Hi all, From: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003437.html
"I'll cover two emerging projects here: KatrinaHelp, and the Katrina PeopleFinder Project (and apologize in advance for names overlooked, technological fine points elided, and other reflections of my haste to get this online -- please drop us updates, information and corrections via Worldchanging's suggestions form <http://www.worldchanging.com/form_mail> and know that I and others here are reading as fast as we can!) Worldchanging contributor Dina Mehta and other veterans of the tsunamihelp/South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog <http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/> effort quickly formed a parallel KatrinaHelp effort, putting up the KatrinaHelp Wiki <http://katrina.internet2.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page> to consolidate information as well as links out to other resources. This katrinahelp team also set up a virtual messaging center<%3Chttp://katrinahelp.blogspot.com/2005/09/katrina-help-lines-from.html>(using Internet telephone services SkypeIn and SkypeOut, as well as text messaging to Skype) to create a relay for emergency messages in and out of Gulf Coast disaster areas -- sometimes via ham radio operators<http://katrina.internet2.edu/wiki/index.php/Ham_Radio_Resources>-- enabling two way messaging where many or all communications systems have been severely damaged . Volunteers are staffing the "lines" in real time from Bahrain, Amsterdam, India, and the U.S. to relay information 24 hours a day. The Katrina PeopleFinder Project<http://katrina.internet2.edu/wiki/index.php/Katrina_PeopleFinder_Project>is a quickly-formed, massively distributed effort -- already involving perhaps over 100 volunteer techies, and data-entry volunteers -- to create a uniform standard for collecting, compiling, data-entering, and (soon) searching information on people affected by Hurricane Katrina. Worldchanging contributors Ethan Zuckerman <http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/> and Jon Lebkowsky <http://www.weblogsky.com/> have been both developing and blogging about the project, check out their entries for the in-progress accounts -- just a couple others include allies David Geilhufe<http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/geilhufe>of the Digital Divide Network, Nancy White <http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm> of Full Circle Associates, Rebecca MacKinnon <http://rconversation.blogs.com/> of Global Voices Online, folks at salesforce.com <http://salesforce.com> and CivicSpace, and many more." -Posted by Emily Gertz Jay Jay Bhatt Information Services Consultant (Engineering) Hagerty Library, Drexel University TEL 215-895-1873 AOL IM jaybhatt59 YAHOO IM jay_bhatt_98 FAX 215-895-2070 EMAIL [EMAIL PROTECTED] Engineering Assistance page: http://www.library.drexel.edu/services/refengineer.html Engineering Resources Blog http://englibrary.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
