CrisisCommons Gets Funded $1.2 Million for Crisis Response 2.0

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:22:33 -0800

The disaster response network CrisisCommons announced today that it has been funded to the tune of $1.2 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. CrisisCommons is the organization behind scores of CrisisCamps in locations around the world, informal gatherings where technologists have developed mobile, data, analysis, mapping and other tools to use in response to crisis.

What began as an idea at the Government 2.0 unconference in the Spring of 2009, then became a global network of open source crisis response technology hackers aimed at responding to the earthquake in Haiti, floods in Pakistan and the Gulf Oil Spil, is now a formally funded organization.

]]> CrisisCommons software projects have included the oil spill data gathering mobile application OilReporter and a mobile app for translating English and Haitian Creole.

Hard at Work at CrisisCamp for Haiti, Portland Oregon, January 2010. Photo by Sam Churchill

The group wrote today that the grant will focus on three main objectives.

To provide community and technology liaison support during and after disasters;

To facilitate a shared approach to research and innovation; and

To establish trust and formalize relationships in the crisis response and volunteer technology communities.

CrisisCommons co-founder Andrew Turner had this to say on his blog:

"The community has been amazing, and the response to each and every event and camp unique and compelling - it's just the beginning. We couldn't have hoped for a better outcome from a completely emergent and very organic phenomenon."

Along with the funding, the organization announced today that its technical infrastructure will now be hosted at the Oregon State Open Source Lab, where it will join the Linux operating system, Drupal content management service, Mozilla and many more foundational open source technologies at an institution dedicated to their stability and preservation.

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OpenAds FOSS Ad Network Goes Hosted, Raises More Cash

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:19:29 -0800

OpenAds, a free and Open Source ad network with more than 30 thousand installs, has announced a forthcoming hosted version of its service and another round of venture financing. RWW's Sean Ammirati discussed OpenAds and the desirability of a hosted version in a May post here titled Google's Potential Vulnerability - An Open Ad Network

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The hosted version will be in Private Beta for the first several months, but publishers interested in requesting access to that beta can do so here. OpenAds also offers access to a demo version of its software on its own servers.

At a time when other ad networks are being scooped up by the biggest players for staggering sums, the Accel Partners led B round brings this Open Source company's total raised to more than $20 million. The current round also included money from existing investors Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. With this kind of backing you can expect to hear a lot more about OpenAds in the coming months.

In addition to its stand-alone software, OpenAds can also act as a platform for other ad networks to build on top of. FederatedMedia, to which this blog belongs, has reportedly taken this approach.

The new hosted version of OpenAds should dramatically lower the barrier to entry for new publishers. Watch this space.

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FOSS - ReadWriteWeb

CrisisCommons Gets Funded $1.2 Million for Crisis Response 2.0

OpenAds FOSS Ad Network Goes Hosted, Raises More Cash