Using DataViz to fight Ebola: from Hackathons to Twitter visualizations

Hacking and crowdsourcing to fight Ebola (updated 10/21/2014)

The Ebola outbreak that began in Africa and is now reaching the United States has moved from reporting from remote regions to creating fear in major US cities.

Unlike the AIDS epidemic which began as the technology revolution was no more than personal computers and 5.25″ floppy disks, the instant communication through the internet and availability of data sets being created and shared openly may have much greater and quicker impact on the reach and effect of Ebola. One thing is for sure: there’s much talk about it, and that’s relatively easy to monitor, as can be seen in the datavisualization below of Twitter mentions:

Bring your skills and help

There are two hackathons that have come to my attention, and though the first is tomorrow (October 18th( in New York City. Check in through http://www.meetup.com/Africa-Open-Data/events/211518232/ 

There is a very complete open document created for the hackathon, with not only their purpose and intent, but a long list of resources for data sources and other tools. The activity may open up virtually, but even if you read this article after the 18th it’s worth going through this content to see what you might find or add: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CSfd7R8TWAjSG9yYrKMjVbMnxjNChkQGjOEW5yyVt-Q/edit

There is another hackathon in New York City, this time on November 1-2, called HackEbola @NYC (#HackEbolaNYC). Please note that in order to participate in this hackathon, make sure you register at: EventBrite RSVP.

If you know of others, please comment below to get them on the list, as I will update this article routinely.

OPEN IDEO’S CHALLENGE: How might we rapidly equip and empower the care community to fight Ebola?

If you cannot get to these particular events in person, OPEN IDEO has created a challenge page where anyone can register and participate. Currently there is a research and ideas phase gathering content; in about two weeks they will be collecting content under the heading of Impact, where people can share their stories of implementation. The link to Ideo’s Challenge page is here: https://openideo.com/challenge/fighting-ebola/research/

[vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/108253328″ title=”0″ fs=”0″ portrait=”0″]

Creative Problem-Solving: what can you visualize?

Daniel Bartel ([email protected]) wants to fight Ebola with (creative) Problem-Solving, and has set up a google form for people to show their interest in participating. He notes that a first meeting might gather in Berlin, Germany. If this interests you, here’s the link to the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1lr2QKQJ40l60vyBB7CO0htKAN0AVUJ7sAkf1Bk7OyTk/viewform?c=0&w=1

The more data we can share, the more we can help

The Open Humanitarian Data Repository contains a comprehensive repository of openly available data for the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa, and has set up a page to access data for Gunea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone at the time of writing this article. The link to this page is: http://ohdr.nethope.opendata.arcgis.com/

Please feel free comment below to add more resources, hackathons, and other ways to use your knowledge and skills with data and data visualization to aid in managing and combating this internatonal health crisis.

UPDATE: 10/21/2014

Silk.co has sent us linkage to a data-driven view of Ebola outbreak histories with data from CDC and WHO. There are a variety of charts and graphs to choose from, here is a sample:

All primary locations with confirmed Ebola cases in 2014