News

In preparation for the nation-wide launch of PetaBencana.id, @america hosted an interactive session on February 5th: “Banjir, Bots, and Gotong Royong: Strengthening Civic Participation for Climate Adaptation in Indonesia”. 

Opened by Jason Seuc, Deputy Director of the Environment Office of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the session focused on the significance of community-led information sharing during disaster events. 

Harlan Hale, Regional Advisor for the US Agency of International Development Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID OFDA), shared the importance of resident reporting in supporting response efforts by humanitarian and government agencies. Residents on-the-ground often have the most up-to-date information – the knowledge of local communities and the dense network of mobile sensors connected via social media, provides a data source of unprecedented resolution for mitigating urban risk. 

In order to transform the “noise” of social media into actionable information, Nashin Mahtani, director of Yayasan Peta Bencana, shared how the PetaBencana.id platform employs chatbots to engage in AI assisted conversations with residents to confirm flooding.  Read More

In January 2020, record-breaking rainfall inundated Jakarta with more water than its infrastructures were able to cope with. Severe flooding affected large parts of the city, resulting in dozens of casualties and thousands of displaced residents. 

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) attributed the unusually intense rainfall to a convergence of wind patterns, and warned of more frequently occurring extreme weather events as a result of climate change. The agency recorded 377 mm of rain, the highest daily volume Jakarta has experienced since records began in 1866. 

As rising waters blocked roads, shut down one of the city’s airports, and cut off electricity, millions of residents continued to search for and share up-to-date information through various social media channels. Thousands of residents submitted flood reports to PetaBencana.id, informing each other about the severity of the flood, infrastructure failures, and response efforts. PetaBencana.id experienced a 24,000% increase in activity as residents actively checked the web map to understand the flooding situation, avoid flooded areas, and make decisions about safety and response. The Jakarta Emergency Management Agency (BPBD DKI Jakarta) monitored the map to respond to resident needs, coordinate response, and also updated the real-time map with information about flood affected neighborhoods.  Read More

Hosted by World Culture Open, the 2019 Better Together Challenge invited thinkers, activists, changemakers, scientists, and creatives from around the world to share diverse projects addressing some of today’s most pressing social issues. Held on the grounds of the historic 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the 3-day gathering was attended by over 300 people. The Challenge provided an open stage where 30 finalists, selected from over 1200 projects and 122 countries, were invited to share their stories in a unique contest format. Based on public voting from hundreds of audience voters and a special jury panel, 6 projects were awarded the final 2019 Better Together Challenge award. We are excited to share that PetaBencana.id was among the final winners, awarded with the 2nd place prize! 

The 1st place prize was awarded to Korean finalist Sangho Yi, founder of Mand.ro, for using 3D printing technologies to develop affordable electronic prosthetics for amputees. Other award winners included Eseyam Nyador, founder of Miss Taxi, a female-driven taxi service in Ghana; Momal Mushtaq, founder of The Freedom Traveller; Jiyeoung Lee, conserving and spreading awareness about the forests in Gotjawal; Camilo Herrera founder of Litro de Luz, developing infrastructures for communities in conflict zones to mitigate electric exclusion; and Abdul Wahab and Haejin Kim from Help Syria, an organization helping Syrian refugees. 
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As part of the “ASEAN Regional Disaster Management Early Warning and Decision Support Capacity Enhancement Project”, we spent the week in Manila with our partners USAID, the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to kickstart the development of a crowd sourced disaster mapping platform for the Philippines. The initiative was officially launched on July 23, 2019, at an initial kick-off event attended by over 30 agencies including government organizations, NGOs, and private sector agencies.

Since its implementation in 2013 (formerly known as PetaJakarta.org), PetaBencana.id has proven that community-led data collection, sharing, and visualization reduces hazard risk and assists in relief efforts. The Philippines shares many of the key characteristics that have made PetaBencana.id a successful crowd-sourced hazard mapping platform in Indonesia. Geographically, it is also located in the ring of fire, and like many ASEAN countries, it has been affected by weather events which are becoming increasingly extreme and unpredictable due to climate change. Typhoons, floods, and landslides have been particularly destructive, and the Philippines is among the countries that have withstood the greatest socioeconomic hits in their wake. Read More

On May 21, 2019 PetaBencana.id was awarded the United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA) for the category “Ensuring integrated approaches in public sector institutions”. The initiative has been recognized alongside its institutional partner, Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana.

The UNPSA  is internationally recognized as the most prestigious award for work in public service. In the words of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “it rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide”. The competition is run annually with the aim of promoting outstanding organizations as examples of public service’s critical role  in communities around the globe.

“As weather patterns intensify and become increasingly unpredictable, cities in Indonesia are regularly faced with the challenges of extreme weather events. A lack of access to verified, real-time data compromises the ability to make informed decisions for planning and response, resulting in ineffective resource management and conflict. By providing free real-time disaster information, and making it possible to safely and easily share it, PetaBencana.id leverages capacities for all residents to equally participate in decision-making.“
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A 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Lombok in July and a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the island of Sulawesi in September, left significant destruction, damage, and loss.

Over the last few months, Yayasan Peta Bencana has been speaking with disaster managers, emergency response teams, community volunteer groups, and student volunteers who experienced the events or were directly involved in their aftermath, in order to learn about the biggest challenges faced.

Difficulties in delivering aid and difficulties for evacuation, largely arose due to a lack of access to timely information. A lack of real-time situational updates about access conditions amplified confusion and risk on the islands;  response teams were unable to reach shelters and victims due to unexpected disruptions to access. Residents trying to evacuate faced similar challenges.

The real-time flood map, PetaBencana.id, has proven that crowdsourced information sharing reduces disaster risk and assists in relief efforts. Recognizing the value of community-led data collection, sharing, and visualization, Yayasan Peta Bencana is now working on expanding the map to support other disaster events, including earthquakes. Read More

    …PetaBencana.id is a useful tool to build resilience at a community level as it provides a way to easily share time critical information of flood affected areas with various communities and neighborhoods. The ability to share flood information without having to download a new application or register a username is a unique and highly effective way to crowd-source disaster information and build a network of active resident reporters… 

On August 11th, 2018 Yayasan conducted a workshop for PMI Korps Suka Rela (Red Cross Indonesia Volunteer Corps). 51 participants attended the workshop, representing over 13 different universities from Semarang. 

The workshop was opened by Mr Bambang Kristiyono, as a representative of the Semarang PMI office. Mr Kristiyono shared the enthusiasm of PMI in hosting the workshop, as they were excited to have a platform through which their network could easily share flood information in real-time. He mentioned that this would not only support their own response efforts, but also provide a way to easily share time critical information of flood affected areas with various communities and neighborhoods, thereby helping to build resilience at a community level as well. Read More

    …The ease of reporting through PetaBencana.id will enable more efficient reporting, and allow us to respond more effectively to flood events.… 

To continue building a growing network of active resident reporters and encourage effective sharing of disaster information in Semarang, Yayasan Peta Bencana is conducting workshops and outreach events with a range of communities active in the disaster management ecosystem in preparation for the upcoming monsoon season.

On August 10th, 2018, Yayasan Peta Bencana conducted a workshop with Semarang’s Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD Kota Semarang) network of volunteer communities. During disaster events, these independent community groups coordinate with BPBD Kota Semarang to aid in immediate first response efforts before the agency is able to deliver formal response. They also serve as key points of contact between the regional disaster management agency and the residents in their respective communities. These groups are active in raising disaster awareness within the local communities in which they are formed. Read More

    …Sharing disaster information through PetaBencana.id will not only support disaster managers and first responders, but will support response and strengthen resilience at the level of individuals and communities.… 

To continue to build a growing network of information sharing and strengthen community resilience in Semarang, Yayasan Peta Bencana is conducting workshops and outreach events with a range of communities active in the disaster management ecosystem, in preparation for the upcoming monsoon season.

As part of this initiative, Yayasan Peta Bencana has been collaborating with universities in Semarang to engage university students through training workshops about how to accurately and effectively share disaster information.

