Canadians join First International Crisis Commons Congress

Crisis Commons Canada was born on January 12, 2010 precipitated by the earthquake in Haiti. After receiving a Facebook note call-to-action from Heather Blanchard, Crisis Commons co-founder, I joined the first global conference call on January 13, 2010 and began my efforts to build a Canadian contingent. Now, we have three strong Canadian cities: Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. Crisis Commons has grown from 250 people attending an unconference in June 2009 to over 2000 volunteers in 10 countries. Our coalitions of virtual and city volunteers acted to create software and manage information in response to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile and the Oil Spill in the Gulf. There are approximately 100 Canadian volunteers so far across all the CrisisCamps this year.

On July 15 – 16, 2010, Crisis Commons is holding our First International Crisis Commons Congress in Washington, DC. Events sponsored by the World Bank, Mozilla Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Crisis Commons city leads from all the 10 countries are joining. We will also be holding an unconference on July 17, 2010 to discuss our strategic framework and build our community.

We invite not-for-profits, non-governmental organizations, private sector and academic institutions to participate in roundtable discussion to explore lessons learned from 2010 disasters such as the Haiti and Chile earthquakes and the Gulf Coast Oil Spill, collaboration opportunities and potential challenges with sustainability/engagement with volunteer technology communities. The Crisis Commons round tables are either sold out or close to sold out, however virtual attendees are welcome.

There are three Crisis Commons Congress Roundtable sessions:

Non-Profits and Non-governmental organizations

Private Sector

Academic Consortium

The event in its entirety will be broadcast via webstream and archived on www.crisiscommons.org. A webstream link will be posted on the Eventbrite registration pages (see above links) and www.crisiscommons.org on Thursday at 7AM. The Webcast will begin promptly at 8:30AM.

Canadians attending the Congress in DC are:

Heather Leson, Crisis Commons Canada, Toronto City Lead and Community Working Group Co-Lead.
Lorraine Craig, Montreal City Lead
Kimberley Rouf, Haiti Amps Project Lead
Darlene Parker, Calgary City Lead
Brian Chick, Toronto Social Media Lead
Melania Gorka, Toronto Development Policy volunteer
John Saunders, Ontario Provincial Director, Canadian Red Cross

We also have a number of Toronto virtual attendees including Morgen Peers, Jackie Baker and Steve Kalaydjian. And, we are pleased to have another Canadian NGO virtually attend: Neal McCarthy, Oxfam Canada

We continue to build our Canadian Crisis Commons community and are really looking forward to the conversations with our partners and friends from all around the world.