Sahana Software Foundation Wiki

The Mission of the Sahana Software Foundation is to help alleviate human suffering by giving emergency managers, disaster response professionals and communities access to the information that they need to better prepare for and respond to disasters through the development and promotion of free and open source software and open standards.

The Sahana Software Foundation, a 501[c][3] non-profit organization, was established in 2009 to serve the needs and requirements of a diverse group of customers:

• Government agencies and jurisdictions at the national, provincial or state, and local levels
• UN Agencies, international and local charitable organizations (NGOs)
• Communities & disaster victims
• Technology companies & software developers
  

Our Vision is to build and sustain a global open and collaborative community of contributors to information and communications technologies for disaster management, in order to:

• Support the needs of Sahana customers through promoting and developing innovative open source solutions for disaster information management
• Support the adoption of open standards for data exchange between information systems to manage disaster data.
  

In order to fulfill its mission and vision, the following Objectives guide Foundation activities:

• Help alleviate human suffering and help save lives through the efficient and effective use of technology after a disaster
• Bring efficiencies to disaster response coordination through facilitating effective information sharing between disaster responders and beneficiaries
• Empower disaster victims and responders by providing them with the information they need to help themselves and others
• Build resilience and preparedness through training, education and the deployment of systems for managing disaster information in advance of a disaster.
• Provide a nurturing environment for community development of humanitarian free and open source software applications that support all four phases of emergency management
  

Please visit the Foundation wiki for more information about the Sahana Software Foundation organization, governance, board, members, licenses and projects.

If you're considering becoming part of our community or learning more about our core values, please read our Code of Conduct.

All important meetings and events are recorded on the Sahana Meeting Calendar - which is a shared Google calendar that may be linked to your existing calendar through the following links:

• Launch Sahana Meeting Calendar in Browser (html)
• ical

If you need access to the Sahana Meeting Calendar to add/edit events, please e-mail admin at sahanafoundation dot org.

Sahana is a web-based disaster management application that provides management solutions, focusing on large-scale humanitarian disasters. It enables enhanced coordination by promoting integrated information gathering. It assists collaboration by providing a number of communication mechanisms in the aftermath of a disasters. Sahana is built from free and open source software and released under OSI licenses, which means all users are free to download and use it (and are even free to create commercial derivatives of it).

Sahana functions both online as well as a stand alone tool for disaster management, depending on the operational considerations. Users can access it via their local machine, from within the network, as part of a corporate intranet or anywhere in world via the Internet. This means it can be installed on a laptop, for workers in the field and at a central command center for overall coordination. When machines are linked, all information can be synchronised, via USB, CD-R the LAN or the Internet.

Sahana supports all modern operating systems and browsers, including MS Windows, Mac OSX, Ubuntu and other Unix-like systems. Your browser must have JavaScript enabled and, for Agasti, your operating system must be able to run the Apache HTTP Server, the PHP programming language and MySQL database software. If running Eden then you will need to run Python. If you don't know what these are, the Installation Guides will assist you.

Sahana's strength is also in its track record being deployed for disasters around the world. Known deployments of Sahana include those for the governments of Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, America, and Bangladesh. The full list of Sahana deployments and pre-deployments, some with case studies, highlights how a community of partners can work to deliver the Sahana solution at a time of need.

• Introductory:
  • Sahana Software Foundation Overview Brief
  • Sahana Eden Brochure
  • Sahana Eden Essential Guide
• Case Studies:
  
