During the past decade, the telephone has become Asia’s most widely used communication tool. All over Asia, people call each other a great deal – both in good times and bad.

Can talking on the phone help those responding to disasters and emergencies to be better organised?

How can voice be used more efficiently in both alerting and reporting about disasters?

Where and how can computer technology make a difference in crisis management?

These questions were investigated in a recent action research project by LIRNEasia, an Asian regional think tank on information and communication technologies, or ICTs.

The research was conducted in partnership with Sarvodaya, the largest development organisation in Sri Lanka, which enabled the field testing in relation to different hazards. It was carried out at Sarvodaya’s Community Disaster Management Centre in Moratuwa.

TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP) has just produced a short film that looks at the key findings and learnings of this research, and its implications for better information management during and after disaster situations.

Titled ‘Do You HEAR Me?’, it was made with support from the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) in the UK.

In 2011, HIF approved a small grant for sharing the outcome of Voice-enabled ICT for Disaster Management (VoiceICT4D) project.

The research probed how voice-based reporting can fit into globally accepted standards for sharing emergency data. Field information on an unfolding disaster situation was turned into a situation report using Sahana – an expert system for managing disaster information. It works with internet technologies.

Then, a spoken message is recorded using Freedom Fone -- an interactive voice response system that works with GSM telephones.

These two systems were field tested here during this action research. To get these two systems to work together, a content standard known as EDXL (Emergency Data Exchange Language) was used.

The technology isn’t perfect yet, but this study has shown its potential.

Watch full film online: Do You HEAR Me?

This short video was conceptualised and produced by TVE Asia Pacific for LIRNEasia and Sarvodaya. It was scripted and directed by Nalaka Gunawardene.

Photos courtesy: Sarvodaya