Freedom Fone and Sahana case study presented at the CDAC Technology Fair

In our efforts to get the message out to Disaster Researchers and Practitioners, through the VoiceICT4D project, to strengthen disaster management ICT systems with voice for low computer literate CERT members, we recently took advantage of the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Media and Tech Fair that was held in London, UK.

Brenda Burrell (Technical Director Freedom Fone), residing in Harare and I in Kunming, were invited with very short notice and couldn’t acquire visas to UK on time. However, our colleague in Oxford Francis Boon (Sahana Software Foundation) was able to fill our shoes given that he was already attending and presenting at the conference. Click to view the slides used to ignite the crisis management relevant message.

Francis, presenting the Sahana Eden prospective of the case study, highlighted the key message: “Sahana Eden should become the single front-facing application for users and this should talk to the IVR via application programming interfaces (APIs). The APIs should allow for dynamic real-time interfacing with all functions: structuring menus, uploading audio files to the menu tree nodes, accessing “leave-a-message” audio files, and controlling outbound dialing. The Freedom Fone and Sahana Eden communities are currently discussing how this could be done.”

In the Freedom Fone version of the case study, Brenda elaborates: “The lessons to date are promising for integrating voice for emergency communication; especially to bridge the last-mile with incident management hubs. Moreover, it is a particularly effective way to enable ICTs for low computer literate non-English working language community-based disaster management organizations in developing countries. Sahana Foundation and Freedom Fone are keen to pursue the integration of the two platforms. If successful, this would position the integrated voice-enabled disaster communication system, for wider adoption, especially, with community-based emergency management and response organizations.”

Besides sharing the knowledge with disaster related media and tech savvy audience, the most important aspect was committing Sahana and Freedom Fone communities to agree on the need and hearing the message come out of their own mouth in their own words.

Francis Boon of Sahana, presenting on Freedom Fone at CDAC Media & Tech Fair

Nuwan Waidyanatha – LIRNEasia