[寫在麥德姆颱風來臨之前] 我們都知道, 遇到關於人身安全的緊急狀況時, 要打 119 求救. 不過我們所在的環境可能因為災情的影響程度而有不同的需要. 可能我們的家園受到損害, 可能聯外道路因為山坡坍塌而受阻, 可能我們的社區需要物資補給, 可能我們平日參與的公益組織所照顧的民眾需要熱食供應. 一個一個不同的需求, 都可能在災害來臨的同時發生, 但這又不是 (也不應該) 每件事情都非得要勞煩 119 才能解決. 我們可以把狀況發佈在臉書, 靠朋友與鄉民的力量轉發. 但是這些訊息並沒有辦法直接且立即的讓有能力回應或是協助的救災組織與民間志工團體聽到. 我們的家在可愛的台灣, 有著很多有熱心而且願意幫助他人的民間組織以及公益組織. 但是過去救災以及需求資訊的可能還不夠即時, 讓願意幫忙的人找不到地方, 而需要幫忙的人不知道怎樣提出需求. 而在社群網路上的資訊, 往往也因為不斷的轉載與複製, 而失去了其時效與作用.  透過究平安這個工具, 我們可以即時的把需求傳遞給救災組織. 我們有賑災基金會, 有公路總局, 有法鼓山等官方與民間組織. 一起同步面對因為災害而產生的需求. 我們期望能更有效率的協調救災資訊, 也能避免資源重複投入的浪費. 同時我們延伸守望相助的概念, 應用究平安這套資通訊工具, 我們可以回報自己看到的災情狀況. 同時也讓在其他地區的救災組織與志工夥伴可以同時了解, 當地最新狀況為何, 可能需要怎樣的協助. 這些資訊, 都可以透過究平安彙整給不同單位與組織, 而間接形成救災的協調動力. 究平安, 就是希望讓大家真的能感覺到平安的一套工具. 因為這個工具的後面, 有著許許多多熱心助人的組織與志工. 那才是讓這套資訊工具有溫度的原因… 究平安資訊平台 究平安 Android 版本 究平安 iOS 版本
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[寫在麥德姆颱風來臨之前]

我們都知道, 遇到關於人身安全的緊急狀況時, 要打 119 求救. 不過我們所在的環境可能因為災情的影響程度而有不同的需要. 可能我們的家園受到損害, 可能聯外道路因為山坡坍塌而受阻, 可能我們的社區需要物資補給, 可能我們平日參與的公益組織所照顧的民眾需要熱食供應. 一個一個不同的需求, 都可能在災害來臨的同時發生, 但這又不是 (也不應該) 每件事情都非得要勞煩 119 才能解決.

我們可以把狀況發佈在臉書, 靠朋友與鄉民的力量轉發. 但是這些訊息並沒有辦法直接且立即的讓有能力回應或是協助的救災組織與民間志工團體聽到. 我們的家在可愛的台灣, 有著很多有熱心而且願意幫助他人的民間組織以及公益組織. 但是過去救災以及需求資訊的可能還不夠即時, 讓願意幫忙的人找不到地方, 而需要幫忙的人不知道怎樣提出需求. 而在社群網路上的資訊, 往往也因為不斷的轉載與複製, 而失去了其時效與作用. 

透過究平安這個工具, 我們可以即時的把需求傳遞給救災組織. 我們有賑災基金會, 有公路總局, 有法鼓山等官方與民間組織. 一起同步面對因為災害而產生的需求. 我們期望能更有效率的協調救災資訊, 也能避免資源重複投入的浪費.

同時我們延伸守望相助的概念, 應用究平安這套資通訊工具, 我們可以回報自己看到的災情狀況. 同時也讓在其他地區的救災組織與志工夥伴可以同時了解, 當地最新狀況為何, 可能需要怎樣的協助. 這些資訊, 都可以透過究平安彙整給不同單位與組織, 而間接形成救災的協調動力.

