The Office of Science and Technology Policy has launched a new website that works as a public resource for disaster data and collaboration tools as part of the government’s Innovation for Disasters initiative.Brian Forde, Heather King and Meredith Lee wrote on the White House blog that Disasters.data.gov supports efforts to drive open data, disaster preparedness and community empowerment.
Disasters.data.gov features landing pages that include data sets on types of disasters; crowdsourcing, communications and alert applications and tools; and challenges to encourage participation from data stewards and other stakeholders.
The website has already opened the first Innovator Challenge to gather ideas from the public on the use of sensors, social media, open data and other tools to limit flooding casualties.
OSTP previewed Disasters.data.gov during the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative Demo Day.
Forde, King and Lee – who respectively work at partner organizations at OSTP, National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security – wrote that the website builds on the initiative’s online presence after public-private dialogues, workshops and a hardware hackathon activity.
The initiative aims to leverage both technology and social entrepreneurship to support national preparedness, they said.
