The American Red Cross is holding a very exciting event in Washington on Thursday and is encouraging interested members of the public from around the U.S. and the world to follow it and participate through the web.
It is the organization’s first “Emergency Crisis Data Summit: Answering The Cry For Help” which will bring together government agencies, emergency management professionals, disaster response organizations and tech companies to discuss how best to harness the communications power of new media to prepare and respond to crises.
The day-long event — whose agenda is here –will be open and broadcast on the internet (more information about the Summit can be found here). You can keep track and take part in the conference using several social media properties:
* It will be ustreamed live via the NextGenWeb site. Register on Eventbrite for ustream details. The archived U-Stream will be available online, too, and on the Emergency Social Data blog. C-SPAN will also be providing coverage of the event.
* You can participate in the Twitter discussion at the hashtag #crisisdata as well as add to or comment on the Summit’s aggregated information via the Emergency Social Data Wiki. There will be a formal Twitter chat at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT featuring questions from @ntenhross and @ikepigott.
* In person attendees will update their observations and impressions via the Whrrl Emergency Social Data Society .
I will be attending the Summit and will be writing it up on the blog.
The Red Cross will be publishing a White Paper “The Case For Integrating Crisis Response With Social Media,” based on the Summit’s discussions (The early chapters have already been posted in advance on the Social Data blog to help frame the event’s agenda — I recommend taking a look at them as they provide a good overview/history of the subject.)
American Red Cross’ Social Media Director Wendy Harman doing a walkthrough at the Hall of Service in Washington where the Emergency Crisis Data Summit will take place Thursday.
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