究平安, 就是希望讓大家真的能感覺到平安的一套工具. 因為這個工具的後面, 有著許許多多熱心助人的組織與志工. 那才是讓這套資訊工具有溫度的原因…

究平安資訊平台

究平安 Android 版本

究平安 iOS 版本

GeoThings Grand Opening - Official Press Release (in Traditional Chinese)

工研院首家社會企業新創事業 「究⼼公益科技」正式成立

    工研院今(30)日宣布衍生新創事業「究心公益科技」正式成立！這是工研院第一家以社會企業為主所成立的公司，未來將以「ICT for Humanitarian」為宗旨開發資訊救災技術，並營運救災資訊協調平台，讓全球救災能更精準掌握資訊，有效準確分配救災資源與人力。目前這套系統已經持續與慈濟、紅十字會、法鼓山等救災組織合作使用，用工研院的科技讓愛心升級。

    工研院院長徐爵民表示，工研院長久以來秉持著以科技研發，帶動產業發展，創造經濟價值，增進社會福祉為任務宗旨，並持續在前瞻科技研發及推動產業躍升等工作努力，至去年已促成多達89家的新創公司成立。不僅如此，工研院更不忘用科技結合社會公益，讓科技研發也可以在社會公益領域找到新的營運模式，藉由科技為人類帶來更美好的生活，為此，工研院第一家新創的社會企業-究心公益科技正式成立。

    究心公益科技執行長莊國煜表示，工研院開發的「究平安」救災資訊協調平台是整合政府及民間救災組織的平台，可在混亂的資訊及各方救災力量中搭起橋樑。前線的救災人員只要安裝「究平安APP」，便能拍照記錄災情與回傳地理座標簡訊給操作「究平安Web」的指揮中心，指揮中心便能依據精準的地理標示及救災需求，在平台上有效分配救災人力與資源，提高救災效率。特別的是，這套平台採用不佔頻寬的地理座標簡訊格式，在訊號不佳或是跨國救援的災區依然可立即回傳災情，在沒有訊號的災區則可暫存紀錄，等到有網路訊號就能自動上傳回報，在國外也不用特別申請數據漫遊，讓救援力量發揮到最極致。

   莊國煜進一步指出，究心科技獨門秘技就是公司所開發的地理位置簡訊Open GeoSMS規格，目前已成功躍升為國際標準組織的標準之一，救災人員可以在不同裝置或不同軟體之間，採用相同的「救災語言」相互溝通。如此一來，將可全面終結全球救災單位各個裝置及操作軟體平台不相通的瓶頸，未來對於全球大規模的救災行動執行，將會是如虎添翼。

    究心公益科技營運長陳孟敏表示，究心的防災平台目前免費提供APP下載，營運前1~3年將藉由與多個國內外組織的合作專案，在不同國家場域試煉收取相關費用，預計3~5年後將應用核心產品平台轉型為客戶應用導向的全方位服務，持續透過專案計畫作為公司營收來源。

【新聞聯絡人】工研院行銷傳播處 呂美玲 0918515173 maylinlu@itri.org.tw

究心科技產品主要技術特點：

O 簡訊夾帶地理座標：明確標示待救援位置，縮短救援時間

O 災情紀錄與回報：可結合手機拍照回傳災區即時狀況

O 簡訊格式不佔頻寬：山區收訊不佳或人多網路擁塞的地方也可以傳訊

O 沒有網路也能使用：在沒有網路通訊的地方，地理簡訊資訊可先紀錄暫存，等到一有網路訊號，即可自動上傳回報

O 情報平台圖文呈現：災情回報的簡訊在情報中心以圖文配合地圖呈現，災情分佈一目了然

O 災情搜尋與指派：情報指揮平台可搜尋大量回傳的災情訊息，並透過座標簡訊進行指派

新聞辭典

究心公益科技介紹

究心公益科技是工研院支持與輔導下成立的第一個社會企業，「究心」之名取自GeoThings，代表著「希望服務能從技術出發，但一切終究是要回歸到本心及人性。」究心公益科技公司董事長為劉炯朗博士，公司團隊成員，不僅擁有專業的資通訊技術，也致力讓世界更美好，透過與非營利組織(NPO)合作，發展出多項NPO活動相關的技術產品，包括與台灣大哥大基金會合作的微樂志工平台，紅十字會的救災服務平台等等，從人力募集、需求資源到服務地點，所有訊息都一目了然，解決了傳統救災動員可能出現的訊息紊亂狀況。

GeoThings救災資訊協調平台

GeoThings救災資訊協調平台指的是，只要透過手機，傳遞一封簡訊，輕輕滑動手指，就能將你的手機化身為救災行動地圖，在GeoThings救災資訊協調平台上標示出到正確待救援位置，能列出災區需要飲水、食物、毛毯、燈具等物資地點，將可不用再浪費時間在地點溝通、物資運送調度及志工調配上，這些全部只要透過一封簡訊就能全數搞定。

延伸閱讀

  1. 維基百科-社會企業  http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A4%BE%E6%9C%83%E4%BC%81%E6%A5%AD
  2. 社企流-台灣第一個華文社會企業資訊匯流平台

社會企業的定義 http://www.seinsights.asia/aboutse

Cherish the Power of Volunteers

Willo, the Micro Volunteers Platform, is one of the latest projects by GeoThings, collaborated with Taiwan Mobile Foundation. We provide a free ICT platform for NPOs in Taiwan and make it easier for them to post and organize the charity events, easier to reach target audience and call for volunteers, manage the participant list, and reduce the efforts of registration process.

