We had an article written by The Guardian newspaper today. The article features our friends at Bay Search & Rescue using D4H in Cumbria Floods last year. Robin Blandford will speak at the Guardian Activate summit in July, other speakers include Eric Schmidt, CEO and chairman, Google.

--

Today, communications technology has become even more powerful for use during natural disasters and, importantly, the tools are in the hands of many more people. Late last year during the flooding in Cumbria, a software program called Decisions for Heroes (DfH) was used to help rescue workers better prepare and co-ordinate their efforts.

Robin Blandford, a volunteer cliff rescue worker for the Irish Coast Guard, created the software in 2008 to track patterns in cliff rescues so rescue teams could be better equipped and prepared. "During the floods in Cumbria, Morecambe's Bay Search and Rescue used our software to track where the flooding was so they could make a map and update the police and other services," says Blandford. "This helped show hotspots so there would be a better response."

DfH software is currently used by 4,000 rescuers across Canada, the US, New Zealand and the UK to track trends about where rescue teams seem to be needed most as well as collate important information about rescue teams themselves, such as team member skills, equipment inspection dates and team member availability at any given time. "The software is not so much instant reaction as much as recording data in a user-friendly way to recognise patterns that will help in future rescues," says Blandford. --Kate Bulkley