January 17th, 2008
InSTEDD applies Web 2.0 to help save lives
The Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD) project launches this week with a goal of using Internet-based technologies to identify and warn people of disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, and epidemics like Avian flu.
“Our ultimate goal is a better global immune system. We know we alone can’t truly stop diseases, war, poverty, or climate change, but we think we can help humanity to learn about threats faster, and so respond quicker, and so soften the impact,” the Web site states. Google.org funded the non-profit with $5 million and the Rockefeller Foundation added another million. Venture capital legend and Google investor John Doerr also added to the pot.
Following are technologies that will be utilized:
- RSS and GeoRSS as the standard data representation on the wire
- Google Earth as the local interactive mapping application
- A simple local web application that gets opened to ‘reply’ to the messages built with ASP.NET
- Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Maps as free online mapping applications
- Google Maps geocoding web services to translate addresses into positions
- Microsoft Research SMS Toolkit to receive messages and send responses hooked up to an HTC phone
- An ASP.NET web application to host the information online and display it using multiple mapping solutions
Twitter and Facebook will also be part of the toolkit. Twitter will be used as worldwide SMS gateway.
See also:
Twitter, Facebook called on for higher purpose
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
