The Team

The Standby Task Force is a group of 700+ volunteers coming from 70+ different countries and many different backgrounds. All volunteer bios are visible on our dedicated Ning Site at www.standbytaskforce.com. The full list of SBTF Coordinators is available here and public stats on our volunteer network are available here. The following individuals are only the organizers of the initial SBTF effort and the team that deals with the overall organization of each project. All of them are also volunteers in this effort. They are listed below in alphabetical order.

SARA-JAYNE FARMER

SBTF Coordinator: SMS Team

SBTF Deployments: Colombia Simulation 2010, Sudan 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Libya Health Project 2012

Sara just finished working as chief architect at UN Global Pulse, designing systems and processes to find early signs of crisis in very large data streams. She has a background in systems engineering, innovations management, information fusion, knowledge management, intelligent systems and autonomy. She is also a compulsive CrisisMapper:  Standby Task Force SMS team lead, Humanity Road member, former lead of CrisisCampUK and OpenCrisis.net.

ANAHI AYALA IACUCCI

SBTF Coordinator: Volunteer Coordinator
SBTF Deployments: Colombia Simulation 2010, Sudan 2011, Australia Floods 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Alabama Tornadoes 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Syria Crisis 2011, Samoa Simulation 2011, Colombia Floods 2011, Libya Health Facilities 2012

Anahi Ayala Iacucci holds a Master degree from Colombia University – School of International and Public Affairs -, a BA in International Affairs from the University of Bologna and a Master in Human Rights from the University of Padova. Anahi has consulted for NGOs and international organizations on the use of the ICT4D, new technologies and crisis mapping: she advised the UN OCHA Iraq Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit, the NGO Alliance Guinea, Freedom House in Egypt, the World Bank in Zambia and Ushahidi Inc. in China. Anahi is currently Crowdsourcing and Information Specialists for the World Bank and SMS and Mobile Technology Specialists for the Popular Engagement Policy Lab in Pakistan. Anahi Ayala Iacucci is also the Media Innovation Advisor for Internews in the Africa Region, covering Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria and Republic of South Sudan. Anahi is the author of the official Ushahidi Guide and blogs at Diary of a Crisis Mapper. She is also co-author of several articles and publications on PLoS Medicine and ACSM Bulletin on Crisis Mapping and Disaster response, Crowdsourcing applied to Health issues and the role of Social Networks in today’s Media world.

SENTIL PRAKASH CHINNACHAMY


SBTF Coordinator: Geo Location Team
SBTF Deployments: New Zealand Earthquake 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Samoa Simulation 2011

Sentil is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) architect and a marketing consultant for GIS products in renewable energy, health care, transportation, local governments, and utilities industries. Sentil holds a MBA and an engineering degree with specialization in Geo-Informatics. He is a social media, environment enthusiast, animal rights advocate, and a serial volunteer. In addition to SBTF, he volunteers for the Redlands animal shelter and leads the Ushahidi project to crowdsource animal abuse cases, lost, and found animals. As an outdoorsman, he is a Trail Patrol Volunteer at the San Gorgonia Wilderness Assoication, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting the San Bernardino National Forest (Southern California) including the San Gorgonia wilderness area. His hobbies include traveling to national parks and animal photography.

MELISSA ELLIOTT

SBTF Coordinator: Reports Team
SBTF Deployments: Australia Floods 2011, New Zealand Earthquake 2011, Alabama Tornadoes 2011, Syria Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Samoa Simulation 2011, Libya Health Facilities 2012.

Melissa is a communications expert, and has an overload of instant messaging and social networks to prove it.  An avid supporter of the Haitian relief efforts, Melissa was an early adopter of the Ushahidi platform to coordinate aid after the Jan 2010 EQ, and has traveled to Haiti on multiple occasions to assist. Melissa is a member of CrisisCommons and CrisisMappers. She has presented social media techniques used in disaster relief to the American Red Cross during their Emergency Social Data Summit in Washington, DC, as well as multiple presentations at The Canadian Governments DFAIT (Dept. of Foreign Trade & International Affairs) during their Open Innovation Summit in Ottawa, ON. In her “spare” time, Melissa is Partner and Executive Producer at Blackbox Communications in Toronto. When not online, Melissa is probably dreaming of traveling to exotic locales.

