3.1.3.1: Haiti Earthquake Relief

Enable the many different entities involved to rapidly share information and coordinate their efforts.

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SPOTLIGHT: HAITI EARTHQUAKE RELIEF - When a devastating earthquake hit Haiti on the afternoon of January 12, 2010, governments and organizations across the globe immediately mounted an extensive rescue and relief effort. In addition to providing vital airlift and medical assistance, the Department of Defense played a key role in enabling the many different entities involved to rapidly share information and coordinate their efforts. Within a day of the earthquake, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which has geographic responsibility for Haiti, quickly activated collaboration platforms that had been in a test phase. This swift decision rapidly made available a robust capacity that dramatically aided relief efforts. The Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation (TISC) tool was brought from a test status to an operational status almost immediately, and within another day, the related All Partners Access Network (APAN) were quickly opened up to all governmental and non-governmental groups involved in relief efforts. Within days over 1,700 organizations and individuals – representing various military units, non-governmental organizations and other entities – were using the system to coordinate their work. The platform includes easy-to-use wikis, chat rooms, blogs, and calendaring, file-sharing and other tools to share information and coordinate massive undertakings like disaster relief. TISC and APAN clearly demonstrated the power of such a versatile platform to be effectively utilized in an urgent new situation almost immediately, well before more traditional organizational and informationsharing systems can be put into place. The system was first developed at the US Pacific Command (PACOM) as an online community in which authorized users both inside and outside the US military could share information. Lessons learned from its use in Haiti earlier this year will be used to continue to refine the system.

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