Disaster Management

CGIAR Indonesia-Africa SDG Workshop

In September 2022, CGIAR funded our Open Knowledge Kit accelerated humanitarian and MSME regeneration program in Bali, Indonesia. We brought together selected technical and non-technical women and Indigenous youth to learn our accelerated program of SDG data collection, mapping, analytics and monitoring, drone operations, and Tourism and Creative Industries micro, small and medium enterprise support and market access.

Our model delivers faster, more accurate verifiable representative data using free and open source tools and low-cost equipment. Training local communities means expensive consultant, equipment, software and travel costs and carbon footprints are greatly reduced, and enable continuous and consistent monitoring while increasing local daily wages by 100 to 1700 percent.

CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. The Open Knowledge Kit program is supported under their gender and digital divide Digital Innovation Initiative.

Read CGIAR’s blog post.

Pacific Forum Women Peace and Security Fellow

This November, I became a Women, Peace and Security Fellow for the Pacific Forum. The Pacific Forum enables academics and professionals to conduct research and support WPS programming in fields such as inclusive health security, cybersecurity, climate security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, preventing and countering violent extremism, and maritime security, with a focus on the promotion of women’s participation in peace and security policy at international levels in dialogues, policies, and peace processes. Founded in 1975, the Pacific Forum is a non-profit, foreign policy research institute based in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Forum’s programs encompass current and emerging political, security, economic and business issues and works to help stimulate cooperative policies in the Indo-Pacific region through analysis and dialogue undertaken with the region’s leaders in the academic, government, and corporate areas.

I’m currently designing a gender and climate security study using geospatial indicators and 3D reconstruction across eight countries, including comparisons on conflict and infrastructure.

World Bank G20 Youth Event

On June 21, I’ll be sharing how our Open Knowledge Kit regeneration program helps non-Youthmappers and non-technical youth learn mapping skills that create local data employment to earn 2-17 times higher daily wages through mostly remote training. These skills combine with climate change modeling and early warning flood systems at 70-1000 percent lower costs to remove barriers to addressing climate change.

The World Bank Group (WBG) Youth Summit Committee (YS) and the Youth-to-Youth Community team (Y2Y) are organizing a joint event in the context of the Youth G20 (Y20) Pre-Summit event in Indonesia. The goal of this joint event is to highlight the role of the youth in addressing the impacts of climate change, foster environmental inclusion, and to discuss the importance of having a youth-led green, resilient and inclusive development approach for people and the planet.  

The World Bank Group (WBG) Youth Summit Committee (YS) and the Youth-to-Youth Community team
(Y2Y) are organizing a joint event in the context of the Youth G20 (Y20) Pre-Summit event in Indonesia.

Subak Australia Climate Impact Fellowship

In 2022 I was one of six people awarded with a fellowship at Subak Australia. Subak’s Fellowship funds innovative climate data specialists. This funding partially supported outputs for my G20 presentations, to show that my OK Kit local data economy and MSME program can provide better data, local revenues and social impacts at significantly lower costs and climate footprints, in just 3 months.

Understanding Risk Asia

We were invited to present at two sessions at the 2021 Understanding Risk Asia conference hosted by World Bank and National University of Singapore.

I led a solo session talking about our Open Knowledge Kit program and four career tracks and also curated the panel presenting the developers behind our technology and implementing partners.

Open Knowledge Kit (OK Kit) is a free and open-source tool kit to empower local communities with digital employment through geospatial data collection, analytics and monitoring toward the stewardship of their economic, climate, and social prosperity. Surveys, disaster and climate change modeling and 3D reconstruction are now possible at much lower costs, training local and non-technical communities.

OK Kit Addresses the key barriers to achieving the SDGs:

1. Short-term and uncoordinated donor projects led by community outsiders 
2. Expensive, proprietary and closed technology systems
3. The gender gap
4. Decent Work

Mapping & Data Science Workshop

On Wednesday, October 21 at 10pm PHT | 14:00 UTC, join our free online mapping and data science workshop with the Asian Pathways Research Lab at the Asian Institute of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Policy, University of Toronto. Hear Ivan Gayton’s efforts leading Médecins Sans Frontières|Doctors Without Borders, co-founding the Missing Maps project, and his current work with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap. Celina Agaton shares her global experiences in open data, civic technology, gender, and cultural preservation to regenerate supply chains.

Mindanao: Agriculture, Gender Gap and Logistics Mapping

My Canadian consulting company is currently mapping the Mindanao region to support rural farming, gender, healthcare and artisan communities. The Mindanao region grows almost half the country’s food, yet remains the poorest population, with many communities at 30-70% poverty incidence. War and conflict have increased in the region in recent years, with security and safety concerns for girls and women. Our goal is to help map rural agriculture, logistics and the gender gap to plan improved infrastructure with long-term impacts on health, well-being and livelihood for girls, women, Indigenous Peoples and farm families.

This is a coordinated effort across international agencies, government, business, non-profits, academe and community leaders. Our study results will lead the prioritization and coordinated planning between international funding agencies and private investment in the second phase of this initiative.

We’ll be working with communities to teach them to map and using geospatial technologies to rapidly analyze infrastructure gaps for validation with local communities.

Local YouthMappers chapters at Far Eastern University and University of the Philippines Resilience Institute, Map the Philippines, George Washington University Humanitarian Mapping Society, and USAID GeoCenter are generously supporting the validation of these tasks.

The Do No Digital Harm Initiative

I’ve just joined the board for the Do No Digital Harm Initiative, the world’s first on-call, deployable team mandated to address the ethical, security, and design challenges faced by humanitarian actors supporting highly vulnerable civil society groups, crisis-affected populations and the humanitarian practitioners who serve them. Our mandate is to reduce harm resulting from information activities and digital services deployed in natural disaster and protracted conflict environments.

