Week 7

This week’s guest speaker was Edward Happ. Who had worked with the Red Cross and with NetHope. He was debatably the best speaker we have had thus far in our class. The reason for this is because he had a great variety of knowledge that we as the students tried to soak up and incorporate in our lives. One of the most impressive features and or accomplishments to Edward is the fact that he was the co-founder of NetHope. For those of you who do not know what NetHope is, it is a group of 32 international non-governmental organizations or NGO’s, which have a mission to improve information technology among humanitarian organizations in developing countries and areas that are affected by disasters. This was a great attribute to the disaster relief world. This weeks speaker just got off the plane and had tremendous jet lag so we had to push our class time back by forty five minutes which proved to be a good thing because it gives students like me more time to look more into the background of Edward and really get some good questions ready for him. For some of you that are reading our SRA blog entries may wonder why these high caliber speakers are making special trips just to speak with us. Well, the answer is that our class is going to be the new members of these organizations that they work for, and by them talking to us, we hear what needs to be improved and we will be studying and doing research on how to improve the things that are needed.

Another great thing about Edward Happ is his desire to succeed. He has already had three carriers and his looking for his next too. That is great because he is going to be spreading his knowledge in all different types of government agencies and even some non-governmental agencies. I wish that I had that sense of ambition to want to have five different carriers. If I did I feel like I would be a lot more successful in life.

Attached I have posted a you tube video that is an interview with a NetHope advisor that talked about outsourcing. This will give people who do not exactly know what NetHope is, a good idea of what they do. For more information visit their website or search them on Google.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmwd_HEx2l8

Something else that I found interesting about our guest speaker Edward Happ was the fact that at the end of our speaking session we had asked him what he in his career path needed in order to make his job easier or more proficient. His answer surprised me. He didn’t really give us a straight answer and just wanted up to use our imagination. This puzzled me for a little bit but then I thought about it and it was actually a great answer. It is necessary for new people coming into the career path to have new ideas and not necessary take after the people that are already in place. New people should mean new ideas. All in all this was a great class and I thank Edward for coming to speak with us. 

Week 6

This weeks class was very interesting. This weeks guest speaker was Mr. Andrew Alspach. He was a very knowledgeable man that works for the UN. Before class started we got the special chance to speak to him about his background and get to know him on more of personal level. Turns out, he grew up on a farm in Ohio. Later, he would go on to join to peace corps and work with people all over the world on developing their bee population and teaching them how to get the most honey they possibly can get. This was very interesting to me because I have often thought about joining the peace corps. This is because i really enjoy helping people as much as possible and this would be a great chance to do just that. Furthermore, I have also a great interest in traveling to Africa to help out the refugees in their fight against the rebels whether it is in the military or as a member of the peace corps. Next Mr. Alspach went on to discuss that he is a member of the United Nations and the work he does there. This was great because we all got a little taste of what the UN in really about and not just what we read about in the newspapers of hear on the news. In was great to hear what has changed over the years. For example, they no longer ride around in cars that are marked UN on the site, they now ride in unmarked cars in order to avoid conflict and violence. Mr. Alspach is a great man and a great speaker. He opened my mind to a lot of new ideas and things that I can and will be thinking about in the future. He was also nice enough to give us his email address so in case we want to email him any questions or ask for advice we can do so. All in all, this was a great class and a eye opening experience. 

Week 5

In this weeks class of Security and Risk Analysis 397A we had a very informative speaker. His name was Gisli Olafsson, who works for NetHope. He spoke to us about many different topics that were relevant to our class discussions. Along with that he also brought up some books that he thought we would or should be interested in reading. One being wikinomics. He would consistently refer to this book and others throughout his discussion with our class via Skype. This was my favorite class of the year just because we were not cooped up in a room just talking out one individual topic. For example in the past weeks, we just focused on Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake and the September eleventh attack on the world trade center, but this week we covered a broad array of topics. The best part about this was that we had a world-renounced speaker that took the time out of his day to speak to us for over an hour.

