Re: [liberationtech] [governance] Support iPOP Tactical Operations in Pakistan Earthquake

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Dear Arzak,

I have relationships with OCHA and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster 
people. If you, other NGOs, and perhaps ISOC Pakistan would be available to 
liaise with the incoming international organisations let me know offlist, I’d 
be happy to help connect you, if you don’t already know them.

Regards, Nick

> On 26 Oct 2015, at 18:42, Arzak Khan  wrote:
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> A major earthquake measuring 8.1 on Richter scale has struck remote northeast 
> region  in Afghanistan and northern areas of Pakistan killing more than 200 
> people and injuring more than 1500. The death toll could rise in coming days 
> because communication system is mostly disrupted in the rugged Hindu Kush 
> mountain range where the quake was centered.
> 
> The tactical operations (TOPS) team at Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan 
> is closely monitoring the situation in coordination with disaster management 
> authorities and humanitarian organizations before field deployment of TOPS 
> A-Team.
> 
> If you would like to support us or have suggestions based on your own 
> experiences please do get in touch.
> 
> You can read more about how we conduct our tactical operations here 
> http://ipop.org.pk/initiatives/tops/ 
> 
> Best,
> 
> Arzak Khan |Director |Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan |www.ipop.org.pk 
>  | Facebook.com/ipopak  |
> 
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Re: [liberationtech] Looking for: ICT/telecom expertise in country in Nepal

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Done!

 On 28 Apr 2015, at 22:12, Indiver Badal i...@indiver.com wrote:
 
 Hi Nick
 
 Sure, please add me to the list. I'm ready to assist in any way I can.
 
 Thanks
 Indiver
 
 On Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:12 AM Nick Ashton-Hart nash...@consensus.pro 
 mailto:nash...@consensus.pro wrote:
 + Indiver
 
 Dear Bill,
 
 I've certainly experienced that dynamic before. I'm very glad to hear that 
 families are all OK. I only wish it were true for everyone, and it is great 
 that PCH has released staff to help out - very much in the Nepali spirit I 
 might add!
 
 In this instance, Im not in Nepal right now, and so I won't be telling anyone 
 what they need or anything of the sort. Nor would I be doing any of that if I 
 were there.
 
 I'm helping OCHA get access to a pool of people with a variety of skills - 
 especially at the moment in 'telecom triage' but I'm sure it will rapidly 
 expand beyond that. This is a grassroots thing with the list mostly coming 
 from Nepalis referred by NGOs in digital policy and ISOC chapters. 
 Microsoft's country director is helping in large part due to his connections 
 with universities' tech programmes but in typical Nepali fashion also 
 personally.
 
 Indiver, if you would like to be added to the gdoc where the list is kept, 
 directly introduced to the chap at OCHA who is helping the teams on the 
 ground with all this, or both, let me know, I'm happy to do either or both.
 
 FWIW, the list currently has two PCH people who have put themselves forward: 
 Dibya Khatiwada and Rustan Shrestha. The more the merrier!
 
 On 27 Apr 2015, at 20:12, Bill Woodcock wo...@pch.net 
 mailto:wo...@pch.net wrote:
 
 
  On Apr 27, 2015, at 5:53 AM, Yosem Companys compa...@stanford.edu 
  mailto:compa...@stanford.edu wrote:
  From: Nick Ashton-Hart nash...@consensus.pro 
  mailto:nash...@consensus.pro via bestb...@lists.bestbits.net 
  mailto:bestb...@lists.bestbits.net
  If you, or someone you know, has hands-on ICTs and especially telecom 
  infrastructure experience and is presently in Nepal can you let me know 
  offlist?
  I'm trying to help emergency teams in country gain access to in-country 
  expertise.
 
  One of our larger offices is in Kathmandu.  Our staff and their families 
  are all accounted for and okay, so we’ve released and funded them to do 
  relief work.  Presumably they’ll principally be doing ICT-related work, and 
  presumably that will be coordinated through the ICT industry association.  
  The current secretary of the industry association is Indiver Badal 
  i...@indiver.com mailto:i...@indiver.com, who was PCH’s peering 
  coordinator for several years.
 
  One issue we’ve observed many times when doing relief work, perhaps worst 
  in the 2004 tsunami, the 2003 conflict in the Congo, and 2010 in Haiti, is 
  that areas with modest ICT infrastructure that was adequate to the 
  sustainable needs of their market, are swamped by aid workers with immodest 
  expectations.  i.e. a desire to video-chat with their families every day, 
  play WoW, and download video porn.  So they all show up, and declare 
  “repairing the Internet infrastructure” (to levels never before seen) to be 
  their first priority.  They run rough-shod over the local infrastructure 
  operators, step on carefully-regulated or carefully-negotiated frequency 
  allocations, etc.
 
  I very much hope we won’t have to deal with that in this case.  Nepal’s ICT 
  environment is mature, its professionals are expert, and its community is 
  well connected.  If and when they need help, they’re perfectly capable of 
  indicating what help they need, and anyone from the outside who believes 
  they know better is WRONG.  So, if you’re interested in helping, by all 
  means, make your availability known to Indiver or any of the many other ICT 
  professionals in-country, but please don’t assume that you know what’s 
  needed, or worse, that they don’t.
 
 -Bill
 
 
 
 
 

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Re: [liberationtech] Looking for: ICT/telecom expertise in country in Nepal

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Yes please - there's a spreadsheet that a bunch of people are on and populating 
with contacts, from techs who can help to ministry, UN agency and the like 
contact people. If anyone would like to be added to add more names, just give 
me a gdocs address.

I'm getting a lot of incoming emails now, which is great, but which is also 
swamping me a bit :)

On 27 Apr 2015, at 17:34, Lina Srivastava l...@linasrivastava.com wrote:

 Also, Flowminder.org was in Nepal last week to set up a mobile / disaster 
 response system there which will be fully operational this summer, and have 
 contracts in place and the system underway, but in the meantime are working 
 to see if they can do ad-hoc work now. Let me know if you want a contact 
 there. 
 
 On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Peter Micek pe...@accessnow.org wrote:
 The Swedish-Finnish telco TeliaSonera operates in Nepal and is engaged in 
 relief efforts, offering 50 free SMS and some free calling. I'll paste their 
 email below, and find their latest alert here:  
 http://www.teliasonera.com/en/newsroom/news/2015/update-on-the-earthquake-i-nepal
  
 
 Peter
 Update on TeliaSonera’s operations in Nepal following earthquake
 
 TeliaSonera's majority owned company in Nepal, Ncell, is working around the 
 clock to help and support its employees and partners after the major 
 earthquake which hit Nepal this weekend. As of now there are no reports of 
 any of the 515 employees being injured. Ncell also continues its work to keep 
 the mobile network in the country running to facilitate for the rescue 
 operations ongoing.
 
 The highest priority is and has been to locate all employees and to give them 
 the best possible support in their very difficult personal situations. Ncell 
 has of this morning been able to establish the whereabouts of all its 
 employees.
 
 On early Monday morning, TeliaSonera sent an aircraft to Nepal with tents, 
 water cleaning facilities and medical supplies to help stabilize and improve 
 working conditions for Ncell's employees in order to secure the operations.
 
 Most of Ncell's mobile network in Nepal is working, although overloaded with 
 several hundred sites having power supply problems. This leads to congested 
 networks and Ncell therefore urges everyone to communicate by SMS in order to 
 minimize the strain of the network.
 
 Ncell's crisis management team has secured support from suppliers and 
 maintenance teams are trying to restart as many sites as possible. Right now, 
 it is not possible to assess the damages and costs related to the earthquake.
 
 To ensure that Ncell’s customers can communicate with families and friends, 
 Ncell has credited SIM cards with an amount sufficient to make necessary 
 calls. Ncell also provides customers with 50 free SMS, as a first action. 
 Calls and SMS between most of TeliaSonera' European operations and Nepal are 
 free of charge, but due to the damage to the network, Ncell has made the 
 judgment that it is not possible to enable free calls in Nepal as it would 
 put additional strain to the network and risk the ongoing rescue operations. 
 This is constantly reviewed.
 
 For more information on Ncell and the earthquake please read articles on 
 TeliaSonera.com/newsroom.
 
 For more information, please contact the TeliaSonera press office +46 771 77 
 58 30, pr...@teliasonera.com, visit our Newsroom or follow us on Twitter 
 @TeliaSoneraAB .
 
 On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Lina Srivastava l...@linasrivastava.com 
 wrote:
 You might already know about Kathmandu Living Labs, but if not, they might be 
 able to help: http://kathmandulivinglabs.org/ 
 
 On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Yosem Companys compa...@stanford.edu wrote:
 From: Nick Ashton-Hart nash...@consensus.pro via bestb...@lists.bestbits.net
 If you, or someone you know, has hands-on ICTs and especially telecom 
 infrastructure experience and is presently in Nepal can you let me know 
 offlist?
 
 I'm trying to help emergency teams in country gain access to in-country 
 expertise.
 
 Regards, Nick
 
 
 
 
 --
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 -- 
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 --
 linasrivastava.com  |  twitter  |  linkedin 
 
 
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 Access | accessnow.org | rightscon.org
 tel: +1-888-414-0100 x709
 Skype: peter-r-m
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Re: [liberationtech] Looking for: ICT/telecom expertise in country in Nepal

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

+ Indiver

Dear Bill,

I've certainly experienced that dynamic before. I'm very glad to hear that 
families are all OK. I only wish it were true for everyone, and it is great 
that PCH has released staff to help out - very much in the Nepali spirit I 
might add!

In this instance, Im not in Nepal right now, and so I won't be telling anyone 
what they need or anything of the sort. Nor would I be doing any of that if I 
were there.

I'm helping OCHA get access to a pool of people with a variety of skills - 
especially at the moment in 'telecom triage' but I'm sure it will rapidly 
expand beyond that. This is a grassroots thing with the list mostly coming from 
Nepalis referred by NGOs in digital policy and ISOC chapters. Microsoft's 
country director is helping in large part due to his connections with 
universities' tech programmes but in typical Nepali fashion also personally.

Indiver, if you would like to be added to the gdoc where the list is kept, 
directly introduced to the chap at OCHA who is helping the teams on the ground 
with all this, or both, let me know, I'm happy to do either or both.

FWIW, the list currently has two PCH people who have put themselves forward: 
Dibya Khatiwada and Rustan Shrestha. The more the merrier!

On 27 Apr 2015, at 20:12, Bill Woodcock wo...@pch.net wrote:

 
 On Apr 27, 2015, at 5:53 AM, Yosem Companys compa...@stanford.edu wrote:
 From: Nick Ashton-Hart nash...@consensus.pro via 
 bestb...@lists.bestbits.net
 If you, or someone you know, has hands-on ICTs and especially telecom 
 infrastructure experience and is presently in Nepal can you let me know 
 offlist?
 I'm trying to help emergency teams in country gain access to in-country 
 expertise.
 
 One of our larger offices is in Kathmandu.  Our staff and their families are 
 all accounted for and okay, so we’ve released and funded them to do relief 
 work.  Presumably they’ll principally be doing ICT-related work, and 
 presumably that will be coordinated through the ICT industry association.  
 The current secretary of the industry association is Indiver Badal 
 i...@indiver.com, who was PCH’s peering coordinator for several years.
 
 One issue we’ve observed many times when doing relief work, perhaps worst in 
 the 2004 tsunami, the 2003 conflict in the Congo, and 2010 in Haiti, is that 
 areas with modest ICT infrastructure that was adequate to the sustainable 
 needs of their market, are swamped by aid workers with immodest expectations. 
  i.e. a desire to video-chat with their families every day, play WoW, and 
 download video porn.  So they all show up, and declare “repairing the 
 Internet infrastructure” (to levels never before seen) to be their first 
 priority.  They run rough-shod over the local infrastructure operators, step 
 on carefully-regulated or carefully-negotiated frequency allocations, etc.
 
 I very much hope we won’t have to deal with that in this case.  Nepal’s ICT 
 environment is mature, its professionals are expert, and its community is 
 well connected.  If and when they need help, they’re perfectly capable of 
 indicating what help they need, and anyone from the outside who believes they 
 know better is WRONG.  So, if you’re interested in helping, by all means, 
 make your availability known to Indiver or any of the many other ICT 
 professionals in-country, but please don’t assume that you know what’s 
 needed, or worse, that they don’t.
 
-Bill
 
 
 
 

-- 
Liberationtech is public  archives are searchable on Google. Violations of 
list guidelines will get you moderated: 
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
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