  • LA Builds Resilience Through Wide-Reaching Relationships, Emergency Management Magazine - November 4, 2013
  • FLO Disaster Relief Software - Recommendations for NVOAD, Sarapis Blog - July 26, 2013
  • Disaster Management Software Meets Sandy Challenge, UMD Right Now - February 21, 2013
  • Sandy, Sahana and Sarapis, Sarapis Blog - January 2, 2013
  • Sahana and Hurricane Irene, Catastrophic Response Newsletter Vol. 9 - October 2011
  • UN Foundation Disaster Relief 2.0 Report - 2011 disaster-relief-20-report.pdf
  • The Academy of ICR Essentials for Government Leaders, Module 9: ICT for Disaster Risk Management, United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN-APCICT/ESCAP) - 2011
  • World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) Lab, “Volunteer Technical Communities: Open Development” - 2011
  • Mark Prutsalis, “Developing a Service Industry to Support the Sahana Disaster Management System”, Open Source Business Resource - December 2010
  • Chamindra de Silva, “Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software”, Open Source Business Resource - December 2010
  • Ralph Morelli, Allen Tucker and Trishan de Lanerolle, “The Humanitarian FOSS Project”, Open Source Business Resource - December 2010
  • US Department of State Humanitarian Information Unit, “Haiti Earthquake: Breaking New Ground in the Humanitarian Information Landscape” - July 2010
  • “NLM Offers Technology to Locate Loved Ones During Disaster”, NIH Record - July 9, 2010
  • ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction 2, Asian Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communications Technology for Development - 2010 (Chapter on Sahana only)
  • ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction 2, Asian Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communications Technology for Development - 2010 (includes introduction and preface)
  • ISCRAM 2010: The Sahana Software Foundation response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake - 2010
  • Final Report on IBM's Contribution to Chilean Earthquake Relief - April 5, 2010
  • Ralph Morelli, “Open Source and Computer Science Education”, Open Source Business Resource - April 2010
  • “Students use computing skills to hasten Haiti relief efforts”, University of Wisconsin-Madison News - February 1, 2010
  • “Open Source Platform Assisting in Haiti”, Federal News Radio - January 20, 2010
  • UNESCAP Technical Paper: A Case Study of the Sahana Disaster Management System of Sri Lanka - 2009 original link to online source
  • “Weathering IT”, Tech&U - December 10, 2009
  • “Open-Source-Based Disaster Mitigation Applied”, Vivanews - November 4, 2009
  • Communications of the ACM - 2009
  • “Sahana Disaster Management System as a Disaster Management Solution in the Philippines”, AUSL Technology & The Law - September 12, 2009
  • “Governments Turn to Open Source Tool for Disaster Relief Management and Planning”, Ocstatic.com - August 12, 2009
  • “Disaster Management Software Sahana gets Wings” ITPro.lk - April 1, 2009
  • Disaster Resource Guide Quarterly - 2008
  • Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme ePrimer: ICT for Disaster Management - 2007
  • CMI Peace IT publication with H-FOSS concept chapter - 2007
  • CACM Article: Open Source Software for Disaster Management - 2007
  • Sahana: Overview of a Disaster Management System - 2006
  • UNDP IOSN Case Study - 2006
  • BBC Documentary, The Codebreakers – 2006

• Computerworld Honors Laureate - 2013
• Gartner Inc. Cool Vendor in Risk Management and Compliance - 2010
• Public Private Businesses Inc. Best Practices Award - 2010
• Sourceforge Community Choice Awards Best Project for Government Finalist - 2009
• Free Software Foundation Award for Social Benefit - 2006
• Sand Hill Group Good Samaritan Award - 2006
  • Business Wire: Sand Hill Group Announces First Annual Awards for Software Industry Good Samaritans, Social Entrepreneurs and Luminary; Winners Recognized At Software 2006 Gala Benefit; Awards Celebrate Philanthropy in the Software Industry Ecosystem
• Sourceforge Project of the Month - June 2006
• User Award from Redhat Summit - 2005

The Sahana Disaster Management System Information Library has several wikis. They are defined by target audience. If you are having difficulty finding the information you are looking for, please email sahana-user@lists.sahanafoundation.org or visit us at http://sahanafoundation.org/chat. Several experienced Sahana volunteers will be able to assist.

Just looking for help? Check out our help page for basic information on where to go and who to ask.

The table below gives you a quick guide into the Sahana WIKI sections and how to use the WIKI.

”Sunflower” copyright FluxBit, released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Licence.