Real-time Social Analytics for Disaster Response and Emergency Management

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I had the great pleasure of meeting the SocialAI team in February when they demonstrated their social analytics tool for disaster management to a key audience of practitioners and technology enthusiasts. The team comes from the well-known Georgia Tech Research Institute and are participating in the Humanitarian Technology: Science, Systems, and Global Impact Conference taking place this May 13-15 in Boston, MA. If you are interesting in the subject of humanitarian technology and happen to be in the area, I highly recommend that you attend to check out SocialAI and the host of other tools working in this arena. Their exhibit is titled: Real-time Social Analytics for Disaster Response & Emergency Management.

SocialAI Dashboard - Data fusion of electric grid data and tweet reports from individuals during the 2014 Atlanta #Snowpocalypse. Using the dashboard stakeholders can identify areas where on the map new incidents are occurring e.g. new power outages or where new shelters may be best to open.

The analysis they are doing related to social media in disaster management is quite remarkable. But they have a big mission ahead of them as they attempt to make social network theory and social media analysis relevant for practitioners.  This is a near universal problem this industry faces and SocialAI is one of the key players making progress in the area.

SocialAI Analysis – identifying the most influential tweeters who are discussing Hurricane Sandy by reconstructing the social network graph based their mentions and RTs.

Check out more about their research as well as the team on their website.  As they develop the system more, I know they will be looking for more practitioner feedback.  This is a vital component of the system and it won't be as effective as it could be with your support.

Also, what thoughts do you have on the system?  What kinds of social network information do you seek in your operations?