NOMAD Awareness Building Campaign: another step forward in our project thanks to HIF

In emergencies, time is of essence. Mobile data collection tools help aid organizations respond quickly and efficiently, improving operations overall. Key recommendations from the ICT4Peace Foundation Report, “peace building in the information age” states that information and communications technology systems and responses must be kept simple, they should be developed locally or in cooperation with local communities and end users and, importantly, they should encourage the constructive engagement of the private sector.

We, at NOMAD, really believe in this statement and that’s why when we found out about the Humanitarian Innovation Fund, we decided to put in a proposal. Humanitarian Operations Mobile Acquisition of Data (NOMAD) aims to improve information management for humanitarian organizations by linking them with the latest mobile data collection technology to improve collection, analysis and management of information. This would help aid agencies be more efficient, cost effective, information-secure and reliable. The Online assistant of NOMAD is the first step to guide organizations. Services of NOMAD are the next step when the organizations are ready to implement and need assistance with the implementation. Using the online assistant is free of charge at the moment, but funding was needed to keep it up to date: yet another reason for our proposal to HIF.

In 2010, the NOMAD project began with a secondary data review based on research carried out by ACAPS, the Assessment Capacities Project, and UNPULSE. Interviews were conducted with key stakeholders and an online survey was performed. The Online Selection Assistant was piloted and developed. The team then decided to build a service wherein experts in humanitarian information management can be deployed to provide hands-on assistance with the tools. But now the project has reached a milestone in its live cycle where it has to be diffused among potential partners in order to build awareness about this new technology. This is why the Humanitarian Innovation Fund provides such a golden opportunity. Usage of the online data collection tools and our services by humanitarian organizations, development organizations, INGOs, NGOs and donor community will greatly facilitate their workload, by conducting real time assessments after disasters, base line surveys, midterm of end of project reviews as well as continuous monitoring of their ongoing projects.

After all the hard work put into writing the proposal, finding out our proposal had been selected was an amazing moment for us all at NOMAD. With the funds we receive from the HIF we will implement our information dissemination campaign which will be threefold: Participation at events in order to present NOMAD and build awareness around the tool and the services provided, re-launch and update the NOMAD website with RSS feeds of new mobile solutions and launch and maintain the social media campaign, organize workshops in order to disseminate the innovation amongst potential partners.

So after the excitement of winning the funding, the real work will begin soon. The first step will be to hire the additional help we’re going to need to get this campaign moving; an expert to run the social media campaign and to do copy writing for the NOMAD web site. The next step will be to put in place a calendar of events in which we want to participate, and workshops we want to organize, in order to introduce our product and services to the humanitarian audiences. It will also include developing communication materials, web stories and social media content in order to disseminate information related to our product and re-launching our web site. Organizing of workshops will come next and active participations in events will be our third phase. Looks like the excitement of winning the proposal will stay with us for quite some time….We all at NOMAD are impatient to make it happen….