SAVIOUR - A Disaster Management App

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  Screenshots from the SAVIOUR mobile application showcasing the addressal of different needs of different stakeholder

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  The ability of the stakeholders to be self sustainable during disaster management process post-disaster.

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  The ability of the stakeholders to be self sustainable during disaster management process post-disaster.

DISASTER RELIEF & RECOVERY CHALLENGE JPMorgan Chase - Best Hack for Social Good

Designing a wireframe for a mobile application called SAVIOUR to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Disaster Management system post-disaster.

Sagar Prakash. Rasam Engineering Design Graduate Student The Pennsylvania State University

INTRODUCTION This mobile application idea is my attempt to address the relief and recovery issue faced by cities impacted by a natural disaster. This app addresses the gaps and limitations of an existing disaster relief app. The Amrita Kripa App was recently developed by the Department of Wireless Network and Applications, Amrita University, India to assist the relief work during the Kerala Floods in India.

IMPACT The solution to this challenge was to centralise the relief and recovery efforts after a natural disaster so as to make the disaster management process effective and efficient. Amrita university said their app even in its development stage helped “locate, rescue and provide relief” to more than 12,000 people in Kerala. The app, which is available as of now in Malayalam and English, is called AmritaKripa and uses real-time GPS data to locate users. The beneficiary numbers in this stage reflect that there is definitely a market for similar apps if those apps are able to scale up taking into consideration all the stakeholders that are involved in the relief and recovery effort during disaster management.

INNOVATION & CREATIVITY Moving a step ahead, my first step was to identify all relevant stakeholders that participate in the relief and recovery process following a natural disaster. The original app was designed taking into considerations just the victims of the disasters. My app ‘SAVIOUR - By the People, For the People’ not only takes into consideration the needs of victims but also the relief workers. This relief workers may be people who volunteer or make direct monetary donations.

SAVIOUR is a fresh attempt to not only help the victims but also to provide a centralised portals where people can systematically volunteer and donate food, medical as well other resources to the needy.

In pic: Screenshots from the SAVIOUR mobile application showcasing the addressal of different needs of different stakeholder

COMPLETENESS OF SOLUTION This may not be complete, but this application is definitely scalable and can be scaled to other disasters. The next process will be to study the rehabilitation timeline of the affected areas so as to integrate additional services that will assist the victims to rebuild their life at the earliest.

SUSTAINABILITY SAVIOUR’s tagline says it all - ‘By the people, For the people’. Yes this is definitely a sustainable solution, as the affected community does not have to wait for relief and recovery work till the government declares relief aid for the victims. We often donate money on portals and we don’t know what it is used for, some portals are not even officially authorised. This portals gives the donor ability to select and donate the relief material desired by the victims. This eliminates the probability of fraudulent transactions. Thus the app tries to bring order in those moments of confusion and panic faced by the victims after a disaster.

In pic: Screenshots from SAVIOUR mobile application showcasing the ability of the stakeholders to be self sustainable during disaster management process post-disaster.

DESIGN I work as a volunteer for Penn State’s chapter of Association of India’s Development, a student body that collects fund through various social activities at Penn State and then make donations to volunteer organizations in India that address various social causes. Durin the Kerela flood, we were as confused as people in India as we did not had a relevant channel to assist the flood victims during the initial stages(for upto 2 weeks) of the flooding situation. Plus on the ground zero scenes there were problems in tracking down the trapped victims. This application addresses both this scenarios. Not only this but it also helps the potential donors empathize with the situation on ground zero due to its real time information display(not described here due to short project timeline). Plus donors gets a sense of pride and fulfilment seeing their donations directly impacting people on ground zero rather than sending funds through multiple middle channels.

PROTOTYPE LINK: https://xd.adobe.com/view/1c7770d3-6c0b-4f54-5864-1238b5b23d29-6a46/?fullscreen

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