In the past 30 years, over 25 million people in the United States have been affected by natural disasters and there has been over $500 billion in damages. When these costly disasters strike, local and national governments become overwhelmed resulting in a slow response time due to the top-down nature of our national emergency management system. Victims are often left to fend for themselves for extended periods of time without the food, water, medical care, and other miscellaneous needs they have. Research has shown that in the absence of government and nonprofit aid, victims help each other and try to communicate with each other. However, there is currently no social media platform that enables people within a specific community to effectively collaborate with their entire community at once.
CommunicAid proposes to create a new social media mobile application that allows members of a community affected by a disaster to identify their needs, share resources, and share information about the disaster. Using geofencing technology, the application will minimize the amount of false information being propagated and allow communities to better meet victims’ individual needs, increase volunteers’ response efficacy, and provide a more timely disaster response than that provided by the local or national government agencies.
