When a typhoon hit the Philippine province of Bicol in early December 2006, challenge finalist of HotCity Wireless wanted to help, but, while he knew how to deploy wireless networks to replace the damaged telecommunications infrastructure, he needed tools to connect donors, volunteers and victims to solve the many problems that had arisen.

As a finalist in the 2006 Awards he remembered another finalist, a disaster response project from the Health category that had an application for exactly that purpose.

A quick search of the Challenge database gave him the answer he needed, a Free And Open Source Disaster Management System project called Sahana.

When he made contact with Sahana's Chamindra de Silva, being a finalist in the Challenge was enough of an introduction and assurance for both of them, within three hours jay had his co-ordination tool website up and was registering volunteers and donations even before the Philippines had been able to give permissions for HotCity Wireless to deploy its local networks.

Sahana is a Free and Open Source Disaster Management System. It is a web based collaboration tool that addresses the common coordination problems during a disaster from finding missing people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between Government groups, the civil society (NGOs) and the victims themselves.

Source: http://www.stockholmchallenge.se/news/news_stories/207

Main Sahana Website: http://www.sahana.lk

Sahana - Bicol Relief Version: http://www.sahana.lk/bicolrelief/index.php