An Overview Of Our Solution
NYC:Prepared (NYCP) is a pilot project developing a community-led, technology-based approach to emergency management in New York City that began immediately after Hurricane Sandy (2012).
The project is led by a coalition of technologists, subject-matter experts and local leaders working together to create a set of disaster relief and community resilience information management solutions that enables all stakeholders to efficiently coordinate preparedness, response and recovery activities. We also provide communities and non-profits with critical web services including websites, data management, technology training and support.
Our software is open-source and our techniques are documented and freely available online, enabling any community in the world to deploy our tools and techniques without restriction or fees.
NYCP is operated by Sarapis, a 501.c.3 providing open source solutions to local challenges faced by civic organizations. Learn more about us at sarapis.org.
- Population Impacted: CAT 3 Storm: 1.7 million; CAT 2 Storm: 1.1 million
- Continent: North America
Address
134 Spring St
New York, NY 10012
Estados Unidos
Hazard
Identify the likelihood and frequency of this hazard
Explain how vulnerable the community is to this hazard
List the potential affects of this hazard
Identify how sensitive the community is to these affects
Preparedness Goal
Implementation Actions
Activities:
The NYC:Prepared Steering Committe consists of three main groups of stakeholders: operations team (Sarapis), relief community and technology providers. The operations team developed the first version of the NYC:Prepared software toolset, writes technical documentation and specifications, conducts trainings and convenes the quarterly steering committee.
The steering committee’s responsibilities include:
Coordinating roll-out, organizing training and implementing NYCP solutions
Maintaining and approving data models (schema and taxonomies)
Creating and prioritizing requests for changes to the software systems
Managing steering committee membership
Helping raise the funds needed to sustain the NYCP project
Technology:
At the heart of the NYC:Prepared initiative is the software toolset, which consists of three free/libre/open-source software systems, each of which is well established and used by some of the world’s most effective government agencies, humanitarian organizations and media companies. These tools are:
Resource Management System - eden.nycprepared.org
Software: Sahana EDEN; Also used by the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC); Technology Provider: AidIQ
This powerful platform functions as a community “intranet” to coordinate preparedness, response and recovery through functions like directories, request queues (donations and volunteers), GIS and data visualization, logistics (shipping, inventory and asset management) and news/events sharing. Fully integrated with social media.
Website Builder - nycprepared.org/directory
Software: WordPress; Also used by CNN; Technology Provider: Glocal
For non-profits unable to build their own websites, our site builder tool provides them with a website with the most commonly requested features such as news and events publishing, email newsletter delivery, social media integration, form building, data management and more.
Data Repository - data.nycprepared.org
Software: CKAN; Also Used by UNOCHA’s HDX; Technology Provider: Ontodia
Our data repository contains a collection of over 100 datasets crucial to improving community resilience, such as elevation files, flood projections, community district boundaries, census tracts, points of interest and more.
We are committed to building open-source solutions because we believe every community should have the ability to access, customize and contribute to emergency management software platforms. Unlike proprietary solutions, which are often designed to lock clients into their platforms by placing their information into silos, our open source solutions make data as portable and interoperable as possible through import/exports features and APIs. The widely recognized data interoperability advantage of open source is why major humanitarian institutions that share large amounts of information (UNOCHA, the IFRC, World Bank, US GSA) are moving from proprietary to open source software and data platforms.
Describe Your Solution
All of our solutions are designed by nonprofit and community organizations to help increase their capacity to coordinate with each other and enable them to better serve affected residents. Through our unique participatory software development process, led by our steering committee, we are constantly refining and expanding our tools.
The capabilities and examples described below are currently available to networks and organizations throughout the city.
Before (Preparedness):
Preparedness news and event feeds: we are syndicating news and events from over a hundred NYC-based nonprofits and government agencies to produce freely available curated RSS feeds
Directory, service and facility information: we collect and maintain contact, service and facility information for local community organizations and networks. This information cal also be used to map out gaps in services in local areas.
Mapping of vulnerable populations: census data, combined with hazard maps, can provide communities with crucial awareness of the location of vulnerable populations
Visualization of flood maps and other preparedness data from data repository.
During (Response):
News aggregation: our directory of organizations, which includes website and social media information, aggregates news from throughout the NYCP network.
Assessment information: shared data on needs assessments, vulnerable populations and service locations
Request processing: organizational members can make and/or fulfill requests for supplies and volunteers, and track the status of request through the system.
Mapping activities: functions such as feeding, donation and volunteer events can be mapped on our website and via our responsive mobile interface
Facilities and donations management
Inventory and asset management
After (Recovery):
Service directory: we organize a directory of services available to people affected by disasters (ex: housing, mental health and medical assistance).This information is accessible via website, mobile interface as well as through API, enabling other software applications to utilize the data.
Network directory: a directory of the organizations and groups involved in recovery activities, connecting key capacities (ex: volunteers and construction groups, mental health providers and local service hub)
Coordination of service delivery: needs assessments, muck-out, mold remediation and construction activities.
Economic?
By providing local organizations, recovery groups and relief networks throughout New York City with websites and data management tools in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, NYCP empowered them to efficiently disseminate critical news and assistance information to affected residents with unmet needs, and to leverage the influx donors and volunteers to better serve their communities. Since 90% of donations (financial and in-kind) and a large portion of volunteer man hours are donated during the first week of the response, being ready with websites an appropriate, useful and active web presence is critical for organizations that want to utilize the influx of potential assistance.
For local relief organizations, the biggest challenge lies in being able to avoid duplication of operations (leading to waste of donations, food/water or volunteer hours) and mapping out gaps in service delivery (reaching underserved communities). NYCP coordination enables the breakdown of operational silos by aggregating and disseminating information to and from all stakeholders.
Environmental?
Undetermined
What were the negative or unintended impacts (if any) associated with implementing this solution?
Undetermined
Return on Investment: How much did it cost to implement these activities? How do your results above compare to this investment?
To date, and over two years, approximately $40,000 of donor funding and over 3,000 volunteer hours (worth an approximate $100,000) have gone into the development of NYCP solutions. Nearly all the funding has been used to pay for software development, which was carried out at deep discount from our technology providers. The majority of the volunteer hours have been used for system design, website deployment, training, technology support, group facilitation and general program development.
What are the main factors needed to successfully replicate this solution
Local Partnerships: Because a disaster starts local and ends local, we believe that the operations team should be local, with Sarapis as partner that provides technical support, documents best practice uses and ensures resources are available to continue developing the software and its community of contributors.
Funding: The replication costs of NYCP software is minimal, and anyone can deploy our codebase to their own server and change configuration settings. However, continuously improving NYCP’s open source software codebase will require a consistent stream of funding. We are aiming to cultivate local operations teams around the country that use our codebase to start NYCP-style initiatives and will be collaborating with local partners to seek funding and grants in a number of cities.
- Connections: As the needs of communities affected by disaster become more transparent, we believe that approach has the potential to connect corporate and individual donors more directly to the affected communities.