HELENA PUIG LARRAURI

SBTF Coordinator: Analysis Team
SBTF Deployments: Colombia Simulation 2010, Sudan 2011, Australia Floods 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Samoa Simulation 2011.

Helena Puig Larrauri is a peacebuilding specialist for UNDP Sudan’s Conflict Reduction Program. Previously, she worked as an analyst for UNDP Sudan’s Crisis and Recovery Mapping and Analysis project, using participatory mapping to analyse community-level perceptions of conflicts. Helena has consulted for the Open Society Institute, worked as a project manager for the Mayor of London and as a risk manager for Standard Chartered Bank. Helena holds a Master in Public Affairs (Economics) from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and a Bachelor’s degree from Oxford University (where she also served as Student Union president for one year). She also writes a blog on peacebuilding, technology and other related subjects.

JEANNINE LEMAIRE

SBTF Coordinator: Media Monitoring Team
SBTF Deployments: Colombia Simulation 2010, Sudan 2011, Australia Floods 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Samoa Simulation 2011, Alabama Tornadoes 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011

Jeannine became interested in crisis mapping after studying disease mapping and various epidemiologic applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Prior to joining SBTF, Jeannine began as a volunteer with PakReport mapping SMS messages during the Pakistan Floods of 2010. As an SBTF volunteer, Jeannine worked on the South Sudan Referendum deployment mapping polling stations and submitting reports. Jeannine then participated in SBTF’s Libya deployment as a geolocation and media monitoring volunteer. Once the project was handed over to UN OCHA, she continued as the Coordinator of the Geolocation Team and co-Coordinator of the Media Monitoring Team providing support to more than 50 volunteers. She also worked closely with a small team on analyzing data trends to produce reports and maps to inform the local humanitarian response community in Libya on critical events and needs by region and humanitarian response cluster. Based in Paris, France and Colombo, Sri Lanka, Jeannine is a global health consultant working on leveraging private sector initiatives on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the developing world by focusing on partnership-building and new technologies, such as mobile health (mHealth), to expand the reach of programs.

NIGEL McNIE

SBTF Coordinator: Tech Team

Nigel became first involved in emergency management when he stabilised an Ushahidi deployed for the Queensland Floods in 2010. Since then, he has increasingly been involved in Ushahidi deployments for disasters, in particular for the Christchurch earthquakes (2010). He joined the SBTF with the goal of greatly improving how tech is deployed to help with disasters, in particular because his hometown of Wellington is overdue for “the big one” – a major earthquake. He blogs at nigel.mcnie.name.

PATRICK MEIER

SBTF Coordinator: Humanitarian Liaison Team & Satellite Imagery Team
SBTF Deployments: Australia Floods 2011, New Zealand Earthquake 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, India Crisis 2011, Turkey Earthquake 2011, Syria Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Samoa Simulation 2011.

Patrick is a recognized thought leader on the application of new technologies for crisis early warning, humanitarian response, human rights and civil resistance. He currently serves as Director of Crisis Mapping at Ushahidi—a non-profit technology company voted by MIT’s Technology Review as one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world alongside Facebook, Google and Twitter. Patrick is also co-founder of the International Network of Crisis Mappers, the Standby Volunteer Task Force for Live Mapping (SBTF) and the International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM). He previously co-founded and co-directed Harvard University’s Program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). Patrick is also a distinguished scholar, holding a PhD from The Fletcher School, a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from Stanford University and an MA from Columbia University. He has given guest lectures at Harvard, Columbia and Stanford and has also taught professional, graduate and undergraduate courses on disaster and conflict early warning systems, crisis mapping, digital democracy and complexity science. He is an accomplished author with over two dozen publications to his name in peer-reviewed journals, reports and book chapters. Patrick also authors the widely respected  iRevolution blog and tweets at @patrickmeier.

