Series - Editorial Fellowship: digital transformation and technology for social impact

Can geospatial data help communities prepare for natural disasters? Here are the lessons from Türkiye and Syria.

Author Sharlene Gandhi
How open data and mapping can help disaster response organizations go from reactivity to preparedness.

Why It Matters

Location-based, openly available data – which is crowdsourced across a community, or from around the world – can help those working in aid contexts ascertain where the need for resources is most urgent following a disaster. However, constant and preemptive data collection activities – both before and after a disaster – could help aid workers and government agencies proactively plan for such disasters.

This independent journalism on data, digital transformation and technology for social impact is made possible by the Future of Good editorial fellowship on digital transformation, supported by Mastercard Changeworks™. Read our editorial ethics and standards here. 

Dr Bilgehan Çevik, an orthopedic surgeon based in Ankara, Türkiye, wanted to volunteer in Antakya, one of the regions most devastated by the earthquake in February. With local communications infrastructure destroyed, Çevik and a team of other volunteer doctors found it challenging to navigate the roads of the region using internet-based map services. Instead, they ended up relyi

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