
IMMAP Colombia held the fourth virtual event on technological innovation to enhance community involvement on April 12th, 13th, and 14th.
The fourth innovation event featured the participation of 20 international and national panelists and speakers, who are part of international organizations, private corporations, and academia.
summary of the event
The themes and insights presented during the three days were split into:
day 1 | April 12, 2023:
State of emerging and innovative technologies for community engagement
Day 2 | April 13, 2023:
Technology applications to enhance community engagement
Day 3 | April 14, 2023:
Special considerations for the application of technology in emergencies and complex contexts

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Brent O. Phillips, Humanitarian AI Today
Conexión Cross-connecting to advance humanitarian uses of artificial intelligence technology
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Chris Watson, Premise
Desafíos Challenges and opportunities of crowdsourcing data for humanitarian assistance: Lessons learned from Ukraine and Central America
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Lance Pierce, NetHope
Challenges and opportunities of crowdsourcing data for humanitarian assistance: Lessons learned from Ukraine and Central America
Promoting Community Participation through Minimum Standards and Common Assessments
- Community participation is intrinsic and cross-cutting to the Millennium Development Goals in order to close historical gaps that communities have had in access to information, decision-making, and recognizing communities as assets.
- An overarching principle is emphasized, which is that organizations should consider communities as assets, although there is already an effort, deficient practices persist, and the challenge is to generate a consensus on what is understood by participation by different organizations.
- Rania proposes that community participation should have 5 global objectives: a common language on community participation articulated from different institutions, standards that address principles for the construction of a framework that will be a humanitarian tool. To achieve this, 4 approaches (Quality, harmonization, optimization of interventions, and accountability) linked to accountability processes with design, monitoring, and evaluation are proposed.
- 16 standards are proposed to generate quality community participation, starting from the premise that participation should be an end, addressing what and how participation is carried out, linking the resources and mechanisms that quality participation needs.
- An accountability initiative with three pillars is highlighted: technical guidance, shared principles, and data strengthening, with the objective of improving community practices.
Cross-connection to advance humanitarian uses of AI technology
- It is highlighted how technological advances have been used in humanitarian situations, for example during the Bosnian war, the technology of that moment, AOL and mail, allowed refugees to share information about what happened in real time (1990s).
- Today ChatGPT is one of the greatest technological advances available to the general public. For example, from an article on the humanitarian situation in Choco, information is obtained on the needs of these communities, the community organizations present in the territory and the assistance needs of these organizations. It gives you the IATI framework to obtain more precise information on how to assist these communities.
- Considering that artificial intelligence (AI) feeds on information available on the Internet, it is important that we learn to publish and make information available in an accessible format for AI, in order to control the narrative and eliminate information bias. available and from which the AI feeds.
Challenges and opportunities of crowdsourcing data for humanitarian assistance
- Currently, primary data collection in the field is based on expensive methods, such as door-to-door or telephone contact, and there has been no significant innovation in this process. Premise seeks to collect primary information in a less expensive way and also, that benefits the community.
- The Premise operation is facilitated by the increased access to smartphones, which has created an economy where more and more people work part-time through their smartphone. Even, Premise has discovered that there are collaborators who are dedicated 100% to the collection of information.
- Premise has been more effective in evaluation needs, as long as a high statistical representativeness of the information is not required. It has also been useful in market studies and valuation of damaged buildings, as happened recently after the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. In addition, it facilitates one of the biggest challenges in the humanitarian sector, which is constantly collecting information, considering that this information has a short useful life.
- One of the main challenges that Premise faces is the lack of replicability of the information, since there is no supervision of the field work and the collaborators cannot be contacted later in case of doubts.
Innovative approaches and partnerships to solve some of the humanitarian, development challenges and conservation in the world.
- NetHope is an organization that works with more than 40 countries to improve connectivity and the use of information technology between humanitarian organizations and communities, with the goal of bridging gaps in humanitarian needs through digital innovation.
- They have found that the organizations they work with are more concerned with information accuracy, digital skills, technology application, digital protection and connectivity among others. Organizations often view these issues as a linear process where connectivity is addressed first and other issues are addressed later, but it is important to review them in parallel.
- The importance given to each of these topics varies according to the location of the organizations, since each country has different infrastructures and needs. In Colombia, connectivity continues to be one of the most important issues.
Exploring and incorporating emerging technologies for social impact David Hammel, Balcony; Andrew Schroeder,
David Hammel, Balcony; Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief; Chris Watson, Premise; Lance Pierce, NetHope; Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI Today
He mentions how currently, there is still no established framework on how to use technologies such as ChatGPTespecially in ethical terms. NetHope ha desarrollado un AI Ethics First to emphasize the responsible development of these technologies and to ensure that their main objective is the common well-being and their ability to face global challenges. The main challenges facing technology today include misinformation, hate speech, surveillance, and AI biases that can lead to discrimination and bias. It is important to question how Machine models Learning they can cause harm, detect possible biases and ensure that the representativeness of the population is achieved in the process.
He discusses the challenges of developing technology used by the humanitarian sector as a start technological up for commercial purposes. Premise was born with the main objective of helping in the collection of data for market research, particularly in family or "neighborhood" stores, but it has also been used in data collection in humanitarian contexts. From this experience, he identifies three challenges that hinder the adoption of new technologies in the humanitarian sector: 1) resistance to using commercial products for problem solving, and preferring to build tools propias 2) dificultades administrativas para comprar productos comerciales y 3) Tendencia del sector humanitario en considerar necesario sacar políticas sobre el uso de las nuevas tecnologías, antes de usarlas.
He points out that in the humanitarian context one often works in more precarious conditions compared to commercial companies, and even then less or lower quality technology is used. Balcony seeks to bridge this gap in terms of messaging and management needs. Being a georeferenced platform, it allows you to map networks and be aware of the location of people in the organization.
It highlights how Premise and Balcony they are based on the fact that people and networks already exist in territories that are difficult to access. He illustrated this fact by mentioning that Premise was used in the Russian invasion of Ukraine to inventory the drugs available in the country's pharmacies. He also mentioned how Balcony se utilizó para mapear la red de estudiantes en Kabul y coordinar su salida durante la toma de la ciudad por los talibanes.
La community participation and standards offer a very solid framework to know what those requirements are to improve coordination, make it more systematic, the resources required and follow up on process cycles
Yes, the most important thing is que se esta redefiniendo los objetivoof community participation very often has been invested in capacity building, but we do not focus on community participation. What you want is to advance in leveraging platforms and different capacity development and training points and involve different actors
It's a big discussion, but there are very good examples; coordination between partners, platforms that look at that responsibility of the institutions, etc. But this is going to make it very specific in crisis, many challenges at the beginning and then come the associations. Having very strong mechanisms and working with government authorities, they provide this leadership. Identify roles and responsibilities, this is a process if I believe there is a motivation for the principles and actions this should lead to a platform for action.
While with AI advances we face challenges like information misuse and fake news, we also have an opportunity to improve its ability to filter information and access trusted data sets.
We have the opportunity to make prompts and from humanitarian use information we can better train the AI. Therefore, it is important to publish correct information and train the model, particularly in Spanish.
The goal of Premise is to involve communities in the collection of information. However, in some settings this process has been difficult, especially in communities with a small population, where engaging people through digital means is less effective. To overcome this problem, the company has partnered with local organizations, especially businesses, to promote Premise and reach out to hard-to-reach communities.
In addition, to facilitate the validation of the information, they resort to "data overcapture", that is, the capture of information by more than one individual.
On Premise, no one has access to the personal information of app users. If app contributors want to collect personal information from any community member, this collection must be approved by a local committee to ensure it is done ethically.
In addition, the collection of information on religion and ethnicity is avoided unless justified by a specific purpose.
There are two types of taxpayers. The first group responds to surveys simply because they like to contribute to the collection of information about their community. The second group uses this activity as their main source of income. The operation of Premise is based on the idea that if they manage to reduce the costs of collecting information through technology, a large part of these savings should go to the community that collaborates in the data collection.
NetHope is a business-to-business (B2B) organization, and most of the organizations they work with are business-to-consumer (B2C). Therefore, its direct work with the communities is limited. However, they do have regional chapters that involve regional offices and local implementing organizations. These local organizations play an important role in the supply chain of digital providers, providing services such as data collection, cybersecurity, and other programming services. NetHope support these organizations to improve and develop their capacity, and where possible, obtain resources.
One of NetHope's founding principles is industry integration. For its members, the organization fulfills the objective of being a learning platform among peers, where they share materials that facilitate the use of technologies and methodologies. Regarding the technological sectorógico, NetHope brings the perspective and needs of its members to that sector, so that it isos tengan una mejor comprensión en como apoyar athe humanitarian sector.

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Paula Morales, Kuja Kuja
Potenciando Empowering community participation with artificial intelligence
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Alejandro Echeverry, Mawingu
El The role of the private sector in bridging the digital divide: introduction of sustainable internet connectivity in rural Kenya
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Fridon Japaridze - Margarita Kondratovic, iMMAP Ukraine
Esfuerzos Humanitarian information management capacity localization efforts in Ukraine
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Guillermo Solarte Lindo, Corporación Misión Rural
Mapeo Crowdsourced mapping and social innovation with rural and urban communities in Colombia
Strengthening community participation with AI
- Kuja Kuja: platform that consolidates and makes visible the community voice. It is a complement that starts from the technical capacity of the organizations, but that is intertwined with what is expressed by the community.
- Challenges faced at the moment of active listening by the community: (1) the open and free expression of the community: (2) quick understanding of what the community thinks, (3) the information taken from the community is incorporated into the doing daily, (4) the community can provide feedback on the organization's action.
- Methodology that facilitates the continuous delivery of ideas from the community or active listening of the community, promoting listening on a scale, not forgetting the local component. AI has been incorporated into this work to have a broader vision of what the community has expressed, providing an element for prioritizing actions.
- Case Colombia, with application in the sector of monetary transfers. Tools for the community to strengthen its capacity and be sustainable over time, such as: training and financial education, technical training. This implies that timely information is transmitted, avoiding noise that may generate contrary expectations. Exchanges of information and ideas are generated within the community that enhance the actions given from the organizations. It is important to keep in mind the safety of the community.
- Listening to the communities contributes to the generation of new ideas or joint solutions (organizations-community), which guarantee the sustainability of the programs. The community as part of the actions or solutions, allowing the identification of new elements to reinforce the action. The latter must go hand in hand with the agility to provide the answer.
- An internal transformation of organizations has been generated. These learnings occur in several stages: (1) fulfillment of the project's value proposition, (2) expansion of the value proposition of their projects, including an organizational learning system, where the number of stakeholders is increased, (3 ) the transfer of knowledge to other projects, allowing the expansion of its operation locally or the design of new solutions.
The role of the private sector in bridging the digital divide: introducing sustainable internet connectivity in rural Kenya
Rural connectivity in Kenya and the importance of profit
- Mawingu, Internet provider in rural areas. Main work in rural areas in Kenya, with the incorporation of technology in complex contexts.
- Development of potential solutions beyond the rural context and its complexity. The key in this exercise is access to knowledge, where the Internet becomes a key input.
- Key connectivity data. This depends on the operator you go to. Access does not mean that the population is connected. According to the UN, in 2021, andl 66% de la población estuvo conectada alguna vez. En el ámbito rural solo el 46% estuvo conectada en el mundo. En Kenia solo el 17% de la población rural estuvo conectada.
- Challenges of connectivity in rural areas: (1) financing of the network, where there are enough funds, (2) reaching the user, it will occur gradually, not being a major obstacle (3) sustainability in the long term, being profitable , given the high costs of maintenance and monitoring. The maintenance and monitoring of the connection of a home, guaranteeing its operation.
- Some facilitating organizations: Telecom, Starlink, Airband, Loon.
- In particular, a strategy based on:
- Profitability: number of clients to guarantee self-sustainability.
- Sales focused on sustainability.
- Economy of scale, price-quantity relationship; allowing the subsidy to unprofitable spaces.
