Flood Monitor Alert – Diagram System
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BUSINESS PLAN
Disaster Management | BUSINESS PLAN
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CONTENTS
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1. - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
FLOOD MONITOR ALERT – DIAGRAM SYSTEM
New technologies allow to prevent or solve global problems efficiently, these technologies are shrinking in size, cost, and with greater power for data processing. Microcontrollers like
Arduino are open source, so that you can use, write, modify and redistribute free to create products for social impact.
The idea is to develop a practical and easy to use system that warns of possible flooding and can adapt to the particular characteristics of each country.
The system works with 3 steps, the first is the devices with hydrometric measurement sensors that are placed in strategic points of the river´s, these sensors compile the daily data of the rivers and sent it to a server to form the database. The second step occurs within the server, the data is analyzed to form the algorithm generating statistics for prediction and control. Finally, the third step is to send alerts to prevent institutions and people to take the necessary measures because possible flood danger.
For communication, the 3G technology gives us the ability to send data at a greater distance and in real time. This will allow nearby regions alert about possible risks of flooding.
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To supply the sensor with energy we plan to use solar cells, today solar cells are smaller, cheaper and easier to get, their efficiency is higher every day and are also friendly to the environment. Similarly we can use small batteries to give energy to the system overnight.
All information will be sent to a server that analyzes the data and if there is any risk of flood, warning people and institutions to realize a better flood disaster management.
Using artificial intelligence, the algorithm will analyze the data that devices send comparing it with historical data and weather forecasts, generating a more accurate prediction.
2. – THE INITIATIVE
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
The floods are some of the constant problems in development countries, the lack of technology makes them vulnerable to the natural disasters, furthermore the global warming and the drastic changes of the meteorology makes more difficult to prevent climatological problems like the floods.
Periodic floods occur on many rivers, forming a surrounding region known as the flood plain and represent a lot of problems to the society, especially with the people in poverty that lives near to the rivers in downstream zones that have a lot of risk to be affected. This can have devastating consequences and negative effects in the economy, environment and people.
During floods (especially flash floods), roads, bridges, farms, houses and automobiles are destroyed. May people are killed in flash floods. Many more are injured and others made homeless.
Additionally, the government deploys firemen, police and other emergency apparatuses to help the affected. All these come at a heavy cost to people and the government. It usually takes years for affected communities to be rebuilt and business to come back to normalcy. Water treatment plants and Dams are usually
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affected by the floods and represent a serious risk to the community. Water supply and electricity are disrupted and people struggle and suffer as a result, the environment also suffers when floods happen. Chemicals and other hazardous substances end up in the water and eventually contaminate the water bodies.
Additionally, flooding kill animals, and others insects are introduced to affected areas, distorting the natural balance of the ecosystem. Flooding brings a lot of diseases and infections including typhoid fever, cholera, pneumonic plague, dermatopathia, dysentery, malaria, dengue, yellow fever and West Nile Fever.
THE SOLUTION
The solution is a system that monitors the level of rivers with stream gauges and the rain volume with a digital rain gauge using different sensors and microcontrollers such as Arduino, to automatically send data of the rivers to a central server comparing statistics in real-time with historical behavior data of rivers to determine if the water level is alarming and can cause flooding in low lands.
The system also analyzes weather reports to predict with more anticipation for situations that could cause flooding. The sensors will be placed at strategic points in upland areas of rivers that flow into larger rivers that are at increased risk of overflow.
This system would also be useful to have more control in dams and water treatment plants.
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3. – MARKETING AND SALES
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:
In simple words, the product will be a device that will have a microcontroller like Arduino connected to a 3G technology adapter chip to send the information.
To measure the level of rain, we will use a digital rain gauge that alerted us about excessive rains in the area were the devices are placed.
Then we contemplate the use of hydrometric scales to determine the water level, part of the challenge of this type of measurement is the creation of automated hydrometric scales, to solve this problem we plan to put a sensor floating at water level in a tube, as the water level is raising or lowering, other sensors will get activate to determine how much has gone up or down the water level of the river.