On July 25th, 2018, Yayasan Peta Bencana held a workshop with Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) (State University of Semarang) in the Faculty of Social Science. By collaborating with the faculty’s weekly “Research Sharing” event, the workshop not only socialized the platform but was able to stimulate further discussion regarding disaster management ecosystems. This provided valuable feedback, and also further stimulated student and academic interest in building resilient communities. Read More

 

          PetaBencana.id is recognized by Ars Electronica for demonstrating the latest developments in social software, building community action and interaction, strengthening the role and ability for civic participation, and promoting social innovation as well as cultural and environmental sustainability through internet technology.        

On June 11th, 2018 Ars Electronica announced the winners of the 2018 Prix Ars Electronica competition, awarding PetaBencana.id with an honorary mention.

Recognized as the “world’s most time-honored media arts competition”, the Prix Ars Electronica was launched in 1987 by Ars Electronica co-founder Hannes Leopoldseder. The prize awards projects displaying excellence in seven categories: Computer Animation, Interactive Art, Digital Communities, Digital Musics and Sound Art, Hybrid Art,  and u-19 Create Your World (a category for kids up to age 19). Previous winners of the prestigious prize have included Pixar in 1987, Wikipedia in 2004, and Wikileaks in 2009.

This year 3,046 entries from 85 countries were submitted for the Prix Ars Electronica Prize. PetaBencana.id was one among 12 projects that received honorable mentions for the Digital Communities category. ‘Digital Communities’ recognizes projects that demonstrate the latest developments in social software, build community action and interaction, strengthen the role and ability for civic participation, and promote social innovation as well as cultural and environmental sustainability through internet technology. Read More

On February 4th 2018, the Peta Bencana Foundation transformed the Fatahillah Square at Kota Tua (Old Town Jakarta) with an anamorphic street art installation. Located along the east bank of the Ciliwung river and surrounded by the Jakarta History Museum, Puppetry Museum, and Fine Art & Ceramics Museum, the square heavily fills up with residents, visitors, artisans, and jugglers on car-free-day Sunday mornings. Peta Bencana took this opportunity to meet with thousands of PetaBencana.id users, as well as to engage with new audiences and launch the second of a series of disaster preparedness events for the 2017/2018 monsoon season. (Read more about our first event here!)

As passers-by stopped to take selfies with the street art installation, they were reminded to continue to share their selfies with PetaBencana.id during the monsoon season, and contribute to real-time community flood-mapping. PetaBencana.id gathers confirmed crowd-sourced reports about flooding from various social media channels and visualizes these on a free web-based map, so that everyone has the information they need to stay safe and avoid danger during flood events. This information is shared with emergency management agencies, who are also able to update the map with time-critical flood-related information, creating a transparent two-way communication channel for everyone in the city. The Jakarta Emergency Management Agency (BPBD DKI Jakarta) also took this opportunity to spread awareness about their disaster management programs to the Car Free Day visitors.

We were excited to see thousands of residents engaging with community art to spread messages of awareness and solidarity in preparedness for the forthcoming monsoon. The installation demonstrated the effectiveness of art installations in communicating, reaching, and engaging a wide and varied demographic.

One visitor commented: “This is a great example of how community-based art can be used for disaster preparedness in a fun and engaging way. What a great community-building and teaching tool as well!”

It was a great opportunity to hear the stories and experiences of the thousands of residents who already use PetaBencana.id, as well as to reach thousands of new users who expressed great interest in learning about the platform and displayed an enthusiasm towards adopting the platform to improve safety for the upcoming monsoon season. We were also encouraged by conversations with residents visiting from other cities in Indonesia, who expressed an eagerness to see the PetaBencana.id platform expand to their locations!

As the crowd collected and conversations grew, passers-by quickly displayed an increased enthusiasm as they begun to share their own stories and experiences of disaster preparedness.

Seeing the success of the combined power of the selfie, social media, and community-art installations in public spaces in supporting community-based resilience, we look forward to hosting the next event! Stay tuned to find out more!

    …i’d like to share a video i found so eye-opening and powerful that it deserves to be singled out in a post…I thought i knew about the havoc that palm oil plantations are wreaking on the environment, i had no idea it was this bad (burning an area the size of my country in only 5 months!!)        

Peta Bencana’s science outreach has received an honorable acclaim from Régine Debatty, critic and founder of the award winning blog, we-make-money-not-art.com.   In a review about the Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald / Disappearing Legacies: The World as a Forest exhibition,  Debatty singles out a video produced by the Peta Bencana Foundation, for its effectiveness in powerfully conveying the impacts of peatland destruction and the importance of peatland ecologies for the Earth System and its climate. As part of the foundation’s commitment to building infrastructures for mutual aid through processes of collaborative co-research, the Peta Bencana foundation worked with research scientists at Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI) and Akademi Drone Indonesia to produce this art/science outreach project. The Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald / Disappearing Legacies: The World as a Forest exhibition is currently on display at the Zoologisches Museum, Centrum für Naturkunde, Universität Hamburg.

 

 

 

On December 10th, 2017, the Peta Bencana Foundation transformed a portion of the heavily traversed Sudirman-Thamrin road with an anamorphic street art installation, exclusively designed towards building resilience for the forthcoming monsoon season! Every Sunday morning in Jakarta, main roads in the center of the city are closed off to vehicles for the weekly Car Free Day event, making way for thousands of walkers, joggers, bikers, and skaters. Peta Bencana took this opportunity to launch a preparedness event for the 2017/2018 monsoon season; as passers-by stopped to take selfies with the street art installation, they were reminded to continue to share their selfies with PetaBencana.id during the monsoon season, and contribute to real-time community flood-mapping. PetaBencana.id gathers confirmed crowd-sourced reports about flooding from various social media channels and visualizes these on a free web-based map, so that everyone has the information they need to stay safe and avoid danger during flood events. This information is shared with emergency management agencies, who are also able to update the map with time-critical flood-related information, creating a transparent two-way communication channel for everyone in the city. The Jakarta Emergency Management Agency (BPBD DKI Jakarta) also took this opportunity to spread awareness about their disaster management programs to the Car Free Day visitors. Read More

Continuing a series of lecture events held in collaboration with universities across Indonesia, on November 28th, 2017, Peta Bencana visited the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) Surabaya. At the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, part of the Faculty of Design, Architecture, and Planning, 75 students (24 male and 41 female) attended PetaBencana’s lecture on the use of open source software for climate adaptation. We were warmly welcomed by Bapak Adjie Pamungkas, ST.,M.Dev.Plg.,Ph.D, Head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and Bapak Mochamad Yusuf, ST, M.Sc., professor of Urban and Regional Planning.

A screening of “The Same River Twice”, a documentary produced by PetaBencana that narrates the situation of Jakarta as a megacity struggling to adapt to climate change during the tropical monsoon season, prompted engaging conversations about information infrastructures for disaster events. Following an explanation of the development and use of PetaBencana.id within this context, students displayed optimism towards the platform and were excited to try the methods by which they could participate in crowdsourced disaster mapping through various social media channels and instant messaging applications. We were excited to see an enthusiastic uptake of the platform, as we continued to exchange ideas with students about the various ways by which PetaBencana.id, and the use of open source data, could be scaled and further optimized. Read More

As part of a series of lecture events held in collaboration with universities across Indonesia, Peta Bencana Foundation was excited to engage with the community at Paramadina University on November 22nd, 2017. The event was held in collaboration with the university’s Department of Student Development, and the student organizations, Khatulistiwa, and Paramadina Social Care (PSC).

The lecture, titled “Harnessing Social Media and Open Source Software as Infrastructure for Climate Change Adaptation” was opened by Leonita Kusumawardhani, professor of Communication Studies at Paramadina University, and attended by 36 students (10 male and 26 female).

The enthusiastic response displayed by the students led to productive conversations about the ways by which public platforms can support individual and collective decision making during disaster events. The students were especially enthusiastic to discuss methods of verification of crowd-sourced data, and how resident-conveyed information could be effectively employed by disaster managers for evidence-based response. Peta Bencana was happy to have such an engaged audience, and some great conversations at Paramadina University! Read More

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil. But, to meet rising global demand, Indonesia is creating vast palm oil plantations by clearing peatlands for production. Produced by PetaBencana.id, for the “Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald [Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest]” exhibition at the Zoologisches Museum, Centrum für Naturkunde, Universität Hamburg, this video explains the local impacts of peatland destruction as well as the importance of peatland ecologies for the Earth System and its climate.

 

In preparedness for the 2017-2018 monsoon season, the Peta Bencana Foundation is launching a series of lecture events  in collaboration with universities across Indonesia. On the 8th of November 2017, we kicked off this program at the Department of Urban Planning and Real Estate, Engineering Faculty, University of Tarumanagara, Jakarta.

The talk organized by Peta Bencana,  “Using Social Media and Open Source Software as Infrastructure for Climate Change Adaptation”, was attended by 56 participants (27 male, 29 female). The head of the urban division from the Department of Urban Planning and Real Estate, Dr. Ir. Parino Rahardjo, M.M, warmly welcomed the foundation and opened the event.

In discussing the ways by which the public platform,  PetaBencana.id, supports individual and collective decision making during disaster events, students expressed their enthusiasm, pulling out their phones and taking selfies to practice participating in community disaster mapping. Participants practiced submitting reports through social media (Twitter) and instant messaging (Telegram), and were immediately able to view their contributions on the map.

The University of Tarumanagara warmly presented Peta Bencana with one of their publications,  as a memento of the event. Both organizations are enthusiastic for the partnership to continue alongside similar partnerships in Indonesia, with the hope of building well informed and resilient communities across the country.

 

 

    This type of information will assist us with assessing damage in real time during the storm event and help prioritize response efforts after the storm.        

The MIT Urban Risk Lab is successfully employing the software developed for PetaBencana.id to support risk planning for Hurricane Irma. Through gathering crowdsourced confirmed situational reports via social media, the platform, RiskMap.us, tracks flooding during Hurricane Irma in real time.

The publicly available map, currently being piloted in Broward County, Florida, allows residents , government officials, and first responders to stay informed about changing flood conditions across the county, in order to prepare for and respond to emergency events. At a news conference on Friday, Broward County Mayor Barabara Sharief said that the map will help assess the damage in real-time and help prioritize response efforts.

We’re excited to see CogniCity Open Source Software continue to support geographies outside Indonesia, and in the spirit of open-source, the ways by which partnering teams have been able to build and expand upon existing bodies of work! Read More

Members from the team at SmartSaigon, an open source flood mapping platform in Vietnam, came to visit PetaBencana.id to exchange ideas on the use and implementation of crowdsourced data for disaster risk management. The team has adapted the same software powering PetaBencana.id, CogniCity Open Source Software, to develop and support a flood mapping platform for Saigon. It was great to see how CogniCity has been able to serve as a framework supporting geographies outside Indonesia, and how the team at SmartSaigon have used the software to build and expand upon existing bodies of work. 

The SmartSaigon team also met with the Jakarta Disaster Management Agency, Jakarta Smart City, and Pulse Lab Jakarta, to learn about PetaBencana.id’s collaborations with various stakeholders in Jakarta. While SmartSaigon and PetaBencana serve very distinct contexts, we were able to share lessons learnt from both similar, and dissimilar, experiences. PetaBencana was very excited to learn about the ways that SmartSaigon has developed strategies to support the unique urban practices in Saigon, including the incorporation and integration of chatbots on different social media platforms pertinent to the city. It was great to also learn about the ways in which CogniCity has been modified to attune to the unique perceptions of risk in Saigon. Read More

 .     Our Jury believes that National Disaster Management Authority’s project PetaBencana.id demonstrates the power of geospatial information and technology in impacting the lives of people at grassroots level and strengthening disaster preparedness, thereby highlighting its role as a tool in socio-economic development.          

The National Disaster Management Agency of Indonesia (BNPB) received the 2017 Asia GeoSpatial Excellence Award for their implementation of PetaBencana.id. The award recognizes the application of geospatial technologies to strengthen resident engagement.