In response to a question I raised regarding the use of wiki media, expert systems, and strategies to access information important to the public health, Bill Ives writes on FASTforward the Blog
“One example, that I had a chance to participate in a minor way was the Katrina People Finder Project Sponsored by Harvard’s Berkman Center. In this case a wiki was used to help organize the various siloed databases that had sprung up after the disaster. A few dedicated smart people were able to do in a few days what the government had been unable to do in a several years, set up a unified site for people to find their missing family and friends and post message for who they were looking for. The spirit and power of collaboration that bypasses political lines was evident here. One newspaper that was embedded in the old school thinking at first talked about suing the effort when it added their missing person files to the growing database. They soon released the folly of this objection as free legal advocates were eager to take them on. There were many other web-based efforts after Katrina that made up, in part, for the tangled up mess and inaction that the government is still engaged in over this disaster.”
Many thanks Bill for showing us how these technology strategies could come together under real circumstances.
August 8, 2007 at 6:54 pm
[...] how new media/internet (blogs, wiki media, citizen journalism, etc) that we’ve talked about (here, here, here and here) can improve the quality of health care in developing countries. Bornstein [...]