Within the server, we will take the data stored in our database for data mining to analyze the behavior of rivers and climatological changes to predict possible scenarios that generate floods.
In the future we will add more meters that could extend the statistical data such as ambient temperature, toxic substances, and meters of water, among others.
Our innovation is focused on automated data collection model and process analysis for prediction of floods. Socially, our solution will give a new tool to prevent people from natural disasters and to help institutions information that allows them to make better flood risk management.
THE MARKET:
The market we want to reach is primarily the government institutions and institutes that protect citizens in disasters. On the other hand, we also thought to give our service to dams and water treatment plants.
4. – SOCIAL PURPOSE
Floods are some of the continuing problems in developing countries, the lack of technology makes them vulnerable further global warming and drastic changes in the weather makes it more difficult to take control of a flood.
Having an advance forecast will allow to take preventive measures rivers overflow, that is why our proposal benefits the general population inhabits qua prone to flooding caused by rivers, farmers, ranchers, water treatment plants areas and private companies.
The global crisis of recent years has created the need to think about alternative models of economic growth to prevent environmental degradation and promote equality and social
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welfare. That's why we need transform the traditional business world, to have a new vision that aims to solve social and environmental problems that generates profits while still providing a product or service that solves problems and improves the quality of life of people.
From our point of view, a company uses social innovation, creativity, problem solving ability and organizational ability, combined incentive and motivation to improve the quality of life of society. Once identified social need, social enterprise uses the potential of business to generate the welfare of society.
Another important aspect that helps fulfill the main objective of the company is performing any measurement of social impact. In our case we will base our measurement on the number of people assisted and rescued during a flood, the number of crops and animals that were rescued in time, and in general the number of people affected by the flood in a before and after implementation of our system, backed by statistics of past floods in the installation of our system.
5. - GROWTH
The proposed solution is definitely a stable business model, in the first phase may be marketed to government entities, registered processed metadata may be sold in different forms to companies interested in them as insurers or agencies involved in managing natural resources and agricultural farms.
In the second phase the project will conform to socially responsible companies, chemical and biochemical industries, and treatment plant for waste water monitoring processes and thus generate more revenue and contribute to society at the same time.
6. - FINANCE
Our project will work in two ways:
By the social side will be a nonprofit project, this means that we will seek funding through grants of institutions that help in disasters, also we would try to find funding through national programs for social protection in case of emergencies, an example of this kind of program in our country will be “FONDEN”, this program support the people affected by natural disasters.
Thanks to this type of financing we can offer for free installation of the sensors and alert system.
In the second way, we will offer our service to dams and water treatment plants as a monthly income rent, this can generate revenue for maintenance throughout the system. Advertising may be another method of income generation as well the data analytics.
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COST
Our first goal is to create a device with all the sensors that we mention, in the range cost of
$150 dollars each sensor. We plan to start with 100 devices for placing in the rivers with the most flood danger, starting in our state Veracruz. This batch will give us the opportunity to start testing the sensors, its strength and effectiveness in analyzing the behavior of the river.
Our model is design to grow in small batches from one state to another starting with the ones that have greater risk of flood. The number of devices will be greater depending the number of founding that we get. By saying this, our founding need will be $15,000 dollars; we also need $5,000 dollars for transportation and salaries.
The incomes will be for giving service to dams and water treatment plants, in our state
Veracruz. There are 106 plants wastewater treatment, 13 water treatment plants and 6 dams.
If we rent our service to 30 of them for $ 600 dollars annually, we could get incomes of
$18,000 dollars annually, it almost represents the need for investment.
