February 2012 NUI Galway and ‘Haiti Connect’ Hold Ireland’s First Crisiscamp

NUI Galway will host Ireland’s first Crisiscamp to raise awareness on how technology can be used to help respond to disasters and improve resilience and response before a crisis. Organised with ‘Haiti Connect’, a charitable trust based in County Galway, Crisiscamp will take place on Sunday, 26 February.

Crisiscamps are a series of global events organised by members of CrisisCommons, a global community of volunteers from technology, crisis response organisations, government agencies, and individuals. Having witnessed first-hand the benefits of technology and social media in disaster response and rebuilding scenarios, the organisation is keen to raise this awareness with the general public.

CrisisCamp began in March 2009 as an event to connect crisis management and global development practitioners to the technology volunteer community. During the Haiti response, CrisisCamp became a movement and added a response mechanism to the community.

Since 2009, CrisisCommons has coordinated crisis event responses such as the Haiti, Chile and Japan Earthquakes and the floods in Thailand, Nashville and Pakistan. Over 3,000 people have participated worldwide in over 30 cities, across 10 countries including France, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Chile and Colombia.

‘Haiti Connect’ has been running and supporting technology-based aid and rebuilding projects in Haiti since shortly after the earthquake of 2010. Through direct experience they have seen the advantages of using modern, digital technologies in these environments.

Evert Bopp, founder of ‘Haiti Connect’, said: “Through this event we hope to create awareness amongst Irish crisis response organisations, government agencies and citizens on how open source software and hardware can be used to respond to disasters. Working together with NUI Galway’s Discipline of Information Technology was a logical choice when organising this event. People in Information Technology and other disciplines in NUI Galway’s College of Engineering and Informatics are already engaged in both research and voluntary work in support of crisis response. Through Crisiscamp we hope to bring together people who are working on these challenges and inspire others to apply their skills in this area.”

The event will take place in the Information Technology Building on the NUI Galway campus from 10am until 7pm. Admission is free but interested parties are encouraged to register via the website www.crisiscampireland.com

For more details please contact Evert Bopp on 086 8645099 or by email on info@crisiscampireland.com.

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