Recent news in West Africa has shown that, indeed, open sourcing can help to prevent Ebola. However, before I go any further, let me first elaborate more on the term “open sourcing”. Based on the definition provided by Webopedia, open source refers to any program in which the source code is made available to the general public for use or modification from its original design free of charge. This means that anybody and everybody can work on the same material conveniently and efficiently; and in doing so, collaborate with one another to tackle problems, innovate products and change the way we live.
One example of how open sourcing can help to improve the lives of people emerged a couple of months ago in the midst of the Ebola crisis in West Africa. On the 5th of June 2014, aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF) reported several new Ebola cases in the countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone. This stressed a strong pressure for NGOs and health workers to deliver appropriate aid in the fastest and most effective way to the relevant victims. To do so, it is vital for the relief workers to have a clear picture of the area affected by Ebola and the relevant trends. However, as the outbreaks occurred in very rural areas, most of these places did not have official maps or clear and detailed road directions for the workers to follow. This proved to be a huge challenge that would greatly slow down the Ebola aid relief as doctors could not trace the likely vectors of transmission because they did not know the patterns of peoples’ daily lives, and they were also not able to plan aid delivery effectively.
To overcome this hurdle, MSF enlisted the help of an opensourcing project called OpenStreetMap to encourage people from all over the world, especially those staying in Africa, to help map out the Ebola-infected areas. OpenStreetMap is a project to create a free, open map of the world, built by volunteers through GPS surveying, aerial imagery, and public sources of geographic data. Instead of donating money, around 1200 online volunteers from more than 80 countries have stepped forward to donate their time to help build maps for relief workers. They call themselves the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). HOT maps everything from remote forest passes to school buildings which can be transformed into temporary clinics to open fields for helicopter landings. It has created an organised and comprehensive network tool for relief workers to combat the Ebola disease with. Quoting Audrey Lessard-Fontaine, MSF’s cartographic liaison, “The great thing about it is the speed at which areas can be mapped. Even if we had five staff full-time working on it, we would hardly be able to reach the speed at which dozens, hundreds of volunteers manage to map out a zone”.
Clearly, opensourcing has gone a long way to help the victims of Ebola in Guinea and Siera Leone. I think it is amazing how MSF thought of using open sourcing to turn a mission so impossible into something so tangible and realistic with the help of the general public. Many critics are always quick to jump in and point out the cons of social media and the harms it brings to society. As such, it is always very heartening to see social media bringing people together to do real good in the world. Of course, this is just one example that brought out the benefits of open sourcing such as a greater audience reach, faster lead time, low cost and free advertising. However, open sourcing definitely has its bad side too. So what do the rest of you think? Are there any possible cons to volunteer organisations such as MSF using an open sourcing method to gather support and insight from the general public? If so, how can these organisations work around it so as to enjoy the best of both worlds?
References:
“Using Open Source Mapping to Help Stop Ebola.” SciDev.Net, 9 June 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
“Online Volunteers Map Uncharted Ebola Zones to Help save Lives.” Trust.Org, 23 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
