Platforms and Natural Disasters
There is a Sonu Sood in all of us !
“Last few months have been difficult” might also be the understatement of last few months. We have had Covid19, large scale labour migration, locust attack, monsoon floods, forest fires, desert storms , chemical plant explosions , typhoons and flash floods amongst others. But, I would rather highlight the exemplary courage and fight shown by ordinary Indians as well as socially aware celebrities. Women have been powerful symbols of this indomitable courage as depicted in this Durga Puja Pandal in Kolkatta.
Happy Navratri and Happy Durga Puja.
May the new season bring hope and love for all.
AND if you are a friend of the RPML, do share this newsletter with others. You can add more of your friends to the Community of Platform’ed by using the following link.
DTW
During the Week, Hyderabad saw incessant rains and threw the ordinary life into turmoil. As usual , it brought out the best and worst of human behaviour amplified by platforms. There were many rumours and false information floating on social media. Some miscreant had a field day spreading panic amongst the Hyderabadis through old videos and photographs of crocodiles in flood water.
Platforms have been instrumental in Disasters Risk Mitigation and Recovery through two dimensions of Information Dissemination and Resource Mobilisation.
Platforms’ role in Information Dissemination both before and during the disasters has been well documented. I have written about it here and here. Facebook , Google and Twitter have been dominant source of information about disasters both natural and man-made. We have seen the role played by social media companies during Covid19 pandemic and other natural disasters. Disasters both natural and man-made are terrible. As a native of Himalayan State of Uttarakhand which has faced multiple natural disasters and suffered tremendous losses, I am particularly hopeful of leveraging platforms for disaster risk mitigation and post disaster mitigation.
During the Kedarnath Flood Tragedy , HAM operators played a stellar but unrecognised role in gathering information about the survivors and communicating with the nation wide distressed family members of those struck in floods. Facebook had launched Marked Safe through their Crisis Response Initiative. This initiative lets people who are affected by crises tell friends they're safe. They can find or offer help and get the latest news and information about the crisis.
Of course, Facebook users have been using the parody versions of #MarkedSafe from multiple “crisis” of their own.
Resource Mobilisation for Disaster Recovery through multiple Crowd Funding platforms has opened up opportunities for small donors to participate in global efforts. Multiple fund raising campaigns have been started during disasters leading to substantial efforts even before the state government and other authorities could wake up.
Not only celebrities or international/national NGOs but also smaller but dedicated group of committed volunteers have been able to leverage on their local network and alumni networks to raise funds for people in distress.
Climate Change poses huge challenge for humanity and could be cause of multiple episode of droughts and floods experienced in India and across the world. My running guruji Satish Raju, ex-CEO of SwissRe India is currently working on a project with folks at VanderSat to develop Swiss Re’s Agro Analytics Platform which allows underwriters to share their portfolios and generate a risk score for drought (and other extreme weather events) calculated from historical and near-real time weather data.
Platforms can help in managing lives, livelihoods and health during disasters. They could also help persons, businesses, communities and countries to mitigate disaster risk through data sharing and timely interventions. Do let me know if you or an acquaintance has used platform/s in time of emergency or disasters and to what effect.
OTW
Over the Weekend, I recalled my first ever out-station Full Marathon during 2015 Shriram Properties Bengaluru Marathon. It was real fun to run a full marathon outside your home town.
Marathon running like many other endurance activities is about familiarity and practice. Each new venue presents its own set of challenges and opportunities. Airtel Hyderabad Marathon provides familiarity with terrain and of course tremendous crowd support from fellow runners and organisers. It makes it so much easier to finish the run amidst friends and family. I still vividly remember the Benguluru Marathon to be a lonely effort though I accidentally met one student friend during the run and few more waiting for me at the finish line. Of course, I found it difficult to navigate the dreaded Bengaluru traffic even when the convention is to close running route for vehicular traffic. Still, two marathon events at Bengaluru have been amongst my best efforts.
I found an interesting research project called “Hedonometer” to track our collective happiness based on the words and expressions on Twitter. This year has been an unusually sad year and the saddest day as recorded by the Hedonometer in the last 13 years was Sunday, May 31, 2020.
Of course, we could get out of this constant dragging down of public mood through a more sustained dose of gratitude and giving.
I Love You.
Shailendra
PS- We had an amazing episode of MountainSpeak with Ramya and Gangu on 11th October 2020 discussing about living an independent life. Gangu and Ramya shared their experiences of weaving a life around travel and yoga. Their twin daughters Amulya and Ananya have been #RoadSchooled and #HomeSchooled. You can watch the episode on this link.
MountainSpeak is a Free-Form Conversation Style Platform for exchanging ideas about Multi-sided Networks, Business , Marketing , Endurance Running and Life in general ! You could sign up and join once-a-month session here !
Absolutely Sir. You have correctly pointed out the role and use of the platform for fund raising and helping the people who needs help. However, there has always been a trust issue with regards to these platforms; as many of them are like mushrooms who pop up and then goes, and thus affects the funding raising capabilities of others as well.
Also, the use of IoT and others ICT tools in agricultural, ETHERSC and WorldCover are doing phenomenal job in AgriInsurance, who started as a small platform and because of their value propositions and PoDs, now they are pioneering the industry.
One more piece from your pen sir which is a combination of information and inspiration. In European countries, few start-ups like Tractable develops AI solution for accidents and predicts repair cost whereas World from Space monitoring drought and vegetation from satellite even in India one start-up at Kochi, HW Design labs working on disaster warning broadcast system and few names are actively contributing in disaster time like Smile Foundation, Goonj, and Rapid Response but we need more innovation and more effort to cope up with such situations and even strong mechanism to stop the spread of fake news.