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Digital Humanitarians
The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. This flash flood of information―social media, satellite imagery and more―is often referred to as Big Data. Making sense of this data deluge during disasters is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations, which explains why they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians. Who exactly are these Digital Humanitarians and how do they make sense of Big Data? Digital How Big Data Is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response answers this question. Digital Humanitarians are you, me, all of us―volunteers, students and professionals from the world over and from all walks of life. What do they share in common? They desire to make a difference, and they do by rapidly mobilizing online in collaboration with international humanitarian organizations. In virtually real-time, they make sense of vast volumes of social media, SMS and imagery captured from satellites and UAVs to support relief efforts worldwide. How? They craft and leverage ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence. This book charts the sudden and spectacular rise of Digital Humanitarians by sharing their remarkable, real-life stories, highlighting how their humanity coupled with innovative solutions to Big Data is changing humanitarian response forever. Digital Humanitarians will make you think differently about what it means to be humanitarian and will invite you to join the journey online.
260 pages, Hardcover
First published January 9, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 4, 2016
An excellent general-audience book on how digital technologies are enabling ordinary volunteers to save lives in disasters around the world. The author is one of the founders of the movement, having created a crisis-management platform in his dorm room in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Meier gives an overview of the problems of coordination and information processing facing crisis response efforts, then details the evolution of computing and communications tools across a series of case studies of environmental and political crises.
The author is steadier and less gee-whiz than, for example, Jane McGonigal in Reality Is Broken. He has a practitioner's sense of the limitations of the possible, and a designer's understanding of the systems necessary to contribute in a useful and timely way in a crisis. For all that, he manages to be at least as inspiring: the potential for ordinary people to help in a meaningful way is greater than ever, thanks in no small part to the author's own efforts.
Digital Humanitarians is an inspirational, informative, readable short book. Its only shortcoming, which is somewhat shocking, is that it doesn't provide a list of generally available resources and means to contribute: readers will have to pick them out of the text and do some googling. A short "How You Can Help" section would have been a great improvement.
Meier gives an overview of the problems of coordination and information processing facing crisis response efforts, then details the evolution of computing and communications tools across a series of case studies of environmental and political crises.
The author is steadier and less gee-whiz than, for example, Jane McGonigal in Reality Is Broken. He has a practitioner's sense of the limitations of the possible, and a designer's understanding of the systems necessary to contribute in a useful and timely way in a crisis. For all that, he manages to be at least as inspiring: the potential for ordinary people to help in a meaningful way is greater than ever, thanks in no small part to the author's own efforts.
Digital Humanitarians is an inspirational, informative, readable short book. Its only shortcoming, which is somewhat shocking, is that it doesn't provide a list of generally available resources and means to contribute: readers will have to pick them out of the text and do some googling. A short "How You Can Help" section would have been a great improvement.
October 31, 2021
Interesting but a little bit blinded by its own light. It felt like the story of nuclear technology, awesome and a testament to human intelligence and its selfishness and capacity for abuse. Lots of name-dropping and back-slapping detracts from the fact that humans COULD be capable of so much more.
February 25, 2020
Picked up this book as an essay reference for a humanitarian assistance course that I am taking. I never felt that writing an essay could be so fun and inspirational until Digital Humanitarians. A great choice for quick reading that shows what revolutionary ingenuity and compassion for fellow human beings creates. Highly recommend!
January 1, 2016
This is THE book for Digital Humanitarian. It contains very interesting stories about different situations, obstacles, technologies and how teams found the solutions. In addition, it raises a lot of important challenges and issues facing all humanitarians around the world.
August 9, 2017
Great book from one of the top digital humanitarians Patrick Meier. Who wants to know more about crisis mapping, artificial intelligence and machine learning and its usage for the humanitarian crises, this is the best book to start with.
March 26, 2017
An inspiring book that makes you believe in mankind again. It might be a book about digital humanitarians and the techniques used to make sense of big data in disasters - but it is also a book about people who step up for others often far from home and how all of us can.
January 3, 2019
I met the author and was intrigued by his story. I enjoyed this book very much!
February 16, 2018
4.5 stars.
December 17, 2024
A book explaining how social media was used to overcome the tsunami and how digital humanitarianism became a thing ever since then p
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews