[HOT] HOT activities needing volunteers ?

[Fran Boon]

On 19/08/2010 16:41, Jean Millerat wrote:
> Le 16/08/2010 22:56, Tim McNamara a écrit :
>> On 16 August 2010 04:34, Jean Millerat <Jean.Millerat at wecena.com
>> <mailto:Jean.Millerat at wecena.com>> wrote:
>> I am considering proposing some French consultancies I work with to
>> donate some work time to the HOT activities. But I don't know if
>> such work time could be made any useful to the HOT. Would you help
>> me identifying areas (if any) where this could be made useful ?
>> Do you think these volunteers would be interested in a related project?
>> The Sahana project's response to the Pakistan floods[1] is currently
>> focused on extracting structured information from unstructured sources,
>> such as situation & assessment reports. We need people willing to spend
>> some time to achieve this.
> I don't expect these volunteers to be available before several weeks
> (having firms take action takes some time...). Maybe for the next crisis
> ? At the moment, I am trying to identify :
> - the exact nature of tasks they could be given
> - the exact process and tools through which they could contribute

If GIS people, then:
  * providing data sources - either on our site or accessible from it
  * importing Locations data
  * helping with code issues (currently can use some help from 
OpenLayers programmers, so anyoen else here who wants to join in - pls 
put your hands up)

> At the moment I am assessing what can be done with the tools and data at
> hand. Despite the tools and numerous wiki available, I have a hard time
> understanding how and where I could best contribute as new volunteer.

Constant work-in-progress - few people trying to do everything at once.

Help with improving the entry page is 1 way to help:
http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Pakistan

> At the moment, I am struggling with adding flood reports locations to
> your Sahana instance. Is there any community support forum of some sort
> for volunteers ?

IRC:
http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Chat

> BTW, this seems to be an interesting source of recently updated flood
> reports :
> http://www.radio.gov.pk/flood.asp

Added to Wiki - adding these more recent ones would be great :)

Best Wishes,
Fran.