Breaking news: The Ushahidi SMS shortcode for Haiti is now up and running “… a sort of 911 for Haiti, based on SMS messages.” Report your location and emergency needs by sending a FREE text to 4636 on Digicel in Haiti.
Not on the island? There are many ways you can help. We have been blown away by the collaboration going on in the tech community. Here are some ways to contribute:
1. Help read and log the text messages going into Ushahidi. Check on other needed tasks at the online Situation Room. Emily and Mark were in Boston this week helping in the Boston Situation Room, and Mark is still in Boston helping to coordinate efforts and aggregate information. As of noon EST Jan. 17, more than 580 incidents have been entered at haiti.ushahidi.com
2. Help the Extraordinaries tag photos coming from Haiti so that people can search for their loved ones. Other people finders are being aggregated by Google … check it out at http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/
3. Follow the International Network of Crisis Mappers and Crisis Camp on Twitter for updates. Yesterday, Crisis Camps took place all over the country, and more are expected. Participants worked on iPhone apps, coding, mapping the OpenStreetMap layer, and translation. Check in on CrisisCommons for updates.
Stay tuned for personal stories from Project Einstein: Haiti.
