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Google invests in web to fight disaster
Twitter and Facebook In Brilliant Stedd…

By Stefanie Olsen

Published: Thursday 17 January 2008

Google.org's technology project to help save lives in the event of natural disasters or public health threats is expected to launch today.

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The project, called Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InStedd), is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help communities use web and communications technology to identify and warn others of outbreaks like Avian flu or disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The technology - which will include social software Twitter and Facebook - will be used to co-ordinate rescue responses and help save lives, according to Eric Rasmussen, president and CEO of InStedd.

Google, through its charitable foundation Google.org, has invested $5m in the project. InStedd has also received $1m from the Rockefeller Foundation, and another six-figure amount from a foundation associated with venture capitalist and Google investor John Doerr, according to Rasmussen.

InStedd is the brainchild of Google.org executive director and epidemiologist Dr Larry Brilliant, who conceived of it nearly two years ago when he won the TED prize - a grant-making wish foundation that helps raise funds for humanitarian projects.

At the time, Brilliant said: "My dream for InStedd [a name that plays off the TED conference] is to fulfil the much-needed role of an independent agent bringing the technological, medical and organisational skills necessary to help the humanitarian aid community accomplish [early detection of public health threats and disasters], and ultimately help them to make the world a safer place."

With the help of Google.org, the project turned into a not-for-profit organisation in May 2007. But it officially started in October when Rasmussen came on board and began hiring people and reaching out to the aid community. Now with nine employees, InStedd will launch its website with early versions of open-source software that can be downloaded and tested.

One such application will be the so-called Twitter bot framework, which bridges the web service and phones with a location-detection feature that can link to a layer in Google Earth, Rasmussen said. That way, for example, Rasmussen could send a message about a patient with untreated symptoms in Laos, in Asia via SMS on his phone, which might only have one signal bar of service. That message could then be broadcast to anyone subscribed to his messages, including aid workers at Unicef or InStedd's headquarters, which could show his location and note on a Google Earth map.

He said: "We can send an SMS message onto Google Earth in an emergency centre, and it sees a dot with a colour-coded response, with my name and date. Right underneath that, there's a button that says reply, and [aid workers can send a note that says] we have the resources you need two miles north...Suddenly there's a two-way conversation using nothing but a cell phone with one bar."

The application will also let people query for friends nearby via SMS, he said.

The InStedd site will also feature blogs and a directory of aid workers, where professionals can register and regularly update their locations. That way, people can easily locate others in the event of a disaster.

Rasmussen said the not-for-profit org is working with nations to develop the software among people who will use it in the field. One such project involves five countries in Southeast Asia. "We will eventually put the software out for release, free and open source," he said.

One other application it's working on is a modification of Facebook that would allow aid workers to see where all their nearby contacts are, as well as reach out to all their "friends of friends" in the humanitarian community in the case of a crisis.