            Even though I found his entire speech very interesting, including the times with the technical difficulties with the sound and video feed, was the question and answer segment. This was my favorite time because it gave the class a excellent opportunity to ask questions on a first hand basis to an expert in the field. This is something that most people our age do not get the chance to do, which is unfortunate. So, being students and a Crisis Informatics class, we took the opportunity to ask him what the disaster relief field needs as far as technology advancement. His response shocked me in a way. He said that he needs a way for everyone to check into the disaster site. It occurred to me and the class that all these different corporations that show up to the scene have no way of actually knowing who is there and who isn’t. I think that partially the reason that I was shocked by this answer was because I never really thought about it before. It never occurred to me that all these different groups have no way of knowing if another organization has showed up. I believe that we as a country and even as people need to think of a way to quickly and efficiently accomplish this goal of getting everyone registered to the scene. Maybe this is something that we can work on for our final project at the end of the semester. I would like to thank Mr. Olafsson for taking the time out of his busy schedule to speak with us. It was very helpful and informative. 

Haiti

In many ways, the Haiti earthquake was a landmark event. It was the first time that many new technologies were used in a disaster relief such as twitter and SMS. Although twitter was used in the past in disasters like hurricane Katrina, it was not used by government agencies until Haiti. SMS or simple messaging service was not used in past disasters because cell phones could not be used because of the flooding of networks. There was one issue with the use of twitter in the immediate relief of the earthquake because in order for the United States to use the information that was being sent over twitter, it had to be translated from Creole to English. Since Creole is not a popular language in America, translators were in very high demand and hard to come by. This put a tremendous strain on the translators that were being used. They had to work long hours and some didn’t get sleep for days. In order for this information that was being put on twitter to be used effectively and efficiently, it had to be translated and analyzed very quickly so that emergency responders could get to the scene as soon as possible before its too late.

            SMS was a huge stepping-stone for disaster relief. Like I said earlier it was the first time that is could be used. This is because if other disasters such as the World Trade Center attack on September eleventh and hurricane Katrina, too many people were on their cell phones, which almost instantaneously flooded the networks and caused the systems to crash. Haiti was different. Since Haiti is not a very wealthy country, not as many people have cell phones as America. So, the people that did have them were able to sent SMS’s to responders. This was huge because responders were able to get the direct GPS coordinates of were the SMS was sent and immediately send responders to help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV4oUWxm330

In this attached youtube video, it covers a story of volunteers sending relief materials such as food and medical supplies to Haiti. I believe that is very important for all Americans and other countries around the world to do. When people are in a time of need, we need to respond and help each other out. Along with food and medical supplies, Americans also sent our military to help. They did things such as keep order, help with the sick and rebuild roads and houses. This is a great thing for our military to do because it really gives them a sense of helping others in a non-violent standpoint. We have been in war for many years and it is good for our military men and woman to help people rather then kill them. Granted, sometimes killing is helping like getting the Taliban out of civilian villages, but physically helping in disaster relief efforts in always better. 

Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was the largest scale disaster since September eleventh. With that being said, it was the first time since then that we could try and test our improvements that we have made in communication, technology, and associations such as FEMA. It was the first time that we would be able to see how our improvements would work; in some ways it worked great, in others it failed. For example the new system known as NIMS (National Incident Management System) was basically the protocol that the emergency responders had to follow failed. It failed because all the different government agency did not want to share information and data with one another, so basically they all wanted to be the “heroes” instead of working together and getting the job done correctly. At other points, such as organization and the public response was a success. Two being PeopleFinder and ShelterFinder.

            One of the reasons why I think the emergency response failed was because people did not think that another attack of this magnitude would happen. In other words, I believe that the American people were very stubborn in the fact that it wouldn’t happen. I believe that if the American people were open to the fact that another attack could happen, then we would have been more prepared for this event. The government became logistically overwhelmed by hurricane Katrina. We exhausted all of our resources and personnel.

            We also had some successes though. For one, a private citizen came up with the idea of a website that would be the centerfold for other websites. The idea sprouted because there were dozens of different websites that would have posting from people looking for their relatives and vice versa. The problem with that was that people would have to look at all the different websites to find the one person they were looking for. The idea eventually launched into what is called PeopleFinder. This was a huge success because it gathered all the different information from the websites and put them all into one place. This made it easier for people to find what they were looking for.

            Furthermore, FEMA launched a statistic that 500,000 people were left homeless and another 500,000 people were left jobless. This raised a huge concern because how are 500,000 people who are located in a relatively close grouped area going to be able to find a home to temporarily live in? This is were the idea of ShelterFinder came about. The idea, much like Peoplefinder, would help people find homes from all over the country. People from all over the nation were posting up adds for Katrina victims to come stay with them, but they didn’t have a central place to post them, that is what ShelterFinder fixed. The best part about it was that it was not a government organization that designed it. It was a civilian that came up with the idea, and ran with it so to speak.

