In response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, many organizations, public and private, commercial and non-profit, from around the world, collaborated in exceptional ways to provide information, bring help quickly to Haitians, and support operational requirements. This was an exceptional effort by diverse collaborators, and those who contributed the support deserve great credit (as do officials who adopted innovative procedures to encourage and accept it). There are many lessons to be learned for application in future disasters, both in the US and abroad.

STAR-TIDES is publishing a public beta of the After Action Report from RELIEF 10-01 experimentation at CP Roberts in November 2009.

The STAR-TIDES experiments at RELIEF 10-01 tackled three challenges to building a common operating picture:

1. Making effective use of aerial imagery.
2. Exploring new methods for field data collection.
3. Developing systems for integrating streams of information.

The STAR-TIDES team included representatives from Sahana; Open Mobile Consortium; InSTEDD; San Diego State University Visualization Lab; Open Solutions Group, Inc; Synergy Strike Force; Unthinkingly.com; and the National Defense University.

From 10-14 November, STAR-TIDES will be hosting experiments at the Naval Postgraduate School's testing facility in the Central Coast of California. Our work will focus on several problems in humanitarian assistance, disaster response (HADR) and stability operations:

1. Building a new basemap of the affected area quickly and at high resolution
2. Creating an open-source infrastructure for sharing georeferenced information and data feeds with everyone in theatre.
3. Integrating data submitted from mobile devices and distributing data back to the users of those devices.
4. Creating tools that simplify information sharing between civilian and military organizations.

Partners to this work include: