Robin Burton

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• Robin Burton

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Who We Are

• The largest humanitarian organization in the
  world
• 187 National Societies
• 100,000 employees
• 14 million volunteers worldwide

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Why We Are Best Placed To Help Disaster Affected
People

• An auxiliary relationship to national governments
• Most governments contract with the national Red
  Cross or Red Crescent Society to deliver certain
  relief services in time of disaster
• Governments also provide substantial funding
• Therefore usually able to bring many more
  resources to bear in time of disaster compared
  with NGOs

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Who We Are

• IFRC Vision
• Three strategic objectives (S2020)
• Save lives, protect livelihoods, and to help
  communities to prepare for, and recover from,
  disasters and crises
• Enable healthy and safer living
• Promote social inclusion and a culture of
  non-violence

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What is Beneficiary Communications?

• A beneficiary is a person who receives a service
  from the Red Cross. In other terms, beneficiaries
  are our customers.
• Beneficiary communications is about empowering
  people. It uses communication channels to
  effectively connect humanitarian programming with
  the people they are designed to support.
• Beneficiary communications is a global IFRC
  initiative. We have a worldwide license agreement
  with Trilogy International Partners and plan to
  deploy in 40 countries.

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Your Network Can Save Lives

• An SMS from the Red Cross gave me more hope
• Andrena, Annexe Camp, Haiti

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Location Targeted SMS

• Prompt warnings of floods, hurricanes, fires
• Information on where to find medical help, clean
  water, food, shelter
• Advice on what to do
• Feedback showing where aid of various types is
  most needed
• Increase the efficiency of Red Cross efforts on
  the ground

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Automated Response

• System identifies key words e.g. Cholera and
  responds with an automatic message giving advice
• Allows team to handle extreme high volumes of
  demand
• Provides statistics to help manage demand

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With Minimal Disruption to Your Network

• Control always remains with you
• You decide the rate at which messages can be sent
• Localised messages
• Minimises the number sent
• Increases the impact
• Timed messages
• Off peak messages
• Operated by specially trained Red Cross staff

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Why SMS?

• The most basic service on a GSM network
• Will be the first to be restored after a disaster
• Uses very little network capacity
• Message stored on the mobile phone
• Supports run and tell to get messages to those
  without a working mobile phone
• Can be forwarded to people on other networks

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Where Did TERA Come From?

• It has been designed by Trilogy, a mobile
  operator in conjunction with the Red Cross,
  addressing practical implementation and operation
  concerns for both sides
• Designed in response to the earthquake disaster
  in Haiti

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Performance in Haiti

• Delivered 70 Million messages
• Prompted over 1 Million people to respond and ask
  for help and information
• Improved effectiveness of aid effort

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How We Used the TERA SMS System
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Results in Haiti

• 25 of people have received a Red Cross SMS
• Many others had information passed on
• SMS about weather and health most popular
• 95 said SMS was useful
• 90 acted on the SMS

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What do people think?
The message about cholera was great. It explained
how to prevent cholera by washing hands. It was
very useful for me because I didnt know what
precautions to take. I shared the message with my
sister, who has a baby.
Red Cross SMS talked about hurricane and what to
do in heavy rains like dont cross rivers, keep
the children close to you. These messages have
been very helpful and useful. I hope Ill be
receiving more SMS, because even if I have
nothing to feed myself, an SMS from Red Cross
will make me feel ok and give me more hope.
Naomi Fils-Aimé, Champs Mars
Andrena, Annexe Camp
I would like to be subscribed to the Red Cross
SMS service because I have a Digicel phone and I
have never received an SMS from the Red Cross.
Caller to Red Cross radio show on 05.10.11
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The Development of TERA
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What We Are Asking You To Do

• Give us access to your network in advance of any
  disaster
• Under clear terms of usage
• Provide two simple servers and a small Oracle
  licence
• Work with our team to implement the system (about
  25 man days of effort)
• Provide us with SMS messaging free of cost
• Except in emergencies messages will be sent off
  peak
• Messages are also localised to avoid SPAM effect

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What We Will Do

• Connect your network to our regional disaster
  control centre
• Ready to move into action immediately it is
  needed
• Co-operate with other agencies to minimise the
  requests made to you for help
• Control usage to minimise the impact on your
  network
• Report to you on the usage that we have made
• Treat any information about your network or
  customers in full commercial confidence

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Safeguards For Your Business

• Only sends messages to active mobile handsets,
  reducing congestion due to undelivered messages
• You are in full control, throttling the number of
  messages available for relief work
• Sensitive information, such as cell site
  locations, can be hidden from Red Cross operators
• Use is governed by a mutually negotiated SLA,
  guaranteeing that the system is not abused
• Full audit trail maintained to support this SLA
• Full roles and rights system structure

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Why You Should Do This Now

• It is the right thing to do
• You will give your customers the best chance of
  surviving a disaster
• You also give them another reason for choosing
  your network
• The cost and effort is very little by comparison
  with the good that you will do
• It is estimated that in Haiti an investment of
  about 50K by the network delivered as much as 3
  Million of effective benefit to the aid effort

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Shall We Get Started?
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