Esfuerzos de localización de la capacidad de gestión de la información humanitaria en Ucrania
- La crisis en Ucrania inicia en 2014 (Revolución Maidan) e incrementa la presencia, pasando de 81 organizaciones en 2021 a 750 organizaciones presentes en la actualidad, principalmente organizaciones locales.
- El 80% de la respuesta y organizaciones está direccionada por organizaciones no gubernamentales, las cuales se enfrentan a los límites en su capacidad técnica y financiera, así como la falta de experiencia de trabajo en contextos en conflicto. Se suma la barrea del idioma. Esto limita el empoderamiento para la continuidad de su acción.
iMMAP Ucrania, se ha enfocado en el fortalecimiento de la capacidad, partiendo de:
- Compresión del contexto.
- Evaluación de necesidades, para poder hacer la efectiva incorporación de socios.
- Entrenamientos a los socios locales.
- Evaluación del impacto.
- Se reconoce las prácticas locales, para poder hacer un efectivo acompañamiento a los socios locales.
- Se desarrolla un enfoque particular para la gestión de la información, no solo centrada en la obtención exclusiva de información, sino en el trabajo con los socios, procurando su empoderamiento y fortaleciendo su capacidad, tiempos de entrega para la respuesta oportuna y para que puedan actuar autónomamente.
- iMMAP está orientada a la entrega de las herramientas adecuadas, útiles y de fácil uso para la gestión de la información por parte de los socios locales, pero adaptadas a las condiciones locales y construidas con las organizaciones locales. En este sentido, iMMAP ha desarrollado 17 jornadas de entrenamiento, con 331 participantes pertenecientes a 91 organizaciones.
- iMMAP ha adaptado una plataforma de entrenamiento para uso en el contexto de Ucrania, previamente empleada en Yemen. Esta incorpora espacios para realizar entrenamientos libres, con acceso abierto a los materiales y con opción de complemento abierto, dispuestos en el idioma ucraniano, acordes con las necesidades propias. Adicionalmente, se tiene la gestión cursos periódicos. Debe notarse la limitación de la conectividad al inicio del programa de entrenamiento, por lo cual se estructura este espacio de acceso continuo.
Mapeo colaborativo e innovación social con comunidades rurales y urbanas en Colombia
- La Corporación Misión Rural, desarrolla una presentación de la experiencia en la construcción de cartografía social, con enfoque ampliado, en contexto rural en Colombia.
- Ha desarrollado una depuración de la cartografía para el conflicto. Partiendo del concepto de cartografía social, entendido como un proceso de construcción colectivo entre los miembros de una comunidad dirigidos a la generación de conocimiento e identidad, siendo la base: la memoria, el análisis, la síntesis y la crítica. La base del proceso es la formación-acción, no siendo solo enfocado en la generación de mapas, sino la apropiación y fortalecimiento de la comunidad para que la comunidad se apropie de las herramientas. En este ejercicio es importante la construcción de confianza, el mejoramiento de la convivencia y la escucha activad, el fortalecimiento de la red / cooperación local. Debe plantearse a la comunidad la utilidad de estos ejercicios, partiendo del pensar y reconocimiento del territorio, la identificación de aspectos que le dan identidad propia, la construcción memoria, la identificación actores y calidad de las relaciones (mapa gobernanza), la generación de soluciones, la formulación de proyectos pequeños, de urgencia, con diferentes fuentes de financiación institucionales.
Se han construido diferentes tipos de mapas:
- Mapa de problemas, identificando el principal para la comunidad, enlazando los actores, factores de riesgo, aspectos históricos, el contexto, causas y consecuencias; los mapas se van ajustando en el diálogo, también se resalta elementos de disenso. Se resalta el trabajo con las Madres de Soacha (Falsos Positivos). Estos mapas permiten la incorporación de expresiones, sensaciones, sentimientos, la singularidad de cada víctima y proceso. “Los mapas son expresiones narrativas y visuales de lo que está pasando”.
- Mapa territorial, es decir territorialización del problema identificado, incluyendo convenciones e indicadores específicos. Este tipo de mapas parte de identificar referentes ecológicos, institucionales, problemáticos u otros que permitan la ubicación precisa de oportunidades y soluciones. El mapa revela la identificación priorizada por la comunidad. Estos evidencian el impacto de un conflicto o problema analizado.
- Mapa de memoria.
- Mapa de solución.
- Mapas de gobernanza.
Innovating for Comprehensive Community Participation
Laura Avelino, Canadian Red Cross; Steve DeRoy,
The Firelight Group; Rania Elessawi, Unicef; Fernanda Baumhardt, Independent Expert
- Maps are political tools, which recognize a boundary of authority and ownership and allow for the identification of risks, enabling community action and strengthening adaptive capacity.
- The work with the community is supported by some principles: (i) respect and recognition, (ii) holistic approach, (iii) co-responsibility, (iv) accountability.
- It is important to understand the context of the community, around shared resources and learning, use of their own language, historical elements, borders, etc.
- Challenges: trust building, effective coordination, person-to-person work, community permission to work, provision of tools and devices, connectivity.
- Focus on the review of the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- Canada has adapted the UNDRIP Global Framework (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), through which the recognition of the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples is carried out, including their observance and guarantee. The implementation of the figure of prior, free and informed consultation stands out. This implies prior dialogue with the community before any intervention in its territory.
- Principles for community empowerment: ownership, control, access and possession of all information (OCAP). In addition, all members of the community must be included, creating commitments for their participation in the planned activities, including the identification of actions prioritized by the community. Another key element, after mapping, requires a verification process by the community, making adjustments.
- Promotion of transparency and the construction of trust to promote the empowerment of the community. In this, standards are required regarding:
- Stake
- empowerment
- Inclusion
- Two-way communication
- Adaptability
In addition, the following should be considered:
- Shared principles (ethics, codes of conduct) in the conception of vulnerability. The ethical perspective in decision making.
- Identification of capacities, which are heterogeneous to attend to the multiple affectations.
- Strengthening of data flow and management, aimed at effective decision making. The humanitarian system is organized considering the gaps in information, trying to propose alternatives to overcome thisas limitations. Secondary sources have been used, however, not all the information generated within the communities is easily accessible.
There are new platforms for community listening, but are you echoing these voices and meeting the expectations of the communities? There are many gaps at the organizational level, why are communities still seen as a number or a data? A call is made for a change in culture, in which community participation is institutionalized, guaranteeing accountability to the community.
Combination of human resources + AI for information management. There is no community involvement in the depuración y análisis de la información, the community assumes a role of open delivery of information, through a conversation about the service and the response, for the generation of tools for participation. The technical management of information involves a specialized human team.
It's a big discussion, but there are very good examples; coordination between partners, platforms that look at that responsibility of the institutions, etc. But this is going to make it very specific in crisis, many challenges at the beginning and then come the associations. Having very strong mechanisms and working with government authorities, they provide this leadership. Identify roles and responsibilities, this is a process if I believe there is a motivation for the principles and actions this should lead to a platform for action.
Kenya armed conflict is not a central theme. in the villages in conflict, the hiring of local people is carried out.
No other organization is identified that carries out same action. It is known from informal suppliers, with high cost and low quality. In Kenya there are three companies operating in areas that do not have a scope Mawingu. Mawingu focused on connecting in rural areas.
100% affects! The radio waves we use only have limited coverage. therefore what if the peoples estan muy lejos, o detras de montanaswe have to find other ways to get them to the internet.
It seeks to involve local organizations, considering the vital information that they can provide to strengthen the training process and information management. Feedback is received by word of mouthin the ongoing dialogue. The participation of international partners in the generation of material has been allowed.
In the case of Ukraine, it should have started from the adaptation of the material, based on the assessment of local needs. The combination of information management is carried out con la comprensión de daily humanitarian response.
A single organization that can assume total leadership in information management. The information is generated in many cases in the community, but there is no return of this to the community. The information must be generated with and for the community. The information must be community property. Sharing data and standardizing information can be useful to the community. Community empowerment is the end, not the means. It is important to decentralize the information of each organization.

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Christopher Hoffman, HumanityLink
Alianzas Partnerships for digital communication and innovation
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Juan Fernando Lucio, PASO Colombia, One Earth Future
Acceso Digital access to technical assistance and coordination in conflict zones: The case of Paso Inteligente
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FanMan Tsang, CDAC Network
El Community engagement starts immediately: Later is always too late
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Louisa Seferis, Independent Expert
En On the receiving end: How communities perceive tech and innovation in humanitarian responses
Alliances for digital communication and innovation
- Humanity Link tries to create the opportunity for NGOs to use technology to serve people in need, through the use of mobile phones.
- The journey with Humanity Link began more or less 24 years ago, thanks to collecting information from a few people, decisions could be made that affected people on a larger scale; This changed and they began to collect information on a larger scale to obtain better communication channels with people through SMS, communicating topics such as hand washing and quarantine care.
- SMS was quite expensive, so they studied the population to reach greater coverage through smartphones.
- Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal were used to create a funnel and send services to people who had needs.
- USSD is a technology that they started using to create a communication for 120 seconds where you can ask many questions at once, they created Whatsapp chatbots over fiber and USSD chat, because some people had basic phones and other smartphones.
- It was so effective that it changed the way organizations structured their team to analyze all this information.
- In Ukraine this system has sent more than 200,000 messages to more than 1 million homes, in 40 days with this tool, the reach is quite high.
- You can follow up on all the needs of the populations, and the response, the service of access to assistance is provided when this need is referred to an organization that can provide that assistance, this really dignifies them, instead of giving help they are creating an association with people and it is a great opportunity to use these tools.
- In Mali, an early warning tool was built with USSD that creates a map in the office that can visualize where these things happen and go out to give a quick response from the specialized response team.
- In Venezuela, the red cross also facilitated blood donation from Colombia for those in need.
- APIs are used with different delivery of services, you can deliver cash, transfer them to another organization, send them bonuses through this system, send a team to the location where they are in need.
- They built a call center for migrants to communicate resettlement, they receive information, they could return the call, they also communicate legal matters with whoever can provide the necessary assistance.
- Integrating technology on this scale should not be a short-term decision, it is something that must work continuously until displacement ends, otherwise people's voices are no longer heard.
- There is an opportunity in these tools but it should be based on tools and not on projects.
Digital access to technical assistance and coordination en zonas de conflicto: El caso de Paso Inteligente
- Paso Colombia: sustainable peace for Colombia, was created in 2016 and sought to support the process with the FARC. Then they created illicit crop substitution programs and supported migrants from Venezuela.
- The situation continues to be complex because in Colombia in many places there is no technical knowledge of the tools. The only way to close those gaps was by interacting with people, understanding and understanding what needed to be done.
- They work together with the community, slowly they developed a system that brought together actions with the community very much based on what was required in productive processes, and that was sustainable.
- They work in technical and sustainable assistance so that people can access their structures and markets, this requires a high physical presence.
- Accompaniment process with the communities and through UNAD, they wanted to create a network with the community to improve people's ability to bring these products to the market and better financial education for people.
- You always have to take into account the perspective of the users, they are interested in receiving technical assistance because they believe that it is the only way they have to relate to the world.
- 110 direct participants received assistance, persisted throughout the 124-hour training, on a phone.
- The importance of communities lies in the fact that their digital culture could be strengthened.
- Among the possibilities of applications that people had, the most intuitive is WhatsApp, for which they gave a prize of 5 million for the one who best explained the design and the most efficient products that could be made in WhatsApp.
- It is best to invest in what people consider most intuitive as this translates into greater productivity.
- Invest in the next step: manage the information obtained from the efforts made to communicate with communities and create a digital culture.
Community engagement starts from Immediate: Later is always too late
- If we look at how people behave and react in crisis situations: the first thing people look for is information, where are people, where is the support, relief organizations, are they looking for communication, what are the dangers? Who is here to help?
- There is a lack of information, rumors, when there is no true information. Immediate two-way engagement is needed to share information between the people who need the information and those who have it.
- Be reliable as a response actor, and check if the material attracts people to share it, also check if the communication is just a post or a dialogue with people.
