Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA, The World Bank

Coordinating a Global Community to Build Technology Solutions to Big World Challenges

As the Operational Lead Partner for Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), a joint initiative among Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, NASA and the World Bank, SecondMuse coordinates concerted global volunteer efforts to develop software solutions that respond to challenges in the field of natural disaster risk and response. These volunteer efforts take the form of hackathons—intensive weekends of software development around specific problems. In June 2010 SecondMuse organized and publicized six simultaneous international hackathon events bringing together software developers in the U.S., Kenya, Australia, Indonesia, Chile and Brazil for a marathon global weekend of collaborative coding, kicked off by a formal reception at the U.S. Department of State keynoted by “Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf.

To enable real-time collaboration and exchange of information throughout the event series among these diverse locations, SecondMuse coordinated global videoconferencing among the event sites, encouraged live-streaming, and enabled the sharing among locations of collaborative online tools including wiki pages and an IRC chat channel, allowing over 500 technologists from around the world to work together on software solutions, collaborating across time-zones, international boundaries, oceans and language barriers to create innovative, life-saving technology for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Many of the applications developed through RHoK have already received interest and support from governments, NGOs and international organizations and a number of winning hacks have already been implemented on the ground to contribute to critical disaster risk assessment and response needs. SecondMuse monitors and supports the progress of the applications developed as part of the RHoK initiative and the growth of the RHoK community worldwide, with the aim of ensuring that the technologies created continue to be developed and put to use in disaster-affected regions.

To learn more about RHoK, visit www.rhok.org.