With the high penetration rate of smart phone, mobile app is a must for people/volunteer to get information, especially for the young generation. It will cost much for NPO to build their own tool like this, but together with various NPOs, a portal platform will be useful. That makes Taiwan Mobile and GeoThings to build this platform, Willo.

The focus of GeoThings is the coordination of information for disaster response and management. Through Willo, we will stay connected with the volunteers and NPOs. When disaster strikes (we sincerely hope not), crowdsourcing, emergency response, and even disaster relief then can be applied on it. 

We love this attached video and we believe humour can break the language barrier. Enjoy and have fun :-)

Willo Web Site: http://www.willo.tw/

Willo Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.taiwanmobile.volunteers

Willo iOS App: will be online soon

Q:I work for an NGO in the UK and was trying to find out more information about GeoThings, how you work and company structure. For example are you a charity or commercial concern? Do you organisational structure information? Details or partnership projects with other NGO's charitable organisations. What countries you have worked in? How are you funded?

Anonymous

Hi,

We would more than happy to answer your questions. GeoThings is a public benefit company and works with NGOs, NPOs/Foundations, government agencies, and private sectors. You can take us as a IT service company, for profit, not only for the max profits for our investors but for the public benefit. You may reference the further description here on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation). 

Please feel free to send me an mail to “slayer [at] geothings [dot] tw”, we can have further discussion on the questions that you mentioned :-)

slayer

Our OSM TW partner, Dong Po, told us about, there are still lots of “red area" (means the satellite image need to be improved) in Philippines. Can we have some better image from NSPO for OSM? After a quick discussion, NSPO helped to task satellite (Formosat-2) that will further provide image for OSM community to achieve a better mapping. Although we had only the cloudy image currently, we believe the better one will be delivered soon with WMS for OSM community. Thanks to our partners and also thanks to the amazing OSM community. You guys really make the ICT for Humanitarian! 
Pop-up View Separately

Our OSM TW partner, Dong Po, told us about, there are still lots of “red area" (means the satellite image need to be improved) in Philippines. Can we have some better image from NSPO for OSM?

After a quick discussion, NSPO helped to task satellite (Formosat-2) that will further provide image for OSM community to achieve a better mapping. Although we had only the cloudy image currently, we believe the better one will be delivered soon with WMS for OSM community. Thanks to our partners and also thanks to the amazing OSM community. You guys really make the ICT for Humanitarian! 

iHelp X GeoThings This is an open source project to deliver ICT as tool for the people who is not that convenient to response emergency with their location. Maybe they can’t hear, maybe they can’t speak, Maybe they can’t understand the local language to let others know the address. With some pre-set messages, user can quick report their current situation with location to the police force in Taiwan via SMS. Thanks to the GPS/AGPS feature on smart phone, we encode those retrieved location information with OGC Open GeoSMS standard, which enabled the receiver (emergency responder) can quickly know where to help. Not just to report self-emergency, iHelp X GeoThings project will also enable people to report status during disaster. To response “Disability is not Inability”, we support with this app for the International Day for Disaster Reduction 2013 by UNISDR.  For a better tomorrow, we code! iHelp on GitHub
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iHelp X GeoThings

This is an open source project to deliver ICT as tool for the people who is not that convenient to response emergency with their location. Maybe they can’t hear, maybe they can’t speak, Maybe they can’t understand the local language to let others know the address. With some pre-set messages, user can quick report their current situation with location to the police force in Taiwan via SMS. Thanks to the GPS/AGPS feature on smart phone, we encode those retrieved location information with OGC Open GeoSMS standard, which enabled the receiver (emergency responder) can quickly know where to help.

Not just to report self-emergency, iHelp X GeoThings project will also enable people to report status during disaster. To response “Disability is not Inability”, we support with this app for the International Day for Disaster Reduction 2013 by UNISDR. 