7th International Conference of Crisis Mappers

I’m thrilled to be co-hosting the 7th International Conference of Crisis Mappers in Manila from September 28 – 30 with field visits from October 1-5.

To make the conference more accessible, tickets for Philippines’ based attendees are P2,500 including 3 days of conference + 2 field visits!

Second White House Mapathon

Last year I was grateful to be invited to the First White House Mapathon and was able to thank the U.S. State Department for sharing satellite imagery and mapping support for Super Typhoon Haiyan. I’m thrilled to have been invited back to the White House for their Second White House Mapathonon July 7, 2016. #WHMapathon

The Philippines is the third most disaster prone country in the world, and the number one most at risk from climate change. With Map the Philippines readying for launch in the coming weeks, we aim to map the Philippines’ 81 provinces by December 2017 for better transparency, prioritization, coordination and monitoring of public and private infrastructure needs and projects. Beyond disaster management, our mapping, training and programs focus on building community resilience to help achieve the United Nations 17 Sustainable Goals.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy invites you to the Second White House Mapathon to celebrate and actively do Open Mapping on Thursday, July 7, 2016 from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Open Mapping, or collaborative mapping, is where participants use a wiki-like approach to contribute to maps of the world. Open, accessible data -— including geospatial data — has been a key component of the Administration’s Open Data initiatives. During this event, we will highlight exciting initiatives that collect, create and use open geospatial data and participate in mapping projects to further those initiatives.

Increasingly, tools like citizen science and crowdsourcing are opening up the ability for the public to contribute to government datasets, and for government to support the creation of open data. Agencies including the Department of State, the Department of Interior, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the General Services Administration are working on crowdsourced mapping projects.

Crowdsourced mapping projects and participants are part of a growing innovation movement, transforming the relationship between the government and the public, and supported by United States commitments in the Second and Third Open Government National Action Plans. The White House Mapathon will highlight the successes and invite participants to contribute to the rising efforts in Open Mapping.

7th International Conference of Crisis Mappers in Manila

I’m thrilled to be co-organizing the 7th International Conference of Crisis Mappers in Manila on September 28-30, 2016. The week of October 1st sends our participants to field sites across the Philippines to connect with local communities and collaborate on mapping tasks.

This year’s theme is Building Resiliency: Inclusive Innovations in Crisis Mapping. The Philippines is the third most disaster prone country in the world and the most at risk from climate change. Its geography is spread over 7,000 islands, which are home to 12 ethnic groups and over 100 tribal groups. In contrast, it is also the fasted growing economy in Asia and our communities are one of the top users of social media in the world. In spite of our many challenges, Filipinos maintain a remarkably resilient and warm culture, even Anthony Bourdain dedicated a show episode to our resounding spirit.

Everyone is welcome to attend the conference, we hope to have a good representation of all the sectors providing their insights and feedback. We hope many Filipinos will participate, and we are offering a 3-day conference rate of P2500 to improve accessibility and will open scholarship opportunities as well.

Registration will open soon, please stay tuned.

Celebrating National Heritage Month and 10 years of Jane’s Walks in Historic Quiapo District

On May 7, Manila joined 200 cities in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Jane’s Walk and what would have been Jane Jacob’s 100th birthday. Jane’s Walks began in 2006 to commemorate the life of one of the most influential figures in urban planning. Jane Jacobs championed a community-based approach to designing cities, including the seminal concepts of pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, parks, and retail design in building vibrant local economies. She helped derail plans to convert core downtown neighbourhoods into highways in both Toronto and New York. May also marks National Heritage Month, providing opportunities to raise awareness of heritage buildings in need of preservation.

In partnership with Far Eastern University, Map the Philippines hosted a walking tour of historic Quiapo district attended by over a hundred participants. Labelled #mapPHquiapo, the tour included 125 year-old San Sebastian Basilica, led by Conservation Foundation Director, Tina Paterno who detailed the rich history of the country’s only all metal building and whose interior finishes are still original from 1891. The Basilica’s steel and cast iron were forged in Belgium and shipped to Manila in 9 steamships, and then curiously painted to look like stone. Its painters were the country’s leading art school which eventually evolved to become the University of the Philippines Fine Arts. Another original feature is its intricately painted German stained glass by Heinrich Oidtmann, whose work is part of major museum collections around the world.

From the church, Kapitbahayan sa Kalye Bautista’s Peter Rallos and Far Eastern University Guides Fatima Mae Luna and Francis Calderon led participants through historical Hidalgo street lined with 300 year-old homes and Bahay Nakpil-Bautista, home of composer Julio Nakpil and heroes of the 1896 revolution. The tour ended at Far Eastern University’s living art space, recognized by UNESCO for successful heritage preservation. Its five Art Deco buildings were designed by Pablo Antonio, Sr., National Artist for Architecture.

From the walking tour showcasing Quiapo’s past and present, the event transitioned to a mapping party for Quiapo’s future at the modern Far Eastern University Institute of Technology 17th floor hall overlooking the city of Manila. Participants learned the basics of neighborhood mapping on OpenStreetMap, how to report heritage protection needs, and how to share photos on free mapping app, Mapillary. Wikimedia Philippines taught participants how to create and edit Wikipedia pages. Local residents and the local fire hall inspector shared concerns regarding fire safety and the lack of adequate sprinkler and hydrants to protect heritage sites and affected communities, which initiated a separate project to map to identify fire risks in Quiapo.

DZMM Radio with Dr. Mahar Lagmay

On May 1, 2016 I was invited by DZMM Radio and Project NOAH Executive Director Prof. Mahar Lagmay’s radio show, Red Alert. Dr. Lagmay was recently names one of Asia’s Top 100 Scientists by Asian Scientist Magazine and received the 2015 Plinius Medal by the European Geosciences Union for his work on hazard research and natural disaster engagement in the Philippines.

