Social Media Week 2013: How social media is innovating disaster response

Posted on February 24, 2013 at 4:06 PM

On Friday, I joined Reshma Saujani and Winnie Wong to talk about how social media is innovating disaster response and recovery at the Centre for Social Innovation in New York City. 

The panel was a great discussion of how the government responded (or didn't in some cases) to Hurricane Sandy and other disasters, and how community groups and activists were able to fill in the gaps and organize hugely valuable relief efforts outside of the traditional government response structure. We discussed how these different groups can partner better, and how technology and social media empower us to spread the message of what's happening in a different part of the country or world, as well as help be a platform to connect those who need resources to those who have them. 

Some of the best live-tweets from the event:

Thank you for the informative & inspiring panel tonight, @girlswhocode @occupysandy & @alextorpey! #SMW13 #SandyUnites #SMW13

— NYC Food Truck Assoc (@nycfoodtruck) February 23, 2013

@chrisgee: .@alextorpey: I've gotten policy ideas from what other towns are doing by reading about it on social media. #smwsmsandy #smwnyc

— Chris Gee (@chrisgee) February 23, 2013

In the past, people never had #gov reach out & reply to them. Now #SocialMedia can engage & inform #public.@alextorpey #smwSMsandy #SMW13

— Wen Dombrowski MD (@HealthcareWen) February 23, 2013

.@alextorpey: "We had a crowdsourced Google map of power outages that was better than what the utilities had!"#smwsmsandy #smwnyc

— Chris Gee (@chrisgee) February 22, 2013

"Utilities are in grey space as "quasi-govt" entities.@alextorpey has legislated 4 > accountability; other mayors followed. #smwSMsandy

— Jerry Weinstein (@tummler10) February 22, 2013