A lot of people trapped in a disaster (floods, tsunami, earthquake) have mobile phone and working connection, but they do not know whom to reach. They also need credible information on what to do during such times. The whereabouts of people in disaster is not known to relatives or authorities.
Most of the times during disaster, people are in possession of a mobile phone and a working network. Most of the people in developing countries have non-smartphones, so that can text but can not access internet. On the other hand, Social media has proved to be a powerful tool in expanding the reach of information during a disaster.
Using a simple mobile phone, an affected person can reach out to multiple people over multiple platforms on social media. A server receives the text message by an affected person and broadcasts it to multiple social software (FB, Twitter, Google+). This enables the person to use just a single number and one text message to reach out to multiple people and authorities. A server further helps to prioritize the messages based on urgency. A relevant response from relatives or authorities is sent back to the person in need. If the person is pre-registered with the system, his/her name and other relevant information is also easily available for authorities to reach out to him/her.
The solution is useful for stranded people in Natural Disasters – Earthquake, Flooding, Landslide, Tsunami, Forest Fire, stranded people in man made disasters – Bombing, riots, SOS in medial emergency.
Challenges:
A message filtering is needed to prioritize the messages.
A filtering is also needed to adjudge hoaxes, rumors and wrong information.
Sensitive and wrong information to be manually checked and blocked.
A group of volunteers can be put together during the times of event to manage high message volumes.