Reflab - helping humanitarian action through web innovation

Francesco @ Frontiers of Interaction 2012

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-05-12T10:35:00Z

"Frontiers of Interaction was founded in 2005 to explore topics and ideas in the field of Interaction Design. In a very short time, it has become known as the leading Innovation conference in Italy. Frontiers of Interaction is a hybrid show that attracts inspiring international speakers and Italian talents, creating a bridge between Europe and Silicon Valley (digital cultural “hot spots” around the world)."

Francesco is very happy to participate to the this great event and get as much as possible inspiration to continue to be innovative, every day!

More on Frontiers of Interaction 2012: http://frontiersofinteraction.com/

International Space App Challenge voting is open!

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-05-10T10:05:00Z

The mobile web application is an Ushahidi community project aiming to make data collection and incident reporting very easy from almost any web-enabled device (mobile, tablet, laptop, ...) and in conditions of limited/no internet connectivity!

The solution has been selected among "virtual participation" hacks as finalist!

Support our friends and vote for our Innovation Challenge Space App: "Mobile web app in HTML5 (for Ushahidi)".

Designing for limited connectivity

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-04-10T10:40:00Z

"Connectivity is just a promise still for many on our planet: in large urban settings, and places like the north of Europe it is even difficult to imagine but in a crisis, in an emergency, in rural contexts, in remote areas of developing countries the best you can get is: “limited” connectivity."

Check out Francesco's post: Designing for limited connectivity

New Tagetik website launched

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-04-10T10:25:00Z

We are proud of our latest work for Tagetik: the new public website has been designed with great attention to usability and visual communication, and has been well received and appreciated.

We just started monitoring the progress and measuring the results: this new project is also a basis to build the future web marketing initiatives: event, campaigns, online services, etc., and will soon be extended to all Tagetik regional offices.

See the project case: New Tagetik website

GUT Distribution Digital Catalogues for tablets

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-03-27T10:05:00Z

The Catalogs application is our latest custom development on tablets; developed in HTML and deployed using PhoneGap, the new system is improving GUT salesforce and product management.

The need was to streamline the whole process of creation, management and distribution for their different sales networks, while keeping (if not improving) the quality of the final result, even with very large sets of products.

See the project case: Gut Distribution Digital Catalogs

L'esperienza di Reflab descritta nel libro "Social Innovation"

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-02-17T11:20:00Z

"Giornata mondiale della Terra", "Dai una mano ai diritti umani", "E tu che mondo vuoi?". Sono alcuni dei tweet diffusi nella primavera 2011 da Reflab, una giovane azienda ICT toscana. L'idea è comunicare un modo nuovo di fare impresa, nel quale tecnologie sociali, passione imprenditoriale ed esperienze concrete di solidarietà creano delle sinergie. E generano valore. Per questo Reflab utilizza le reti sociali (Twitter, ma anche Facebook) per promuovere messaggi di utilità sociale, favorendo il passa-parola di iniziative a carattere umanitario, come ad esempio campagne contro la mortalità materna o a difesa di minoranze."

Siamo molto contenti di essere citati, con la nostra esperienza, in questo libro: cerchiamo di unire la nostra passione per azione umanitaria e sociale anche aiutando a promuovere campagne secondo noi molto importanti.

La scheda di presentazione del libro: Social Innovation. Reti sociali: le nuove protagoniste dell'innovazione. Una guida pratica per le aziende italiane

Social Media for Emergency Management - CrisisCamp Italy

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-02-16T11:05:00Z

CrisisCamp is a network, an informal collective coming together around issues of socio-technical tools for crisis management and emergency Internet. It is also a space for meeting and dialogue for the actors with this area of interest and joint action.

After the very promising start of the first meeting in November 2011 and following the emergecies of the last weeks (earthquakes then snow) the italian crisiscampers decided to organize a one-day camp on Social Media in Emergency Management (SMEM).

"The web is actually playing an important role in the exchange of informations, and Twitter is becoming an undisputed source of informations, we would like to discuss and propose, together, how to best use Twitter and other social media in risk management and in emergency."

Participation to the Camp is open and free.

See more on CrisisCamp Italy 2012: http://crisiscampitaly.wordpress.com/

Logistics Cluster website gets some love

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-02-14T08:25:00Z

Logcluster.org is the main information channel of the Cluster in it's daily support to logistics coordination in large-scale humanitarian operations and complex emergencies.

The upgrade aims to make the site even more usable, reliable and nicer too!

In the last two years, after the main redesign the site has achieved excellent results in terms of usage and effectiveness. A successful project we are proud of continuing developing with the Cluster.

See the project case: Logistics Cluster Website

OOPS gets an upgrade

Silvia Giachetti — 2012-02-09T09:45:00Z

The OOPS platform has been upgraded to give it support for the first browsers implementing HTML5 offline storage, in particular enabling the OOPS to deliver contents on mobile devices and tablets. Althought not all platforms and browsers support this emerging standard this second release aims to provide support for very widespread platforms such as iPhone and iPad, Android and possibly more.