- Communication must understand very well the context of the situation where the crisis is happening.
- Moving fast, but understanding the way people prefer to participate to make it successful.
- The content must be in an attractive format, in channels that work to reach people, with good ways to narrate the information in a short time.
- Language matters, it is important that there be facilities for all people who speak different languages so that they can access inputs. Translation is important.
- Use technology but do not reinvent the wheel, do not ask to adapt to new technologies but rather use the ones you have in hand.
On the receiving end: How they perceive the communities technology and innovation in the humanitarian responses
- From the perspective of the people who receive assistance, from the humanitarian responses.
- What are people interested in?: Participation, involvement from the beginning, defining the implementation of technology and reflecting what works and what doesn't to create trust with the sources, who is supplying what, and inclusion, because finally we are talking about human beings .
4 traps:
- Technology does not improve access by itself, innovation can increase exclusion, people get frustrated and expect quick help when it doesn't always come that way
- Make technology work for people, not people work for technology, “don't test your systems on us”,
- New technologies or innovation require accompaniment, connecting communities needs to create support systems and this needs a budget, often the responses are not designed to support immediately, organizations are the bridge between the priorities of the community, technology providers and the help system
- Innovation alone cannot overcome contextual barriers
- It is important to be clear that technology is a tool and not an answer by itself, understanding the purposes and looking at what makes it easier to do; check and monitor the process, trying the different options that are possible and feasible.
- 3 factors that make a difference: Participation cultures, how people participate and integrate in the face of crises; The perspectives, knowing how people prefer to communicate and knowing how they interact.
- Factors for facilitators: gender, in what language, where you are from, and where you work, here comes the trust of the organization, the sector and how it works.
- Facilitate and remove technology barriers but on the communities' own terms.
Panel: Addressing technology challenges in complex, hard to access, and resource-constrained environments
Juan Fernando Lucio, PASO Colombia; Louisa Seferis, Independent Expert; Diana Díaz, Diversidad Rural, Ruben D. Camejo, Asociación de Apoyo al Desarrollo – APOYAR
- Diana: There is a mental barrier between the same professional people in this environment, funders, who believe that those who do not have studies and so on cannot use technology.
- Rubén: Armed conflict and COVID, since this made communication with communities difficult, forcing a transition to technological tools to collect information.
- Juan Fernando: During the time of COVID, the farmer's market was affected, so that a "face-to-face" virtual farmer's market was designed by digital means, so that deliveries were made by agreeing on the product and people went to pick it up at a warehouse.
- Louisa: The idea of infrastructure, because participation is often not very good and in times of COVID in Central Africa it was not possible to bring people together to create a means of communication with them.
- Louisa: We return to data responsibility, it actually goes beyond data. It is necessary to take a good look at who has access to what information, there must be very frank internal conversations in the organizations to define this privacy policy. Make sure that when there is an uncertain environment, there can be no damage, the principle of action without harm, all kinds of technology must be developed, in Afghanistan mobile phones were used to help and a community said that they would never accept money by cell phone because the they tracked, they were concerned about safety.
- Juan Fernando: The first people in Colombia who are military targets of territorial control agents are the leaders. In Colombia there is an opportunity for territorial peace for which they are betting and through the PASO processes they have been applied to respect the lives of the actors.
- Ruben: They create relationships based on respect and transparency, socialize all established participation and accountability mechanisms, carry out a sticky process so that people appropriate these technological tools. No difficulties have been seen because the information collected has been to benefit the communities, this information allows articulating actions for the territory. Important is the relationship with the communities under a focus on protection for both parties based on respect and transparency.
- Diana: Identify well the information gaps that may arise to communicate effectively to the communities
- Juan Fernando: Technology makes a series of processes cheap, but access is taken advantage of by the person who has the training or closeness; Training is well-designed digital culture as a public policy, it is a necessary condition to think that access barriers will be overcome regarding knowledge. There are other physical barriers such as connectivity that do not allow access, or the number of cellular devices.
- Ruben: The great barrier is access to connectivity, which is why they use tools that work offline.
- Diana: A public policy must be generated that positively affects the use of the Internet, connectivity, access to technologies, which go beyond infrastructure, but rather sociodemographic aspects.
