via Wikipedia
San Francisco (where else?) has launched a new plan to deal with disasters using collaborative consumption. Will they actually be able to make a difference?
After superstorm Sandy ravaged the East Coast, entire swaths of New York City and New Jersey were left without housing–either temporarily or permanently, depending upon the location. In New York, home-sharing service Airbnb stepped up to help, quickly creating a platform for users to share their homes for free. In the end, 1,400 hosts volunteered, leaving much-needed space open in traditional shelters and proving that the “sharing economy” can be instrumental in disasters. Now imagine what would have happened if Airbnb had that disaster response platform up and running before the hurricane struck.
The city of San Francisco took a cue from Airbnb’s Sandy experience and this month launched a disaster preparedness partnership with BayShare–an advocacy group made up of sharing economy companies like Lyft,Yerdle, TaskRabbit, and Getaround. The organization will get a seat on San Francisco’s disaster council, and ultimately, the city hopes to aggregate all of its resources that could be useful in a disaster on the SF72 website (a new “gathering place for emergency preparedness,” designed by Ideo).
TaskRabbit could create a free disaster relief skill-sharing hub. Getaround could let people share transportation without charging a fee. And so on.
In the meantime, Airbnb has launched a separate disaster preparedness site, called Airbnb Disaster Response. The next time there’s a disaster in any city, hosts will be directed to the site, which will connect guests with nearby homes. “The way the tool works is our engineers draw a polygon shape around the geographical area–the affected area and the area around it where people could potentially help out,” says Molly Turner, Airbnb’s director of public policy. “The goal with our tool is to shelter people as close as possible to where they live.”
Initially, San Francisco had asked the company to create a special disaster site just for the city in the event of an earthquake, but Airbnb thought “we might as well create something that would work anywhere,” says Turner. Actually getting the site (or any sharing economy solution that requires cell phone service or a wireless connection) to work in all disasters will be a challenge.
The Latest Bing News on:
Sharing economy companies disaster response
- Government moves to create disaster-resilient nationon May 21, 2022 at 9:18 am
Indonesia is located in the most active earthquake zone in the world, the Circum-Pacific Belt, and the meeting point of three continental plates—the ...
- Urgent need for economic diplomacy activismon May 19, 2022 at 5:42 pm
It is therefore in advanced economies’ interest to help poorer countries reduce the mounting risk of little economic fires everywhere. …For starters, a pre-emptive multilateral debt-restructuring and ...
- Natural Disaster Resources for Small Businesseson May 18, 2022 at 9:21 am
Should your business prepare for a natural disaster? You can avoid being part of that statistic. Here are five tips to help get you ready for a natural disaster.
- Creaky U.S. power grid threatens progress on renewables, EVson May 12, 2022 at 3:00 am
The nation’s transmission network, plagued by outages and increasingly severe weather, needs a trillion-dollar overhaul to handle the Biden administration’s promised clean-energy revolution. No one is ...
- Africa’s first Covid-19 vaccine factory hasn’t received a single order.on May 12, 2022 at 2:01 am
Aspen Pharmacare, in South Africa, was licensed to produce the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It was hailed as an answer to Africa’s struggle to get access to vaccines.
- LexisNexis SA creates online severe weather events portalon May 10, 2022 at 2:48 am
In response to the devastating floods that recently hit KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), legal tech firm LexisNexis SA has launched a free online portal to provide resources for communities after severe weather ...
- Tech giants duped into giving up data for offences including harassment of minorson May 3, 2022 at 1:14 am
NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - Major technology companies have been duped into providing sensitive personal information about their customers in response ... into creating and sharing sexually explicit ...
- Tech giants duped into giving up data used to sexually extort minorson May 2, 2022 at 9:26 pm
Major tech companies have been duped into providing sensitive personal information about their customers in response to fraudulent ... them into creating and sharing sexually explicit material ...
- 5 issues with the recent Cert-In directions and what they meanon May 2, 2022 at 8:39 pm
A recent direction by India’s Computer Emergency Response Team has raised ... that citizens are protected and companies engage in improved information sharing and situational awareness.
- Tech giants duped into giving up clients’ personal dataon April 27, 2022 at 5:02 pm
Emergency requests typically don’t include a court order signed by a judge, so companies are usually under no legal obligation to provide data. But it is a generally accepted practice that companies ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Sharing economy companies disaster response
The Latest Bing News on:
Disaster response resources
- City, firefighters wrangle over response ‘gaps’on May 24, 2022 at 12:00 am
A March 2022 analysis of fire and medical response times by the city of Mesa and the Mesa Fire & Medical Department identified small “gaps” across the city, areas where ...
- SLO County Emergency Services Career Fair hosted at San Luis Obispo City Fire Station 1on May 23, 2022 at 7:40 pm
Emergency response agencies from up and down the Central ... The City of San Luis Obispo hopes this event will become an annual tradition and resource to the community.
- NLIHC and Disaster Law Project Submit Recommendations to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discriminationon May 23, 2022 at 5:09 pm
NLIHC and the Disaster Law Project (DLP) submitted recommendations to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on May 20 regarding disaster recovery policies the ...
- El Paso’s migrant response shaped by concerns of Abbott reaction, mayor sayson May 23, 2022 at 5:01 pm
Mayor Oscar Leeser on Monday said he didn’t call for a disaster declaration over the increasing number of migrants coming through El Paso because area leaders were concerned that doing so would prompt ...
- AiDash Launches New Disaster and Disruption Management Systemon May 23, 2022 at 6:09 am
New system allows AiDash to enter new industries – including government, cities or municipalities – with responsibility for mitigation and restoration plans. SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 23, 2022 ...
- Biden under pressure to declare climate emergencyon May 23, 2022 at 3:27 am
A national climate emergency wouldn't just be for show; it would give the Biden administration executive authorities and funding to build out clean energy ...
- Partnership expands equipment outreach for emergency response teams in central Minnesotaon May 22, 2022 at 8:37 am
Good Neighbors EMS Fund will use a $175,000 award from Sourcewell to buy and distribute essential equipment to volunteer responders throughout Cass, Crow Wing, Morrison, Todd and Wadena counties.
- Drunken boater, slow Richland County emergency response caused teen’s death, suit sayson May 21, 2022 at 1:15 pm
The lawsuit names Richland County, its emergency medical services, Richland County Sheriff’s Department and the SC Department of Natural Resources.
- Strengthening Disaster Management for a Sustainable Futureon May 19, 2022 at 5:00 pm
The experience of El Salvador, and Indonesia, show how governments, civil society, vulnerable groups, development partners, and the private sector could organize recovery and initiative to plan for ...
- Santa Rosa mental health emergency response program marks first 4 monthson May 18, 2022 at 5:25 pm
The behavioral health emergency response program has handled nearly 500 calls since the mobile support van hit the streets in January.
