Open Source Software/Systems in Humanitarian Applications (H-FOSS)

In the past few years we’ve seen many catastrophic natural disasters, most recently the Haitian and the Chilean Earthquakes. Others include the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and Cyclone Nargis that hit Myanmar in 2008. Because these events are rare and often impact poor countries, the development of information systems that support humanitarian and crises response may not be profitable, and thus rarely developed. Systems needed to track medical services to populations of poor nations are often not developed nor deployed because there is no profitable business model for such products. Commercially systems typically require expensive training and hardware not practical in poor underserved places on the planet.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Computer Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame,  

   Greg Madey

Editors and Affiliations

1. Uppsala University, 75120, Uppsala, Sweden

   Pär Ågerfalk

2. University of East London, E16 2RD, London, UK

   Cornelia Boldyreff

3. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid, 28933, Móstoles, Spain

   Jesús M. González-Barahona

4. University of Notre Dame, 46556, Notre Dame, IN, USA

   Gregory R. Madey

5. Lero - The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, Limerick, Ireland

   John Noll

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