FINANCIAL
2015 2016 2017 2018
$ 5,000 $ 6,000 $ 7,000 $ 8,000
$ 15,000 $ 15,000 $ 15,000 $ 15,000
$ 20,000 $ 21,000 $ 22,000 $ 23,000
Donations
Government programs
Total
Rent
Companies
Total
Metadata
Companies
Total
Total Income
Cost device
Number devices
Devices investment
Maintenance
Server
Total
Gross margin
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Income
$ 60 $ 60 $ 60 $ 60
30 90 180 360
$ 1,800 $ 5,400 $ 10,800 $ 21,600
$ 1,000 $ 1,000 $ 1,000 $ 1,000
10 20 30 50
$ 10,000 $ 20,000 $ 30,000 $ 50,000
$ 11,800 $ 25,400 $ 40,800 $ 71,600
Cost
$ 150 $ 150 $ 150 $ 150
100 120 150 300
$ 15,000 $ 18,000 $ 22,500 $ 45,000
$ 5,000 $ 6,000 $ 7,500 $ 15,000
$ 1,200 $ 1,200 $ 1,200 $ 1,200
$ 21,200 $ 25,200 $ 31,200 $ 61,200
$ 10,600 $ 21,200 $ 31,600 $ 33,400
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$40 000
$35 000
$30 000
$25 000
$20 000
$15 000
$10 000
$5 000
$-
2015
2016
2017
2018
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7. – IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
The proposed implementation plan could change at any time considering strategic alliances or social associations who wish to join, or considering some form of public or private funding, the solution is planned to be scalable and effective with diverse business models that would leave each shareholder gain. The following milestones explain a little the implementation plan:
Milestone Due Date Responsible Details
Business plan development
July 15, 2014 CEO
Key relationships and activities
July 25, 2014 CEO
Generate key relationships with government agencies and private companies.
Collect information about water bodies.
July 30, 2014
During the first month will collect information on the water bodies of the country, establishing a priority of historical data from proneareas to floods through an analysis that will show a map of critical zones and thus provide greater value.
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Set up cloud server and web application
Devices tests August 20, 2014
Installation and implementation by batches
February 10,
2015
Post-installation
August 10, 2014
March 15, 2015
Install the Web Application on the cloud server under the "pay as you go" concept, this server which is responsible for receiving data from the devices network using a 3G technology system. In the same way we will work in local test with the server and devices sending data and using the predictive algorithm and “data mining” will compare their indicators with at least two weather forecasting service and create a better result.
Installing devices of the proposed system with help of previously designated civil defense personnel, persons seeking to improve their community and people without employment. For this purpose we need to establish the logistics of weekly goals, and manage costs and per diem to the people involved.
Post-installation dates of the devices will begin sending data on the level, quality and state of water in which it is installed, the server will receive data from the network devices and to have sufficient generated with comparisons efficiently and alert users to the application and emergency systems when there is a high probability of flooding or if there are atypical level of contamination.
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8. – TEAM BIOGRAPHY
Eva Lizeth Hernández Rosa
Biochemical engineering, ITESCO.
Xalapa, Mexico.
My name is Eva Lizeth Hernández Rosa, I'm 22 years old and
I'm from Mexico, I am currently attending the last half of the career of biochemical engineering at the Superior
Technological Institute of Coatzacoalcos, I like to develop projects with social causes. I am part of the civil association
"Mujeres por un Mejor Futuro A.C" and my hobby is to play
Judo and Karate, I’m a Mexican champion from 2010. As a biochemical engineer student I’ve been developed several investigations at my institution.
Francisco Alejandro Lagos Rodríguez
Software engineering, ITESCO.
Coatzacoalcos, Mexico.
I'm Alejandro Lagos and I'm 23 years old, I just graduated from college at Superior Technological Institute of
Coatzacoalcos and now I'm working in a startup at Hub iLab
Veracruz in Xalapa, winner of gold medal in Proyecto
Multimedia and Infomatrix World Finals.
José Carlos Salgado Pallares
Business Management MBA, Anahuac University.
Xalapa, Mexico.
I’m José Salgado and I’m 26 years old, I get graduated in business management at the Anahuac Xalapa university, at this moment I’m studying a Master of business administration at the same university and I’m working in
HUB iLab Veracruz.
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