KIRK MORRIS

SBTF Coordinator: Volunteer Coordinator
SBTF Deployments: Colombia Simulation 2010, Sudan 2011, Libya Crisis 2011, Alabama Tornadoes 2011, Syria Crisis 2011, India Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011

Began life (professional) with a Rockefeller Foundation grant to work as an intern with the Arena Stage, D.C. Among the productions was the “Great White Hope.” Lived the spring of ’68 (King’s assassination) in D.C and left for NYC (a new life) the morning following Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. Began work (production side) in the NYC Theatre world culminating with nearly 100 off Broadway and three dozen Broadway production credits as production electrician, lighting designer and/or assistant, stage manager to general manager.

Also, in the early ’70s rock ‘n roll and touring became a way of life with Emerson, Lake & Palmer the first major (production) international tour and on to Earth, Wind and Fire for several years. Somewhere there was Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour. Followed by and interspersed with dozens of others and ending with the reunion tour of Simon and Garfunkel and Billy Joel’s ( I’m married to Christie Brinkley) tour. Lighting for the film “Star is Born” w/Streisand and for the PBS series “Cosmos” w/Sagan. Produced Emmy nominated documentaries with/for PBS and wrote/developed/produced for feature films.

Kirk began working with computers in the mid-70s as a means of lighting control. During Cosmos we used computers as control between lighting, effects and syncing 35m film frame by frame. We were also using massive computer banks to transfer 35mm film to digital video for building special effects. Along with Lucas (Star Wars) we were employing blue/green and digital screen effects not before seen. To put in perspective the preceding, for the most part, were not the norm. We were leading.

Kirk started a family resulting in two wonderful daughters.

Until the events in Haiti Kirk never knew of crisismapping or the power of social media. Upon experiencing it Kirk was hooked..

MARTHA POBLET

SBTF Coordinator: Media Monitoring Team
SBTF Deployments: Colombia Simulation 2010, Libya Crisis 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Syria Crisis 2011, Colombia Floods 2011

Marta is a Researcher in Law and Political Sciences and currently works as Director of the Institute of Law and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She holds a Juris Doctorate (JD) from Stanford University Law School (2002) and a Masters in International Legal Studies (Stanford Law School, 2000). She was also a Fellow at Stanford’s Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (2001). Marta has also edited a book on Mobile Technologies for Conflict Management (Springer, 2011) and has also co-authored several articles on mobile technologies and crowdsourcing. She blogs at Serendipolis.

BHARATHI RAMASUBRAMANIAN


SBTF Coordinator: Verification Team & Regional Teams
SBTF deployments : Libya Crisis 2011, India Crisis 2011, New York Hurricane 2011, Sudan 2011, Somalia Crisis 2011, Syria Crisis 2011, Turkey Earthquake 2011 and DRC Elections 201.

Bharathi currently works in technology-enabled microfinance, leading end-user & documentation initiatives for Mifos and also consults with local organizations on initiatives tied to microfinance and social development. She has previously worked with Dell, Inc. and MicroCapital. She holds a BE in Computer Science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in India.

JAROSLAV VALUCH


SBTF Coordinator: Humanitarian Liaison Team
SBTF Deployments: Columbia Simulation, Sudan, Australia Floods, Libya Crisis, Samoa Simulation

Jaroslav is a One World Social Innovation Program Manager at International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival One World in Czech Republic. Recently he co-organized Social Innovation Camp Internews in Bosnia, he provides consultations and trainings to numerous citizen and activist initiatives in CEE, Balkans, Caucasus and Southeast Asia regions. He is working closely with Transitions Online, media development organization that conducts journalism and new media training and publishes Transitions Online, a newsmagazine on Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Jaroslav is a co-founder of the Standby Task Force – Online Volunteer Community for Live Mapping.  In 2010 he participated at the Ushahidi crisis mapping platform deployment after the earthquake hit Haiti and later became the Ushahidi Haiti field representative in Port-au-Prince. In 2010 Jaroslav was a Fulbright Fellow on the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. He worked for Czech based international relief and development organization called People in Need, focusing on implementation of media literacy program into the educational curriculum. He worked in Burma as a humanitarian and capacity building projects coordinator after the cyclone Nargis and currently is also involved in human rights programs on Thai-Burma border. He was also involved in videoactivism projects monitoring Neo-nazi activities in Europe and worked closely with number of environmental and community based initiatives.

Past Volunteers:

George Chamales, Rob Munro