The new release include a multi-dump function that allow several optimized online-offline output: web, mobile and PDF can be provided out of the box.

Several other improvements have been made: dowload of single subsections of a manual, better management of updates, easy embedding of dynamic (online only) contents, better usability.

See the product page: Online offline Publication System

New blog post: Mobile webapp for Ushahidi

Silvia Giachetti — 2011-12-20T08:20:00Z

"Just before ICCM 2011 I though we could apply what we had learned so far in data collection and mobile web applications to a project that we really appreciate a lot and which, hopefully, would immediately benefit: Ushahidi."

Check out Francesco's post: Mobile webapp for Ushahidi

Roll-out of the MSF International General Assembly Website

Silvia Giachetti — 2011-12-13T10:10:00Z

The first ever IGA coincides with the 40th anniversary of MSF and will take place in Paris at the end of this week (16-18 December 2011).

To support the event MSF has deployed a number of online tools, in particular a dedicated website:
IGA is a minisite (access reserved to MSF association members), that provides all member with background documentation, profiles of candidates and representatives, and the possibility to discuss with both, openly. The site provides also all practical information for the event, that will be streamed live.

See more on: MSF International General Assembly Website

Christmas Holidays

Silvia Giachetti — 2011-12-06T08:10:00Z

Our offices will be closed from December, the 23th to January the 8th.
Maintenance and support are guaranteed at the same condiitons during the holidays.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and an Happy New Year!

the Reflab team.

New live project: UNRWA Italia Commettee

Silvia Giachetti — 2011-11-29T09:30:00Z

UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. UNRWA provides assistance, protection and advocacy for some 5 million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory, pending a solution to their plight.

We have partnered with the newborn UNRWA Italia Commettee to kickstart the online activities of the association: a first version of the website, a mailing list and initial social media strategy.

See the project case: UNRWA Italia

Making good use of a weekend: Ushahidi Webapp

Silvia Giachetti — 2011-11-23T08:30:00Z

Reflab team, in parallel to the Rhok event on December 3-4, in the spirit of the hackathon but physically from home, will spend the weekend to add to Ushahidi the possibility to have offline-web reporting. We cannot make it to Trento this time, but we will make very good use of this weekend!

Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company that specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. They build tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. They are a disruptive organization that is willing to take risks in the pursuit of changing the traditional way that information flows.

We love Ushahidi and share their goals, so why not using our experience on online-offline web applications to contribute a small component, that might have an interesting immediate impact?

The webapp would enable anyone with a smartphone, tablet or laptop, to prepare and submit Ushahidi structured reports both online and offline, without the need to install an Ushahidi mobile application or custom application.

A prototype of the app. has already been developed and the goal is to finish a first stable version during the weekend.

In the tradition of every Free Software sprint or hackathon any developer, designer, project manager or communication/documentation expert is welcome!
The sprint will take place in Reflab premises in Cascina (Pisa), Via della Pace, 6 from Saturday 9.00 a.m. to Sunday 5.00 p.m. to participate please contact us.

A very promising start for Crisis Camp Italia

Silvia Giachetti — 2011-11-22T10:40:00Z

The term crisis can have many meanings: the humanitarian crisis, war, civil or political rights denied, or also natural or anthropogenic hazards (earthquakes, fires, floods), then the whole part in a European country is guarded by the civil protection. This is the aspect that most concerns us in Italy. In any emergency there is a problem of information management, not only as the information produced by the press and social media, but also how the information can be shared between operators (civil protection... ). Operators, therefore, have difficulties in managing this collaborative aspect, but it is essential for their action. Here, the network enters the scene: today the web is primarily a platform for sharing and collaboration and crowdsourcing the buzzword also in crisis management.

The Crisis Camp Italy follows the similar experiences of London and Paris. There, important issues and interesting topics where presented and discussed, together: operators involved in civil protection, citizens, journalists and the scientific community.

It was a very promising start, showing that there is an high level of interest in Italy for such issues and such network! All participants agreed to continue the conversation and prepare for the next camp, likely to be in 6-8 month.

And while the conversation continues, the very first concrete outcomes are already there:

the first proposal is to equip elicopeters with cameras (read: ortofoto ad ogni elisoccorso?),
the second proposal is to build a permanent observatory of the innovative projects developed in Italy.
the third proposal is to workout a guideline on social media for emergencies management to be given to F3 (mass-media and information) function of the Protezione Civile.

Instead of "just talking", the newborn community is focusing on having real impact and showing results. We hope to be able very soon to make it happen!

Crisis Camp Italia is part of the worldwide Crisis Commons initiative, and has been organized by Elena Rapisardi, Marco Boscolo and Francesco Ciriaci, with the support of FormicaBlu, TagBoLab, UrbanCenterBologna and Reflab.

See the press review of the event: http://crisiscampitaly.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/piccola-rassegna-stampa/

Official CrisisCamp website: http://crisiscampitaly.wordpress.com/