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On 21 June 2018, University College London (UCL) organised a Masterclass on Digital Disaster Response. Participants brought a rich and wide range of professional backgrounds, a majority of which in public health and disaster response. Dr. Patty Kostkova had convened the event, and invited Arnold Bosman from Transmissible (NL) and professor Carlos Castillo from Pompeu University (ES) to present.
In the morning, Arnold started with an overview of public health emergency response, and rapid assessment priorities in complex emergencies. This was followed by an exercise, where participants viewed a video about the earthquake in Haiti (2010) and had to discuss priorities for in that context. With the experience that participants brought in, including Tsunami relief in Banda Aceh (2004/5) and Haiti Earthquake relief (2010), this exercise provided a rich discussion.
In the afternoon, professor Castillo presented datamining from social media streams such as Twitter and Facebook, to achieve rapid assessment of geographical area affected, casualty counts, and severity of impact.