transforming how people receive and perceive aid, I wanted to share another innovative idea that I came across in December. Industrial designer Adem Önalan won the Red Dot Design Award (I'd never heard of it either...but apparently it's a big deal) for what he calls "Lifebox":

Photo: Fast Company / Co.Exist

Lifebox is the product of talking to survivors of disasters and relief agencies to better understand if there was a solution that could fill some of the existing gaps in the delivery of aid following an event. The result of those conversations coupled with Adem's creativity yielded Lifebox and its 3 iterations: Air, Land, Water. Air can dropped from a plane with a built in parachute that doubles as the roof of the shelter, Water transforms into a raft, and Land is a straightforward tent (with the added benefit of a foam floor) that can be connected to other Lifeboxes to form larger rooms. The boxes are designed with 2 weeks of supplies for 4 people to cover the gaps that become exposed when critical infrastructure and access to areas are hampered by a disaster. 

Photo: Fast Company / Co.Exist. Lifebox: Land

While I like the idea and the fact that it's more of a holistic solution to an immediate need taking into account different methods of delivery, I believe that its "out-of-the-box" nature could create challenges in ensuring its equitable distribution amongst vulnerable populations. I could see Lifeboxes being hoarded or sold in the chaos and confusion of early response activities. However, given the potential upside of the product, I'm confident that figuring out an equitable distribution model is something that bright minds can come up with fairly easily. I would also consider regionalizing the rations contained inside Lifebox to ensure that its culturally appropriate for the populations its helping.

But what I like most about the Lifebox is that it reminds me that just because things are the way they are...doesn't mean they have to stay that way. Change doesn't come easy, especially when people are comfortable in "the way it's always been done." There is power in innovation and sometimes all we need is a little nudge to get us headed down that path...I hope that "The First 72 Hours Challenge" and the uniqueness of Adem's Lifebox solution get your creative juices flowing to re-think how we do things and explore a the potential of doing things differently.

In disasters, 72 is the magic number...

The First 72 hours following an event, depending on the size of the impacted area and the severity of the event itself, are usually a black hole when it comes to information and action. The only activities that are taking place are search and rescue, and that falls to (depending on size, scope, geography) a handful of professionals, friends, family, or passersby of those in need. This is a time fraught with uncertainty on almost everything: number of dead / injured, missing persons, damage estimates to public and private structures, impacts to critical infrastructure, greatest unmet needs, which organizations are sending personnel where, credibility of information through formal and informal channels, etc...

It's in the first 72 hours that the level of preparation of those impacted and those responsible for organizing a response comes into play. For individuals and municipalities with lower levels of preparedness, the first 72 hours are chaotic and disjointed and the black hole analogy usually applies. For those that have a history with disasters or have taken steps to strengthen their levels of preparedness, the first 72 hours are a time where people take their places; the emergency management machine whirs to life and the activities of response kick into gear.

It's no coincidence that much of the preparedness literature tells you to have supplies for 3 days...it's because that's how long it usually takes for services to reach those impacted. Just look at San Francisco's preparedness campaign: www.sf72.org, it's based around the 72 hour milestone. Due to the 'just in time' supply chain models that many grocery stores employ to save on warehousing costs, 72 hours is usually the amount of time before shelves run bare. In the case of Super Typhoon Yolanda, the scope of the event made the provision of aid a challenge that took 10 days or longer in some areas to solve. Remember that it's during this time when most communications and cellular infrastructure is down or overloaded, and the power to charge the batteries on which those devices rely, is in short supply. 

The bottom line is that even with our advances in technology and early warning systems, the first 72 hours after an event represent a challenge for preparedness and response practitioner's, and it's with that attitude in mind that unicef and socialab created "The Global Innovation Challenge: The First 72 Hours." 

This challenge is open to any and all with ideas on how to address the needs of Children and Families following a humanitarian disaster, with a focus on one of the following 4 areas:

1. Energy
2. Healthcare
3. Information Communication
4. Water / Food

The idea/solution can be a product, a new technology or process, or an improvement on existing technology or process.