            There are many things that we have taken out of the disaster relief of hurricane Katrina, some good some bad. But we are making progress and things are looking up for the future. 

9/11 Ten Years Later

            In this post I will be discussing whether or not we has Americans have evolved in our technologies and our logic since the World Trade Center attack of September 11^th, 2001. The question has been raised if the American public would react differently if another attack were to happen, and if we have made and technological changes or improvements in the last ten years that would help us in our disaster clean up and response.

            First I will talk about the technological advances or lack there of. I believe that we have not made any real technological advances that would help us in a state of emergence. Of course, we have made technological advances in the past ten years, but not necessarily in disaster relief. For example, one of the major issues with the incident on September 11^th was the lack of communication with the victims and the responders. I do not think that this will change if another attack were to happen. This is because people would immediately go to use their cell phones and call for help, almost instantaneously the cell towers would become overloaded rendering them useless. Like we discussed in class, after we had a minor earthquake in State College, our systems failed. If it were to actually be a disaster, it would only make matters worse. Nothing has been installed in buildings that would help this issue such as CB radios on every floor. So all in all, our communication tools would still fail and no contact with the victims would be possible.

            Next, I do believe that our techniques and actions would be different if an attack were to happen again. Solely because it is human nature to learn from our mistakes and improve them so we do not make the same mistakes again. For example, while working with the Office of Emergency Management over the summer, I took a look at our evacuation plans and how they evolved over the years. I noticed a huge difference in the plans prior to 9/11 to the post 9/11 plans. They consisted of a lot more detail and a lot were scenarios were discussed.  Furthermore, I believe that the country is a lot more prepared for a terrorist attack or even a natural disaster. This is only because we as a nation learned for past events. Our emergency responders are now being trained on how to handle a similar situation and things would go a lot different then they did ten years ago. For example, I do not think that security guards would be telling people to go back to their offices after a plane flew into the building. This is because, buildings are now practicing evacuation routes and will be more prepared next time. This raises the concern that people do not and will not act the same for a practice evacuation as they would if it was the real deal. People naturally tend to panic in a state of emergency and there is no possible way to change or correct that. 

Crisis Informatics 1st post

My connection with Security and Risk Analysis is that it is my major at Penn State University. I am also the Intelligence modeling option. I am interested in Security and Risk Analysis because I have a growing interest in security, whether it is physically security such as law enforcement or military or it could even be cyber security such as protecting a firms assets. I am currently a junior, and have been involved with the major for a year. Originally I was a business major, but it just did not excite me as much as Security Risk Analysis does. This past summer I was an Intern with Somerset County Prosecutors offices. There I worked with the counter terrorism unit, gang unit, intelligence unit, and narcotics unit. While working with the counter terrorism unit, I worked hand-in-hand with the Department of Homeland Security. Although I am not able to discuss the cases that I worked on, I can say that it was a growing experience for me and really sparked my interest. After the internship was done I really got an idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I started to focus more on the federal aspect of law enforcement such as the Federal Bauru of Investigations and the Department of Homeland Security. This is because I really have a passion for stopping terrorism, whether it’s foreign or domestic. Because of this, in May of this year, I plan of shipping out to Officer Candidate school for the United States Marine Corps. This will be two, six week sessions on the Marine Corps base in Quantico Virginia. I will be doing my first session this summer, and my second session right after I graduate. I hope to get my orders in the infantry unit or in the mortars unit. There I will be leading my team of men into battle and training them to be the best Marines they can be. I believe that this will give me an advantage when I get out into the work force. This is because a lot of the departments that I will be applying to really like to see a military background on your resume. Especially if they see that you were an officer.
            I chose to take this Crisis Informatics class because It had a lot to do with what I did over the summer. When I was not working at the prosecutor’s officer, I worked for the county’s Office of Emergency Management. There, I worked with the county coordinator in efforts to maximize the potential of the emergency plans. We analyzed the plans that were already in place, and looked to see how we can improve them and get the most out of the assets that we have. I believe this class will give me more of an understanding as to why we did the things that we did.