Liveblogged at HOPE X.

Johnny Diggz, Geeks Without Bounds
Willow Brugh, Geeks Without Bounds

VizThink by Johnny Diggz.

Geeks Without Bounds holds hackathons to match people with skills with humanitarian groups that need those skills. In times of crisis, communication is one of the top priorities. But those channels are usually for “first responders” rather than residents.

Johnny Diggz is a cofounder of Geeks Without Bounds and many tech companies. Most recently he is the Chief Evangelist at Tropo. Willow Brugh is one of our own at the Center for Civic Media, as well as a cofounder of Geeks Without Bounds and an affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Center.

Burning Man is an annual festival that happens in a usually-uninhabited strip of desert, drawing over 70,000 people. The nearby town of Gerlach has 250 people, and only one cell phone tower. There is a huge gap in infrastructure during Burning Man, which can be a great test bed for humanitarian response. Nobody cares if you mess up!

GWoB set up a cell network software based almost entirely open source: OpenBTS, Asterisk, Tropo.

The network used unlocked quad-band GSM phones. Could make Playa 2 Playa voice and SMS. Could make outbound calls via Tropo. They also provided voice message boards, and text alerts.

Creating your own network starts a community discussion about the appropriate ways to use that technology. Some are adamant that phones have no place at Burning Man. For that reason, the program was opt-in.

Initial registration was a challenge. They tried interactive voice menus, but settled on a simple text message. Some people were confused when they saw the message, so doing it in the most familiar way possible worked best.

The cell tower also enabled a “landline” that could be used to call outside of the event. This was often helpful in emergency situations. One attendee had received a message that his brother was in the hospital, as he was arriving, and was able to use the phone to verify that he was OK.