If you have a brilliant idea that can help crack the nut that the first 72 hours following a disaster represent, logon and share it...who knows, you may win $15,000 in seed capital and an opportunity to work with unicef and socialab to bring it to life.

Thanks to my Chilean Startup friend Mr. Darren Camas for bringing this unique contest to my attention.

FEMA's Think Tank

The least innovative logo design

After highlighting the Social Good Summit (which I'm still soliciting input for), I began to look at what else is being done to solicit input and ideas from a broader audience to address the problems we face as a community of practice. Given the 'whole of community' push, events like the Social Good Summit miss the opportunity to hear from stakeholder's themselves, people who aren't in senior-level positions but still have something to say. So is there a forum for everyday people to have their voice heard? How is the whole of community being included in the process of ideation and innovation outside of response activities?

The answer, or part of the answer is the FEMA Think Tank. Some critics of the Federal Government may say that the title of the entity is an oxymoron, but the fact remains that a forum exists where anyone who believes they can contribute to the National conversation on community preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation, etc...has the opportunity to submit an idea.

The Think Tank has two main components, an online forum and a discussion session conducted by FEMA's Deputy Administrator Rich Serino.

Online Forum
This aspect of the Think Tank allows individuals to submit ideas, the community then reads and votes on each idea, the concept being, the higher the score, the more people agree. An aspect of this forum that I appreciate is the fact that you need to create a profile before submitting and/or voting. While the system can still be influenced, the gating factor seems to provide enough of a deterrent so that things aren't skewed too much in one direction or the other.

Discussion Sessions
This part of the Think Tank is equally as interesting. Based on the ideas generated from the online forum, conference calls are held by Deputy Administrator Rich Serino in an effort to engage a broader audience within emergency management and disaster response to discuss the ideas brought to light via the forum.

Critics have called this more of a dog and pony show than actually seeking out and stress testing new ideas, but the fact remains that it exists and is being used. The motivations for its creation can be questioned, but if people are gaining access to a senior level FEMA official to talk about ideas they have to better what we do, then I would say that its accomplishing something fairly unique.

FEMA is working not only with the public at large, it's also working to leverage the expertise of the private sector to help create solutions to persistent challenges in the disaster space. FEMA recently held a "Data Jam / Think Tank," and while the name sounds like something my Mom might have come up with, it attracted some savvy tech companies: Air BnB, twillo, google, Huffington Post's Social Impact to name a few, to focus on Innovating to improve Disaster Recovery.

Technology is empowering individuals, those who have gone through an event and those who haven't. It's giving everyone a chance to have a voice, and while having a voice is important, it's what you choose to say that ends up making a difference. And with outlets like the Think Tank and access to tools that previously didn't exist, what people choose to say is being magnified and making a difference.

Innovation + Civic Engagement = Secret Sauce

Who doesn't love a Venn diagram?

Secret Sauce...that's what we're all after right? Finding the balance, the intersection between civic engagement and innovation, where capable, hungry individuals and organizations are working to streamline access to new and exciting ways to help their communities in both times of disaster and not.

The fluid nature of innovation and the reactive spikes in civic engagement following disasters makes harnessing the confluence of these two elements difficult. However, I believe what happened following Hurricane Sandy is a great example of Secret Sauce in action; where volunteerism and civic engagement fueled by new tech platforms aided community-wide response and recovery activities. At the time it was messy and chaotic, but the new ideas and perspectives on how to approach many of the challenges that continue to pervade response and recovery, were a welcomed breath of fresh air.

Because the life cycle of a technology employed in response is so short, it's almost guaranteed that the next time it's used, lessons learned from its previous deployment will have gone into creating version 2.0. While creating newer and more efficient applications and systems is good, I believe the key to retaining the secret sauce is to maintain a technology's simplicity while enhancing its functionality. Of course that's easier said than done, but it's important to remember that during times of disaster people revert to what they know and what's easiest, which is why you see so many people doing coordination with a pen and legal pads.

The confluence of motivated people and new technology rallying around a common cause is rare, but we have the good fortune in disaster response to have an abundance of both. I believe the key to ensuring that every community gets their own brand of Secret Sauce is to aggressively promote innovation while nurturing and rewarding civic engagement that promotes community cohesion.