We discussed the importance of sharing cross sector data and maps for disaster risk reduction and our May 7th mapping event for the Quiapo historical district in Manila.

Micro to Medium Enterprise Campus Launch in Davao

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Thrilled to be working on disaster resilient and sustainable livelihood and mapping programs with women, farmers, fishermen and rural poor communities in Davao, Mindanao. With support from the Gerry Roxas Foundation and USAID, we announced the first batches of grantees and launched the Tuason Development Foundation TDFI Campus for micro to medium enterprise.

U.S. Embassy Hosts Typhoon Haiyan Mapathon for Red Cross Recovery Programs

Over 50 participants completed over 28,000 edits at the U.S. Embassy’s Leyte Mapathon on January 23, in partnership with Map the Philippines and OpenStreetMap Philippines. The U.S. State Department’s MapGive program generously provided satellite imagery to improve maps for the Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan Recovery Program in Leyte. They are currently working in 23 barangays or villages on integrated recovery programs including house construction, house repair, community infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, livelihoods and water and sanitation.

Members from Philippine, American, Swiss and French Red Cross teams in Tacloban participated in the mapping workshop. American Red Cross’ Country Representative, Margaret Stansberry and Monitoring and Evaluation Delegate, Will McFall, spoke about how the Leyte mapathon helps create better maps and data for various stakeholders. Many thanks to Erwin, Rally, Eugene and Ervin from OSM-PH for their support.

The Leyte task is 67% complete so we still need your help to edit and verify data. We hope you’ll join us!

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Gallery photos courtesy United States Public Affairs Office.

Leyte Mapathon with U.S. Embassy

WHEN

Saturday, January 23, 2016 from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM (PHT) – Add to Calendar

WHERE

Embassy of the United States of America – 1201 Roxas Boulevard Manila, NCR 1000 PH –View Map

Map The Philippines and Mozilla GeoWeek Mapping Party

The week of November 15-21 is Geography Awareness Week and to help celebrate, Map the Philippines and Mozilla Community Space Manila are hosting an OpenStreetMap GeoWeek mapping party on November 17 from 1-6pm.

We believe maps and community driven mapping projects can help visualize the needs and opportunities in our neighbourhoods. Maps can serve as the connecting point to coordinate and track efforts across government, business, NGOs and community groups. Which is why we support OpenStreetMap, a free and open source mapping platform supported by a community of over 2.3 million mappers that contribute data about roads, hospitals, restaurants, coffee shops and more from around the world. Learn more about becoming a mapping volunteer.

Learn about OpenStreetMap and how mapping helps visualize community needs and opportunities in disaster, livelihood, arts, heritage preservation and food security.

If you’d like to learn how to map, please bring your own laptop, tablet or GPS.
The event is free and everyone is welcome! Introductions will begin from 1:00-2:00pm.

Please register at http://geoweekmnl2015.eventbrite.com

Hashtag #mapPHL #osmgeoweek
November 17, 2015

1:00 to 6:00pm
Mozilla Community Space Manila (MozSpaceMNL)
Roof Deck, Molave Building,
2231 Chino Roces Avenue (Pasong Tamo)
Makati City, Philippines 1233

Mobile Number:
+63.905.398.4499

Map and Directions

2015 USAID AidData Fellows

Celina Agaton with the 2015 USAID AidData Fellows

I’ve had the pleasure of hosting five USAID AidData Fellows from June to August 2015 here in Manila to work on several of my Map the Philippines initiatives. This is the first time fellows have been hosted in the Philippines, and we hope to host more fellows in the future. The AidData program helps improve the planning, tracking and delivery of aid of by using maps to visualize where aid has been delivered to a nation. In many cases, aid reporting data tracks the announcement of aid being promised to a nation but doesn’t track the flow down to the region, province, municipality, barangay or village. The process of creating these maps starts with geocoding, where a program or service is assigned a geographic location so that it can be placed on a map. Plotting these locations helps create maps that visualize patterns in the delivery of aid against poverty, disaster risk, hunger and other measures that can help fine tune programming and identify whether there are gaps and overlaps in the flow of aid within and organization, and across sectors. Government, NGOs, Business and citizens provide many programs and services to help communities, but often work independently, and in silos, so mapping can provide opportunities for better coordination, collaboration and monitoring of aid.

Literacy funding (purple areas) mapped against illiteracy levels – brown to dark brown indicating high illiteracy levels.

So far the Fellows have joined me on several community engagements across Manila and Leyte, meeting mayors, students and other community leaders, faced challenges with contacting multiple government agencies for access to data and traveled hours to remote areas with limited road infrastructure for first hand experience on the importance of mapping and open data policies for better planning and accountability across public and private sectors. They’ll compile a summary of their work here by August, stay tuned here for the final report.

The fellows are here until August 12th, and are available to provide a complimentary 1-3 hour presentation or half day geocoding workshop to your organization. Here’s more background on their presentation.

Contact me for more details.

Join Making All Voices Count Innovation Showcase

The Making All Voices Count team will be in Manila for the #Tech4Resilience Pitching Competition on July 8 at Far Eastern University’s Institute of Technology. If you have a disaster or community resilient program or technology, apply to join the Innovation Showcase and meet the Making All Voices Count team. Full details are below. Apply now >>

Making All Voices Count is an international initiative that contributes towards effective governance and accountability by enabling citizen engagement and open, responsive government in 12 countries in Africa and Asia. They nurture innovative approaches to strengthening citizen engagement and government accountability. They are supported by supported by the U.K Department for International Development (DFID), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Omidyar Network (ON).

INNOVATION SHOWCASE: 

Initiatives on Disaster Resilience and Response in the Philippines
Doing some interesting work on disaster resilience and response in the Philippines? APPLY today to share your initiatives at the Innovation Showcase on July 8th 2015 at the Far Eastern University and come meet the Making All Voices Count team!
Making All Voices Count is a 12 country programme with the goals of promoting transparency, fighting corruption, empowering marginalized citizens, and harnessing the power of new technologies to make government more effective and accountable.

One of our main program themes for the Philippines is supporting initiatives that use technology and innovation to strengthen disaster resilience and response and engage government in doing so. We would like to get to know you and your work!

Only 20 showcase spots available so please apply ASAP through this form https://goo.gl/S2jRdB today!

Philippines #Tech4Resilience Competition

Source: Making All Voices Count

I’m partnered with Making All Voices Count on this Philippines #Tech4Resilience Challenge. Anyone can apply!  Finalists will be presenting their pitches at my Map the Philippines event June 24, please save the date.
The deadline is on June 17. Good luck!

The First White House Mapathon

I’m thrilled to have been invited to the first White House Mapathon on June 21 where they featured mapping projects like the Nepal earthquake and included my resiliency mapping project in the Philippines. The Philippines mention below links to my 2014 International Conference of Crisis Mapping talk.

The White House Office of Digital Strategy and the Office of Science and Technology Policy are pleased to invite you to the first White House Mapathon to celebrate and actively participate in Open Mapping on Thursday, May 21, 2015 from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Open Mapping, or crowdmapping, is where participants use a wiki-like approach to contribute to maps of the world. Geospatial data has been a key component of the Administration’s Open Data initiatives.
Increasingly, tools like citizen science and crowdsourcing are permitting the public to contribute to government datasets. In some cases, the public is collaborating to create data that never existed before their involvement, such as the OpenStreetMap response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak. Agencies including the Department of State, the Department of Interior, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps, and the General Services Administration are working on crowdmapping projects.
Crowdmapping projects and participants are part of a growing innovation movement, transforming the relationship between the government and the public, and supported by United States commitments in the Second Open Government National Action Plan. The White House Mapathon will highlight these successes and engage participants in contributing to the rising efforts in Open Mapping.

The Mapathon will start with remarks and lightning talks highlighting the impact of open and crowd-sourced mapping projects. Then we will ask you to choose one of the five mapping projects outlined below and get to work mapping!

Mapathon Projects:MapGive: A public diplomacy program that supports the use of OpenStreetMap in humanitarian response and development. Participants will contribute to three sub-projects, targeting the Nepal earthquake response, public health initiatives in Botswana, and disaster preparedness and development in the Philippines. Power Service Area Mapping: Participants will contribute to a geospatial database under development by the Department of Energy, by researching public outage information so that disaster-impacted residents, tourists, first responders and relief volunteers can easily get to the information they need on scope and estimated restore times for power outages.Every Kid in a Park: The Every Kid in a Park initiative is a multi-agency effort to open our Nation’s lands and waters to all 4th graders for the 2015-2016 school year. This project will coordinate trail and facility mapping activities, further improving facility information within public lands and waters that have educational activities for kids.

After Typhoon Haiyan: Disaster and Community Resiliency

Participatory Mapping with the Municipality of Malvar, Batangas

It’s been a while since I’ve done an update to the crisismappers network since my talk post Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan at the International Conference on Crisis Mapping, but there are lots of good things happening here in the Philippines. The White House Office of Digital Strategy and the Office of Science and Technology Policy invited me to attend the first White House Mapathon on May 21, so I’ll be in DC until May 23 if folks want to meetup.

We’ve begun my cross sector initiative to provide a comprehensive map of the Philippines on OpenStreetMap. I’ve won a grant from Making All Voices Count to develop an open source, open data platform to provide layers of data from hazards and population, to infrastructure, disaster, community and economic reslilience needs. Some of our data partners include UNOCHA, Department of Interior and Local Government, League of Municipalities, WWF and corporate, NGO and citizen networks. One of the core functions of the platform is to identify gaps and overlaps in community needs versus publicly and privately funded programs. We aim to complete the first modules of the platform over the coming weeks to prepare for the upcoming monsoon season and 7.2 earthquake in Manila. We’re targeting high risk poverty, disaster and illegal fishing and poaching areas for disaster resilient farming projects and will be mapping this data on to the platform. This is a critical time in the Philippines with an upcoming national election in May 2016, meaning a government slow down by October 2015. We want to future proof the platform to ensure our partners are networked and running regardless of the future administration and in preparation for disasters.

The U.S. State Department’s MapGive program is generously providing satellite imagery help us map base layers on OpenStreetMap. I’ve requested Bing imagery to be refreshed countrywide to support our preparations. We would also love to be included on Missing Maps soon to help fast track our mapping.

With the World Bank and Department of Budget and Management, we are working on training local government units, colleges, cross sector partners and citizens on OpenStreetMap and a suite of other mapping tools for a more participatory planning and budgeting process on infrastructure planning.

We’re also providing free OpenStreetMap workshops across the country, including 5-day mapping training series pilots with colleges to learn OSM, JOSM and other free and opensource tools. We have a local drone partner who provide 5cm/pixel imagery for infrastructure, disaster preparedness and monitoring and evaluation and helps visualize infrastructure needs for budget proposals. We’re working with USAID AidData Fellows to work on several of our programs as well.

We’ll be piloting a Map the Philippines initiative to connect local and international mappers to local tourist and at risk area mapping activities. This is in preparation for the International Conference on Crisis Mapping which I am co-organizing in late 2016 and hosting in our new 26,000 square foot arts, tech and disaster resiliency centre. After the conference we are inviting mappers to join mapping events across the country.

Week of June 15th we’ll be organizing a free OSM training in Manila to help provide support for climate change and disaster risk mapping for the Philippines to join global Climathons with ClimateKIC on June 18 for COP21. On June 24 we’ll be hosting a Map the Philippines mapping event with OpenStreetMap Philippines and OSM Founder Steve Coast. This is in partnership with Making All Voices Count and includes a pitching competition on disaster resiliency tech with prize amounts of up to GBP20,000 or US$31K following incubation. We’ll be organizing mapathons for Disaster Resilience Reduction Day on October 13 and World Food Day on October 16.

I’ll have other updates on food security and disaster resilient agriculture soon.

Thank you for all your support so far. We’ll need help with feedback and support during these critical months and hope you can join us online and in country. We’ll have more details online soon.

OpenStreetMap Philippines Workshop in Batangas

Under the OpenRoads initiative, the World Bank is supporting the government of the Philippines in advancing a set of policies and tools to improve strategic local road infrastructure for inclusive growth. The starting point for financing and implementation of better local road networks is a strategic map.

OpenStreetMap Philippines conducted a 2-day OpenStreetMap workshop, with SkyEye drone mapping, community consultations and the Local Government Units of Tanauan and Malvar, Batangas. A follow up visit and additional mapping events and tools are planned soon.

Update: our drone imagery is available on CC-BY license on the OpenAerial platform.

View the photo gallery on Facebook >>

Learn more:

OpenRoads
http://openroads.ph/

OpenStreetMap Philippines
http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Map the Philippines
http://celinaagaton.com/openstreetmaps-10th-anniversary-party/

See you at RightsCon Manila 2015

I’m thrilled to have been invited by RightsCon to design and lead a disaster simulation at their 2015 conference in Manila. RightsCon is a premier event on internet freedom and the future of the internet. I’ll be presenting how our tools and programs begin with disaster response but are designed to help build community resiliency year round through an integrated network connecting cross sector stakeholders and citizens with their government – centered largely around mapping, open data and citizen reporting.

Our session will take place on March 25 from 1:30-2:45pm at the Crown Plaza Manila Galleria Hotel. Register here.

Preparing for the Next Haiyan: Utilizing Technology to Transform Disaster Response

From crisis to community, this session explores innovations in disaster response in the Philippines from Typhoon Haiyan and beyond. The panelists, covering sectors as diverse as telecom industry to citizen media, will share their technology-driven approaches to rebuilding communities following Typhoon Haiyan and to addressing community resiliency all-year-round. Cross-sector data mapping, drones to map and verify citizen reports, new sustainable farming practices, anti-poaching, and internet access technologies are some of the innovations being developed in partnership with local communities. These tools help form a sustainable infrastructure to identify and prioritize local community needs and high-risk areas, and to share best practices across the country.

Moderator

1. Celina Agaton
Managing Director
Cross Sector Mapping|Map the Philippines

Panelists

2. Gil Francis G. Arevalo
Communicating with Communities Officer
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

3. Felino Castro V
Director III, Information and Communications Technology Management Service
Department of Social Welfare and Development, The Philippines

4. Darwin Flores
Vice President
Community Partnerships
Smart Communications

5. Matthew Cua
CEO, Founder
SkyEye UAV

6. Tanya Zaldarriaga
Program Officer for Membership
CodeNGO

9. Aivon Guanco
Humanitarian Accountability Manager
World Vision

10. Neil Barsch
Fulbright Scholar
Hapinoy Social Enterprise

11. Denise Celdran
Citizen Group

Many thanks to the conference sponsors for making this opportunity possible.

Understanding ASEAN Disaster Management

Asia Society Philippines, in cooperation with AIM ASEAN 2015 Project, are hosting Part 3 of their Understanding ASEAN series on Disaster Management on Tuesday, January 13, 4-6PM at the Asian Institute of Management.

ASEAN countries are one of the most vulnerable to the growing impacts of climate change, such as storms, typhoons, and coastal flooding. Super-typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines last November reinforces the urgent need for countries to identify new approaches and ways forward for disaster risk reduction.

On January 13, panelists will discuss the prospects for better climate resiliency and disaster prepararedness for the Philippines in the context of the ASEAN integration.

Speakers:

Undersecretary Alexander P. Pama
Executive Director
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council Office of Civil Defense

Dr. Marqueza Reyes
Technical Advisor, Disaster Risk Reduction
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Ms. Celina Agaton
2013 Google USAID Fellow
International Conference of Crisis Mappers

Mr. Zak Yuson
Director
MovePH Rappler

Mr. Takaaki Kusakabe
Research Coordinator for Earthquake Disaster Prevention
Research Center for Disaster Management,
National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management
Japan International Cooperation Agency

International Conference of Crisis Mappers New York 2014

My talk begins at 29:49 after Nigel Snoad’s introduction.

In November I was a speaker at the 2014 International Conference of Crisis Mappers in New York. It was almost a year after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, where at the time I was en route to the 2013 conference in Nairobi. So much has happened in the last year, I’ve learned a lot and met some amazing and supportive folks.

The International Network of Crisis Mappers (Crisis Mappers Net) is the largest and most active international community of experts, practitioners, policymakers, technologists, researchers, journalists, scholars, hackers and skilled volunteers engaged at the intersection of humanitarian crises, new technology, crowd-sourcing, and crisis mapping. The Crisis Mappers Network was launched at the first International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM) in 2009. As the world’s premier humanitarian technology forum, we engage 7,400+ members in over 160 countries, who are affiliated with over 3,000 different institutions, including more than 400 universities, 50 United Nations agencies & projects, first responders operating in both the civilian and military space, dozens of leading technology companies, several volunteer & technical community networks and global, national, and local humanitarian and disaster response and recovery organizations.

Making All Voices Count Pitch Winner

I’m grateful to have been chosen as the winner for the Making All Voices Count and Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and Pacific (ANSA-EAP) #EdTech competition for innovation in technology for resilience. I submitted our cross sector crisis and resiliency program using OpenStreetMap. Look forward to receiving fellowship support in the year ahead.

Help the UN Tag Tweets for Typhoon Ruby

The UN has activated Micromappers to help tag tweets for Typhoon Ruby. In just one click, you can help classify tweets about typhoon damage, provided humanitarian aid, and requests for help. Micromappers helps the UN and other humanitarian aid groups assess typhoon damage and prioritize help more quickly.

Learn more about Micromappers >>

OpenStreetMap’s 10th Anniversary Party

Many thanks to World Food Program and Bonifacio Global City for generously sponsoring our OpenStreetMap 10th anniversary celebration. Special thanks to co.lab, SkyEye and Mind Museum for helping host the event.

Inspired by the Wikipedia model, OpenStreetMap was created by Steve Coast in the UK in 2004. 10 years, and 1.7 million users later, OpenStreetMap continues to grow and thrive helping citizens navigate neighbourhoods all over the world.

Our speakers included:

• Blenn Huelgas from World Food Program Philippines
• Sara Terp from Ushahidi
• Edgar Illaga from SkyEye drones
• Eugene Villar from OpenStreetMap Philippines

Thanks to our friends and partners from World Bank, USAID, British Council, Ateneo Sustainability Institute for attending the event!

Take a look at our event photos >>

Our goal is to map the Philippines for disaster response, community resiliency and better transparency. In partnership with OpenStreetMap Philippines, SkyEye Drones, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, and the U.S. State Department’s MapGive program, we’re hosting free OpenStreetMap training workshops in cities across the Philippines.  We’re also bringing innovative and accessible internet access solutions and communications tools to the communities we partner with. We’ll have more exciting updates soon, please stay tuned.

Here’s a terrific video showcasing 10 years of edits on OpenStreetMap. Thank you mappers!

Crowdsource Project for Typhoon Haiyan

Associated Press

Micromappers is a great initiative where citizens can help classify disaster damage with just two clicks on your computer. With the deluge of data, social media posts, images and video that arise during natural disasters, humanitarian organizations, governments and business need your help to more quickly assess damaged infrastructure like flooded roadways, unsafe school buildings, and fallen cell phone towers.

Micromappers

For farmers, tracking the damage to destroyed fish pens, farm land and market roads can be time consuming and labour intensive.

So if you have a minute or two and are willing to a lend a helping hand, Micromappers could be a fun and simple way to get involved. Until 9pm Manila time, 8am EST Saturday, December 6, we’re helping launch the global Micromappers Coconut Expedition to help tag damage to coconut tree farms from Philippine Typhoon Glenda using images captured by our drone partners, Skyeye.

It’s a great experience and and teaching tool for kids and families, so I hope you’ll join us!

Join the coconut expedition >>

OpenStreetMap’s 10th Anniversary

Come Join Our Celebrations for OpenStreetMap’s 10th Anniversary!

* Learn about mapping * Enjoy our drone showcase * Eat cupcakes! *

Everyone is welcome! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook Hashtag #mapPHL

Mind Museum Outdoor Canopy
J. Y. Campos Park, 3rd Ave, Taguig
Thursday December 4th 11am to 2pm
Enjoy snacks and drinks
FREE

Learn more >>

Help Spread the Word! Download the Flyer

OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. It is supported and updated by 1.7 million registered users worldwide. During the Typhoon Yolanda response, as in other disasters, OpenStreetMap was widely used by the local and international aid community for its accuracy and accessibility with sharing and transferring data.

We want to help map the Philippines through free mapping workshops, citizen reporting and crowdsourced data. We’re creating mapping networks with local community leaders, colleges, government, business and NGOs to help empower Filipinos from across the sectors to collaborate together to map our communities. Our first step is to create a base layer map with roads, rivers and buildings, next we can then add additional layers such as needed infrastructure and social programming like disaster risk and preparedness, food security, health and education needs by location. We’re also bringing innovative and accessible internet access solutions and communications tools to the communities we partner with.

Learn about our exciting mapping projects and how you help become a citizen reporter with just a few clicks!

Please register so we can stay in touch with our mapping news and projects in the Philippines.

We thank our generous supporters:

Map the Philippines

We’re partnering with local community leaders, colleges, government, business and NGOs to host OpenStreetMap workshops to help empower Filipinos from across the sectors to work together to help map the Philippines.

OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world and is supported and updated by 1.7 million registered users worldwide. During the Typhoon Yolanda response, as in other disasters, OpenStreetMap was widely used by the local and international aid community for its accuracy and accessibility with sharing and transferring data. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap community was critical in providing much needed imagery for unmapped areas devastated by Typhoon Yolanda.

Even businesses like Foursquare, Munch Punch, Craigslist and Mapquest also use OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap is a free, open data and open source platform, mapped by the community, for the community.

Our first step is to create a base layer map with roads, rivers and buildings mapped out, then we can then add additional layers like needed infrastructure and social programming like disaster risk and preparedness, health and education needs by location. We’re planning on deploying mapping kits with laptops, GPS and other tools needed for communities to continue updating their maps after our training workshop.

Our Goals:
1. To complete the mapping of the Philippines for its many diverse communities.
2. To have accurate mapping data ready and available for ongoing and future disaster, infrastructure and community needs.
3. To grow the current Philippine OpenStreetMap community to help update our maps.

We’ll be making some exciting announcements at our OpenStreetMap 10th Anniversary Party at the Mind Museum on December 4th from 11am to 2pm. I hope you can join us for our drone showcase, mapping demos and cupcakes!

Ateneo Institute of Sustainability Lecture Series

The Ateneo Institute of Sustainability invites everyone to a forum entitled

“FROM CRISIS TO COMMUNITY: INNOVATIONS FROM THE TYPHOON YOLANDA DISASTER RESPONSE AND BEYOND”

Celina Agaton
19 Nov 2014, 4:30 – 6:00, Venue: Sec B 201

Abstract:

Google USAID ICCM Fellow Celina Agaton shares her community and technology driven approach to rebuilding communities post Typhoon Yolanda and to addressing community resiliency year round. Cross sector data mapping, drones to map and verify citizen reports, new sustainable farming practices and anti-poaching technologies are some of the innovations being developed in partnership with local community leaders, universities and other stakeholders. These tools help form a sustainable infrastructure to identify and prioritize local community needs and high risk areas, and to share best practices across the country.
– See more at: http://www.admu.edu.ph/mob/events/all/%252A?page=61#sthash.9g5RqRv3.dpuf

Digital Strategies for Development Summit

Photo: Courtesy Plan International

I joined the tech for good panel and presented my mapping for disaster and community resiliency projects in the Philippines at the Digital Strategies for Development Summit hosted by the Asian Institute of Management, Asian NGO, Assist, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Local Government Academy and others.

NextDayBetter San Francisco TFC Speaker Salon

Credit: Kris Krug

I was invited to speak in San Francisco on August 9 at the ABS-CBN Foundation and The Philippine Channel’s (TFC) Speaker Salon.

Curated by NextDayBetter, the TFC Speaker Salon took place at the San Francisco Children’s Creativity Museum and featured ideas and inspirations from the Philippines on how technology and creativity can solve today’s most pressing societal challenges.

Here’s a brief description of my talk:

From Crisis to Community: Innovations from the Typhoon Yolanda Disaster Response and Beyond

Google USAID ICCM Fellow Celina Agaton shares her community and technology driven approach to rebuilding communities post Typhoon Yolanda and to addressing community resiliency year round. Cross sector data mapping, drones to map and verify citizen reports, new sustainable farming practices and anti-poaching technologies are some of the innovations being developed in partnership with local community leaders, universities and other stakeholders. These tools help form a sustainable infrastructure to identify and prioritize local community needs and high risk

Here are the other speakers and their topics:

Courtesy NextDayBetter

NextDayBetter will be posting more photos and videos from the event, so I’ll be sharing them here, or check the NextDayBetter site, Facebook Page and Twitter.

Asia Society Interview: How Mapping Can Help Cities Become More Resilient to Natural Disasters

People may argue about climate change, but few can ignore the fact that extreme weather events have become increasingly prevalent in recent years. From hurricanes Isaac and Sandy — which wreaked havoc on the United States’ east coast — to the devastating Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, it’s clear that urban hubs across the globe need to address the challenge of ensuring they are resilient to future natural disasters.

Tonight in San Francisco, the Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative, a collaboration between Asia Society and the Urban Land Institute, plays host to Cities at Risk, an event intended to evaluate the efficiency of past resiliency efforts while keeping an eye on future natural disasters. Tonight also marks the official release of a new PCSI report entitled Creating Resilient and Livable Cities, which you can download here.

In anticipation of tonight’s event, Asia Blog spoke to 2013 Google USAID ICCM Fellow Celina Agaton, who specializes in cross-sector community engagement and creating policies for cities as they recover from natural disasters. At PCSI’s forum in Manila earlier this year, Agaton participated in a panel discussion on the role of housing and community networks in creating resilient cities.

Can you tell us how mapping and communications technology has been harnessed to facilitate disaster recovery and reconstruction in the Philippines after the destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan?

Communication tools are at the core of every disaster response in order to quickly assess damage and verify reports of community needs. The absence of a public cross sector disaster response communications platform combined with damaged or limited cell phone and internet coverage in many areas forced citizens turn to social networks. Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, and text messaging were used to share and organize information and logistics on missing persons, damaged infrastructure, risk areas and aid needs and deliveries.

Mapping platforms such as Google Crisis Map, OpenStreetMap, and Map Action, among many others provided maps to local and international aid agencies often collaborating with local and national government units and their respective mapping divisions to update information on damage and aid. Portable radio stations and phone hotlines were launched in areas with limited connectivity. Drones are currently being used to provide quicker access to mapping damaged areas, and we’re currently working on establishing a drone network and drone nodes to improve information sharing and to better prepare and provide for ongoing mapping needs.

Even white space technology, which is the use of available television station channels to broadcast widespread broadband internet, was repurposed to provide communications after the typhoon. This was being piloted for the purposes of fisheries registrations in remote communities.

Read the full interview in Asia Society.

2nd Annual Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative Forum

The Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative with Gawad Kalinga Founder, Tony Meloto and My Shelter/Liter of Light Founder, Illac Diaz

This March, I was invited by the Urban Land Institute and the Rockefellers’ Asia Society to speak at their 2nd Annual Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative (PCSI) Forum: Creating Resilient and Livable Cities. The PCSI is a collaborative dialogue which aims to foster long-term sharing of urban sustainability strategies between communities across the Pacific Rim. Launched in 2009 with the support of the USC Marshall School of Business and the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the initiative is a joint program of the Asia Society and the Urban Land Institute with support from leading organizations engaged in solving unprecedented challenges associated with rapid urbanization in Asia and across the Pacific Rim. PCSI convenes select thought leaders from business, government, and academia with the express aim of fostering new alliances, sharing innovative strategies, and showcasing effective practices.

I joined a panel discussion on Vulnerability in the Resilient City: Housing and Community Networks with renowned social entrepreneurs Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga and Illac Diaz of My Shelter/Liter of Light, and Director or the Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research, Robert Freitag from the University of Washington.

Read the recap on PCSI.

Drone U: Using Drones to Save Lives in Humanitarian Crises

Here’s an excerpt from my podcast for Slate’s Future Tense series. Listen to the podcast on Slate:

Typhoon Haiyan Creates Testing Ground for Crisis Mappers

My recent interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) World News:

Tech savvy population, willingness to try new ideas help country prepare for next disaster

Celina Agaton recently returned to the Philippines, hoping to help out her homeland with her unique set of skills.

“I’m really excited because it’s been about five years since I’ve wanted to do something like this for my home country,” said Agaton.

The Filipino-Canadian, who grew up in Manila and Jakarta but now calls Toronto home, arrived in the devastated southeast Asian country in late November, about two weeks after the typhoon killed more than 6,000 and left 4 million displaced.

Agaton, who’s working in the country as a cross-sector community organizer, is part of a crisis-mapping community that emerged just before the 2010 Haiti earthquake and has transformed in the past three years from a loose group into a more formal entity relied upon by relief agencies in disasters.

 Read the full article at CBC News

Update on Drones for Mapping Typhoon Yolanda and Tracking Aid Relief

Courtesy SkyEye

We’re up to 10 drones now and are looking at getting live streaming capabilities. The drones are currently being using for disaster mapping but will soon also verify aid delay reports.

-Northern Cebu
-Northern Negros
-Northern Panay
-Leyte
-Samar
-Palawan
-Bohol
-Zamboanga City

And then we hope to have 20 areas of coverage based on the disaster preparedness and response hubs we’ll be setting up and training in January. If you’re in Manila or available online over the next six months, we’ll need all the help we can get as we’ll be conducting a cross sector community resilience analysis identifying risk areas with logistics and political challenges in preparation for the upcoming monsoon season in June. I’ll set up a sign up sheet to organize contacts, availability, skills and locations soon.

More to come soon –

Celina

NGO and Private Sectors Launch Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation

Update: Here’s Interaksyon’s coverage of our press conference.

This morning, I joined the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation to help announce a new initiative for the private sector and NGO sectors to collaborate together to share relief data, map initiatives and outline capabilities for Typhoon Yolanda, and to lay the groundwork for a national disaster preparedness plan. The PDRF is co-chaired by PLDT and Metro Pacific Investments Corporation Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, Ayala Corporation Chairman and CEO Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, and Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle.

The PDRF will act as a connecting point for the business community with the government, international aid agencies and the NGO community. For the Typhoon Yolanda disaster response, the foundation has identified six sectors for early recovery efforts: Shelter, Livelihood, Education, Environment, Infrastructure, and Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH), which will be focused in the following priority areas:

-Northern Cebu
-Northern Negros
-Northern Panay
-Leyte
-Samar
-Palawan
-Bohol
-Zamboanga City

I’ll be leading the cross sector mapping platform, where we map aid efforts and capabilities across NGOs, government and the private sector along the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (UN OCHA)’s current international humanitarian coordination system of 14 clusters. Two important new channels will be added to the map: citizen groups and citizen reports. There are clusters of large scale, self-organized, citizen groups with access to planes and helicopters and a network of volunteers who quickly mobilize to deploy aid. These groups have been critical in filling the gaps that inevitably emerge in disaster response.

Once the platform is ready, we will be opening a citizen reporting channel via SMS short code where we can begin to more immediately respond to needs by analyzing clusters of verified citizen reports. I’m excited to engage and empower the public to not only help aid groups prioritize aid, but to help add accountability and transparency by tracking and reporting on the status efforts for throughout the relief, recovery and rebuild phase. On the back end, we’re mapping our stakeholder network to receive alerts on verified report clusters, and enabling an SMS and online tasking system to respond to reports.

Right now I’m working on the categorization of aid items with UN OCHA to be able to help standardize the way aid inventories are reported. And then we start the process of asking sectors to share their spreadsheets of delivered and planned aid, capabilities and catchment areas.

Google ICT4Peace Crisis Mapping Fellowship

2013 Google ICT4Peace Fellows with ICCM sponsors, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

I’m grateful to be one of ten fellows selected to attend the 5th International Conference of Crisis Mappers (ICCM) in Nairobi, Kenya from November 18-22. The ICCM brings together the most engaged practitioners, scholars, software developers and policymakers at the cutting edge of crisis mapping and humanitarian technology.

I’ve been volunteering as a crisis mapper since the Haiti earthquake, and have helped with the Japan earthquake, Typhoon Pablo and the recent Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. Having grown up in Jakarta and Manila, the cycle of devastation, international aid and corruption has been all too familiar. With the power of social media and the tools of crisis mapping, I believe we can develop a platform to track aid not only when it’s pledged in a press release, but through to when it is delivered at the village level. If citizens can participate in sending social media reports of aid delivery delays, then we can identify and track issues and the NGO, government and private sectors can collaborate more quickly and effectively to help communities.

A large part of the Philippines’ emergency response efforts are organized by a robust network of private citizens and their network of fixers who are able to act quickly through email, text and social media, and part of what I’m trying to do is help get their reports included in relief tracking initiatives. Through this network we have been able to update the disaster maps for under mapped and underserved areas. I’ve also connected with the Ateneo de Manila University who are currently using drones to map these areas, and am looking into the use of drones to verify data on aid delivery delays.

We’re also looking to fund the set up of a radio and SMS network in partnership with news networks to help communicate with remote communities.

I’m currently in Manila to help develop and launch this citizen reporting platform, and with anything else I can for the next little while. If you’re interested in donating to help Typhoon Yolanda victims, Gawad Kalinga and Tao Philippines are doing excellent work.

CrisisMapping

I volunteer as part of the Crisis Mappers Humanitarian Technology Network. Crisis mapping is inherently interdisciplinary, situated at the nexus of many fields, drawing from debates in disciplines as diverse as: geography, epidemiology, sociology, environmental science, political science, forestry, ecology, psychology, linguistics, robotics, communication, cultural studies, statistics, mathematics, conflict studies, art and design, computer science and disaster and emergency management. Sometimes it is difficult to engage a group of people from such tremendously different professional and personal backgrounds, with dramatically different views of the world.