NGO Collaboration Space

June 2, 2011 - 09:05 -- Noel Dickover
Revision #5Recommend a SolutionFork

Find ways to assist NGOs in sharing information and avoiding duplication of efforts. One idea is to generate a space for collaboration, communication and cooperation between NGOs. This would be valuable both for election monitoring and disaster response.


The idea here is to generate cooperation and communication among NGOs, sharing both resources and information in a variety of sectors such as disaster response, or election monitoring, for instance. Currently these organizations lack incentives to make information available online. They all have excellent projects, but few are online. If such a NGO-sharing platform were available, it would be ideal to support many areas, such as upcoming elections in Peru, Mexico and Argentina in 2011. For election monitoring, it could provide voting data, candidate contact info, surveys, etc. For disaster response, it could provide a method of planning and coordination prior to a disaster. Existing tools such as "Git up" (sp) and DropBox are useful but have limitations. Ideales.org is another useful model. In summary, a competitive, open marketplace of information among NGOs would be very valuable.


In terms of what needs to be shared, specifically we are interested in understanding what activities each of the NGOs is doing. This might be visualizations or mashups of the information.

Recommended Solutions: 
NGO Collaboration Space
Example: 

Disaster Response Example:


NGOs would have either a widget that they could integrate into a cloud-based logistics management application or an easy to access website where they could quickly provide information per sector on where they are operating or what they are doing. Entering this information could take place from either a mobile device or a website, and needs to be extremely easy.


Election Monitoring Example:

 There will be an election taking place in Guatemala in September 2011, that will have a real need for technology enhanced election monitoring. The US State Department is organizing a "TechCamp" around election monitoring in Guatemala in early August 2011 to support this.  If this tool was in place it could be used to share data including:



  • Contact data: Profiles of candidates
  • Financing of parties
  • voting information
  • Legal declarations
  • Location of polling places
  • Survey data
User Stories: 

The participants in the RHoK 2.0 Nairobi Kenya event worked on this problem at the last RHoK event. Hopefully they will describe their current solution.


But one idea would be a cloud-based platform that allowed multiple people to update a project page by mobile or internet information.  Also a map to capture this information geospatially would be effective as well. The main thing though is that multiple organizations would be able to quickly join this and start adding content in a variety of subjects.

Constraints: 
  • This needs to be extremely easy to use, so that technophobes can quickly engage. It can't have too many functions or steps to get working.
  • Mobile based solutions are valued, as many of the contributors won't have access to the internet.
Extra Credit: 

Similar Projects and Resources: 
Similar projects might include: GitHub, DropBox, Idealistas.org and other accessible tools for NGOS. Timeline-follow
Qualitative Impact: 
Far better situational awareness for NGOs operating in the same space. This will improve their response and overall understanding of what has occurred.

Comments

  • We came up with a hack for this problem during the RHOK #2 in Nairobi.

  • The features covered by our hack include NGO collaboration, modeling activities like Election Monitoring and Disaster management around an activity template. A template determines the information to be recorded, as well as sub-tasks that can be collaboratively carried out by the NGOs.

  • Additionally, a public section where the NGOs and corresponding activities can be geospatially located by the general public is included.

  • An NGO may have a very good project/activity proposal, but lack the funds to execute the proposal. In such a case, we've included a donors and fund sourcing section that the NGO can use to raise funds for the activity.

  • When one sponsors an activity/project or donates to a project/activity, they may like to know how their contribution is utilized. For this, we've included a fund usage tracking section.

  • So far, the application is entirely web-based. However, for ease and convenience of data entry, we envision a strong need for a mobile client that would interface with the system through web services, for instance.
okello Jun 02, 2011

I'm currently working on this application, and the approach has changed a little bit:

 

1. I have both web and desktop clients. The web client will be used mostly for viewing progress of activities like disaster response management, but can also be used for data entry. Most of the collaboration can take place by using the desktop and mobile clients, both of which communicate asynchronously with the main backend that the web client also relies on for its data.

 

2. Based on the type of activity, tasks are automatically generated and sent to the relevant NGOs for confirmation of collaboration. An NGO can then choose to invite others to collaborate with her on the system assigned tasks. An NGO has an option of rejecting the collaborationr equest, at which point the task will be multicasted to the other NGOs, until an NGO agrees to take on the task.

 

3. Following this architecture, the only data entry that will be needed will be updating the status of tasks.

 

4. The system would also track tasks that are lagging behind in relation to other tasks in the same activity, and initiate an action, meant to hasten the completion of the tasks in question, especially where one task depends on the completion of another.

okello Nov 20, 2011