For a better tomorrow, we code!

iHelp on GitHub

Beyond Open Data: Semantic Interoperability

image

台灣政府開放資料終於踏出一大步, 先給 data.gov.tw 掌聲 ^^

最近參加了 Code for Tomorrow 的聚會, 其中與會者熱烈地討論如何混搭農委會 (http://data.coa.gov.tw/) 與環保署 (http://cdx.epa.gov.tw/CDX/PublishDownload.aspx) 等開放資料內容, 並於 Open Street Map 呈現. 我們演練的例子就是從環保署公布的重金屬污染地點來看我們購買的米是否鄰近被污染的區域 (謝謝 CfT 的工作小組). 筆者當下有一個想法就是, 這些資料格式在開放的同時, 是否能參考一些國際既有的規格範本, 讓後續要應用資料的使用者更快上手, 讓相關的資料能以同一個規格延伸定義. 這也是我們下一步想要和大家一起努力的 Semantic Interoperability.

若是單一資料源, 通常我們就是把抓資料的 parser 寫好, 接著就是每天或是每個小時自動去爬. 但是如果資料來源牽涉到不同提供者, 雖然可能都是相同的類別 (例如都是某個景點資訊, 我們先簡稱 POI), 可能我們都還得針對每個資料提供機關對於 POI 的定義與欄位先做研究, 才不會一樣要擷取地址, 但是放在 JSON 的欄位卻是不同, 甚至對於”地址”的定義都是不同 (例如要不要包括郵遞區號, 要寫幾碼等).

現在有不同的國際規格組織在做這樣的事情, 如筆者比較熟悉的 Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) 就有 Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) 這樣的規格來針對 Sensor 的感測能力, 感測資料, 感測方式, 以及後續感測資料如何交換等動作做規格化. 這就是不同於資料發佈者以 JSON 規格定義好感測器名字, 單位, 資料等欄位然後就逕行發佈. 當然直接發佈也是 open data, 但重點不在於用 XML 或是 JSON 的哪類工具, 而是在於這些資料欄位, 甚至是延伸的 metadata 有沒有共通的定義. 這樣在跨組織使用資料的時候, 才能簡化很多不必要的開發以及後續相容性的麻煩.

當然這些所謂的 Semantic iInteroperability 的互通應該還是會建立在 Data Quality 的議題之上. 但若能把這些想法也包容加入, 對於台灣後續對於 Open Data 規劃與國際接軌一定會有所幫助 ^^

GeoThings/slayer

Trusted Crowdsourcing for Disaster Information Management

It’s been a while that we didn’t say anything on blog. However, we keep working and getting feedbacks from our users and our partners. 

What is Trusted Crowdsourcing?

Trusted crowdsourcing is the trained volunteers/responders in NGO to provide accurate information and requests for their organization. Those providers know better to describe the situation and needs.

Why we need those information from trusted crowdsourcing?

After our discussion with NGOs in Japan and Taiwan, we found that there’s a huge need for a collaboration platform for knowing each others during disaster response. Not just the NGOs, but also the local government agencies need those up-to-date information. 

GeoThings do the information and resource management platform for NGO, it makes ICT to be a tool for NGO, and use it for what they dealt with before with more automation. At the mean time, the information administrator of NGO may publish (or you can take it as “retweet”) those latest updates to an open platform, a Ushahidi deployment that hosted by GeoThings. That’s how we collaborate with NGO volunteers for trusted crowdsourcing.

Technically, how to collect Trusted Crowdsourcing Information? 

Those trusted information pop up in NGO’s internal platform (deployed and operated by GeoThings), delivered from mobile phone via geo-tagged SMS. Administrator of NGO may choose what to keep internally and what to share to the public for further coordination.

Achieve coordination from Trusted Crowdsourcing

Now not just NGOs can share the latest disaster response activities with its trusted crowdsourcing, but also the INGOs from outside and the government agencies can receive those trusted information for a better coordination on the open platform that GeoThings deployed. We hope this mechanism can really do something to help the coordination, since saving time means saving more lives.

GeoThings/slayer

GeoThings Disaster Management & Coordination Platform

Q:I would like to talk to you about the platform you propose, improvements that might be made, the reasons you chose Ushahidi and if there might be benefit from redesigning the foundation of the project. I am a member of the SBTF and you can get a hold of me through those channels. - om

Anonymous

Hi, I had a great conversation via mail with Kirk Morris few weeks ago, do you know each other?

Please feel free to mail me (slayer[at]geothings[dot]tw) because I don’t know how to reach you. Looking forward to hearing your insight ^^