Projects
In addition to multi-year programs, InSTEDD also develops short, focused, and specific projects that might benefit from a collaborative approach or the use of our tools. InSTEDD’s support might include consulting, facilitation, coordination, demonstration events, research, or engineering, depending on the nature of the challenge.
InSTEDD is choosing projects whose results can be broadly applied and have significant impact. The possibilities have proven far better than we'd hoped and we anticipate a number of valuable events in 2009-2010.
InSTEDD and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have partnered to develop the Emergency Information Service (EIS), which is a system designed to bring local populations, government officials, media, responders, donors, and aid agencies together before, during, and after crises. The aim is to give citizens a voice to report what they feel is worth reporting on the ground, collect that information, analyze, translate, validate, and then rebroadcast that information out to both vulnerable populations and those who wish to consume that information.
The Flu Manual was originally created in 2007 to serve as a comprehensive educational guide for Avian Influenza (also known as Bird Flu and H5N1) with the target audience being the individual, their family and their community. In May of 2009 the Guide was updated to incorporate information about the H1N1 ("Swine") influenza outbreak.
All it took was four hours on a November day to show just how much information our communications technology prototypes could generate during an emergency -- and the challenge of managing such a vast data stream. The Golden Shadow demonstration brought together neighborhoods, fire fighters and public health staff in an effort to transform how we respond to emergencies...one text message at a time.
