Hurricane Katrina was a humanitarian disaster on a massive scale. However, in working to help the people who were directly affected by the hurricane, who would have thought that geeks could make a real, tangible difference? The mobilisation of a small team of people from one open source community resulted in a free service that helped to reunite families.
In this series of articles I look at how open source collaboration and the use of free, open source software made a real difference. We all know that volunteer open source development can produce free software for the public good. But when programmers get together to use it for a public service it can be a powerful thing indeed. Let's look at the lessons learned…
Articles in the Hurricane Katrina and open source series:
- Hurricane Katrina - my year (Part 1)
How the open source development community came together to help those affected by hurricane Katrina. Reflecting on what I was doing a year ago.
- Hurricane Katrina - my year (Part 2)
The thousands of emails I dealt with in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina have changed my life. The second part of my series about the Disastersearch web site.
- Hurricane Katrina - my year (Part 3)
The third part of the series about the issues faced when creating disastersearch, the help centre for people affected by Hurricane Katrina.
- Hurricane Katrina - my year (Part 4)
In this fourth part of my series about hurricane Katrina and the Disastersearch web site I discuss the impact of this on my day-to-day work in New Zealand.
- Hurricane Katrina and open source software
How a volunteer open source community managed to mobilise to help people affected by hurricane Katrina.
- It wasn’t just Katrina
The Atlantic hurricane season of 2005 involved more than just hurricane Katrina. Evacuations occurred for other hurricanes too, resulting in more work for those assisting evacuees.
- Disaster is a good teacher
The past year has been rather bizarre. Due to the demands of building and managing the Disastersearch website and its team of volunteers, and working to help those people affected by the disasters of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, my life became one of balancing my role with Disastersearch and my role as a city
[Read More …] - Anniversary of tragedy
Today is the anniversary of hurricane Katrina. A year on, Disastersearch is still reuniting people who were separated by the storm.
- How some are recalling Katrina
National day of remembrance for hurricane Katrina is being observed by at least one person in New Zealand.