- Louisa: Both infrastructure and sociodemographics affect access to technologies. The cost of technology affects the projects, due to budget issues, they look for ones that fit this, how has the experience been in your projects?
- Diana: Everything that is free is used, so that processes and costs can be optimized to take advantage of resources in the best way, reaching the desired results.
- Juan Fernando: El mundo digital ofrece muchas posibilidades, hay que invertirle. Invertir porque hay personas que no tienen las facilidades para hacerlo e invierten tiempo para conectarse en equipos muchas veces no tan buenos y en lugares remotos.
- Ruben: There are financial limitations for equipment and people, not only for the collection of information but also for how to formulate community actions so that the communities have access to them. Difficulty in accessing the internet.
- Louisa: They invest in capable and applicable systems, focused on localization. Solar energy was invested to charge members' phones and this created a strong relationship between the communities, which allowed for talks on armed conflict, community, and a great support network was created through this.
- Ruben: Confidentiality protocols for all the information that is generated, allows that all the information collected has no way of leaking, it is part of the recognition and part of the trust that they have built in the different sectors and communities that have allowed them to enter and collect information in smooth terrain. They have rigorous controls and a single person is the one who has the function of safeguarding the organization's data. They have informed consent for the use of information.
- Louisa: You must have called with the community but it must be before they accept the privacy policy, and participation is important so that people can be informed. The people in charge who make decisions and are technical can turn off or remove permissions in case of any security error. There must be a panic button and a person who can operate this, together and quickly.
- Diana: An attempt is made to explain and train people in the use of data, they manage the data use protocol in Colombia. As an organization they do not have the resources to have people specialized in an area that can handle this situation correctly. The information is not shared with different agents or actors of the project in question.
Although OpenAI's CHATGTP is not used, they use Google dialogue, the system is similar. They take the dialog from google and share the data, when people ask questions they can get the answer from the data uploaded by them, they protect the framework and load it. People ask for information and this loaded framework makes it easy to answer, you can do it in any language.
Depending on how mature the community is in digital terms and the organizations; Ukraine for example is high in terms of maturation and people can go to use chatGTP. In terms of the great help it will be in the analysis of the data on a large scale, one of the gaps is managing the data, here it will come in and it will help you better understand the whole part of business analytics.
information can be shared back and forth with these channels.
You are going to start having AI for humanitarian action at the country level, where people ask questions and share with different people and different population groups.
To scale digital awareness, you need people who are very expert with digital technical parts and who can understand how digital tools can be used and with programmatic tools. Programmers, analysts, they are important.
should i code? If the answer is no, look for it outside, because you still have to participate correctly.
If I want to change things and I'm ready to improve the communication relationship with people, do it but be prepared for the change because it's going to change a lot in terms of the structure going to change with the programmers who are different from the technicians of the computers.
People use group chats, which always appear on Whatsapp. Right now they handle more than 103 group chats,
Marketing is key and they need platforms for that.
The first challenge is digital culture, connectivity, a cultural challenge because people are very little aware of the type of person they were working with, and people at that moment need and are looking for something different from expectations.
Cultural-technological, what is the best tool to create group chat in this case.
Mix between the digital and the human: you need the digital godparents, the people who facilitate access to others, so that it becomes more natural for people.
Technological, human, and put people to handle the product to facilitate its use.
The inclution. Many people exclude people who communicate online, because it is safe, by working with marginalized communities you can create an online network.
You need to research people, where they meet before an emergency, where they are after, and work in these places.
Unless you have a big budget, you need to bring trust to the venue, not just post a photo and walk away
One of the most complex things is adapting technologies
Put yourself in the shoes of others to anticipate
Take risks together with the community
Communities are more willing to participate if it is accepted that they do not have all the answers, the more they allow themselves to take risks responsibly, it allows them to leverage technology
Ask people, communities, if the priorities of the program fit with the priorities of the people.
They can measure success by looking at what's in the program, and why it was put in or why it wasn't put in.
Community involvement should be a conversation, technology helps deepen that conversation.









