Abdelaziz Ahmed
Haiti & Japan
27th March
What IT tools (software, hardware, websites, podcasts…) have
been used in this crisis. Give specific examples.
There were many IT tools used in the crisis the most prominent of
which was the “micro blogging” application Twitter. Thanks to
Twitter thousands of people were able to get their locations known
to others and the status of the people was used to determine who
was alive and who was dead. The account used was
“earthquakejapan” and it reached a rate of 1200 tweets per minute.
The sophisticated instruments installed by Japanese engineers to
their structures have helped a lot in minimizing the number of deaths
during an earthquake. The early warning systems they have
incorporated to alert the residence of a possible tsunami after an
earthquake have proven effectively during the March 11, 2011
earthquake and tsunami catastrophic disaster that hit Japan.
Using websites many fundraising organizations could raise large
sums of money for the people who were devastated by the
earthquake. The podcasts were also helpful in getting people to find
out about the status of rescue operations and people missing or dead.
A week after the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated
much of Japan, a truck left the headquarters of iRobot Corp. in
Bedford. Its cargo: four military robots, two of them prototypes.
IRobot engineers had outfitted the robots with special modifications
that could help the Japanese gain control of the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear reactors or conduct rescue operations in their shattered
cities.
Abdelaziz Ahmed
Haiti & Japan
27th March
What is the impact of such use on the society. I.e. discuss social
and ethical issues (positive and negative). Think of the images that
were distributed, think of the Google people finder, think about
the simulation that were done regarding the nuclear issue….etc
There are many impacts on society thanks to the technology of the
devices used:
Security is a very important issue as many people took advantage of
the situation and set up fake website and services in order to obtain
user bank account numbers and pin codes by pretending to be a
fundraiser for the Japanese people.
Psychologically it helped many survivors feel safe knowing that there
voices could be heard using Twitter and that using GPS they could be
found. This helped keep many survivors calm and collected, as they
knew that help was on the way.
The reliability of the tools is a very important factor since technology
has now become almost a lifeline for the survivors in the form of
Tweets and GPS locations as well as the robots used for the nuclear
power plant and roaming the streets. It was imperative to make sure
that all of these systems were working effectively.
Abdelaziz Ahmed
Haiti & Japan
27th March
Research the Haiti earthquake crisis and compare how ICT was
used there as well.
Because Haiti was a developing nation it did not have the
technological advancements that Japan has, so there was much more
disastrous results despite the earthquake in Haiti being 7.0 on the
Richter scale and Japan having 8.2.
One thing which technology helped Haiti is that within hours of the
earthquake people from all over the globe were able to view images
and videos of the devastation online. This is thanks to the
globalization of the global societies thanks to the advent of the World
Wide Web and social networking sites, which allows people to spread
news quickly and effectively.
Also like Japan social networking sites were being used to raise
awareness of the incident and to help fundraise large funds for relief
efforts of the people in Haiti. However due to Haiti not having the
technologies that Japan has it was very difficult for them to find
information on survivors as there have only recently been electronic
records in Haiti and the rest of the country is not even up to that
standard.
Abdelaziz Ahmed
Haiti & Japan
27th March
Find 3 to 4 interesting articles related to the Haiti crisis. Read
them and highlight important point that we can discuss in our
next lesson.