ubAlert

Be Good, Save Lives; You Be Alert (ubAlert)

ubAlert lets you report an event (incident, hazard, disaster, or emergency), and sends alerts to those subscribed depending on the severity of the event. Global disaster alerts can also come from organizations monitoring events.

What is the Goal?

Alert citizens of potential disasters (natural or man-made hazards), directly and as soon as the information is reliably available.

We intend to create the world's largest, most reliable, world-wide, all-hazard (natural and man-made or human-induced) disaster alerting network by combining data from global institutions and data providers, as well as user reported crowd-sourcing.

We are creating a global emergency early reporting and warning platform that validates the reliability of the reported content, and then immediately alerts those who may be impacted, depending on the severity and interests.

If not YOU, Then Who?

You'd think that after the recent natural mega disasters (Indian Ocean Tsunami, Pakistan Earthquake, Cyclones Katrina and Nargis, ...) each claiming tens and hundreds of thousands of lives, or the man-made fiascos (SARs scare, Columbine shootings, Mumbai crisis, ...) unnecessarily claiming more innocent lives that they had to, someone would have figured out by now how to alert us for the next one!

But NO!
Why, you ask? Three reasons:

• The disaster or emergency information is just not available (not enough reporters and instruments on the ground);
• Governments and institutions are reluctant to alert citizens (some fear liability, some fear panic, and others, because they are irresponsible);
• The problem is hard: how do you know who and when to alert in a global village?

So, you say: "But I can go to two dozen sites and sign up for email alerts". Yes, then, good-luck finding the sites, sorting through hundreds of alerts a day to see which one you care about, and then forwarding the relevant ones to those you care about in time.

So, Power to the People, Power to the Social Nets!

Imagine, instead, if an ordinary citizen could report only what she knows or sees, and have all who are interested instantly get informed. Suddenly, an initial report of a shooting in a neighborhood becomes an alert to all the neighbors, even ones she does not know yet. And imagine if there was a site that collected not only citizen's alerts, but that of other organizations (government, non-governmental, international, private, public, etc.) around the world, and filtered and sent each alert according to the user's interests and (potential impact) geography! Suddenly, everyone can know of the potential dangers around, even if they are not readily visible!

Wow, that will truly save lives! Well, that's the plan of ubAlert!

We intend to promote building a global social network that will save lives by empowering ordinary citizens. Yes, we do our best to get the right data from the right organizations, globally. But we cannot win this battle without YOU!

This is how the heroes are born from ordinary citizens who help other strangers!

Why is this Important to me and My Friends?

If after reading the above, you still ask this question, you might as well leave the site for Twitter & MySpace! But if you like the idea of fun networking while helping to save lives, including perhaps, one day your-own and/or those you care about by others like you, then just read one bit more. The world would thank you for it, and may hail you as the biggest "hero" who averted a potential disaster!

Quick, Tell me How?

ubAlert lets you report an event, and sends alerts to those subscribed. Alerts can also come from organizations monitoring events.

All you've got to do is to say what is happening, where, how serious is the event, and how large of an impact area!

Then, ubAlert checks to see who may be within the impact area you designed and is interested in the alert, and it will sends them a note!

The same way, you will receive notifications if you specify approximately where you live and what type(s) of alerts you want to receive, when you sign up.

Simple rules:

• You can add alerts to any geography (not limited to your area). But please don't make up stories, and no, breaking up with your girlfriend is not a disaster to others!
• To prevent rumors and abuses, "Heroes" and "Honored" review user entries on submission. Users are promoted to Heroes and Honored as they report reliable (released) events for a number of times. Conversely too, users are demoted by reporting bogus stories!
• The promotion path is:
  • User — No reporting; just using the system to receive alerts;
  • Scout — Reporting Events
  • Captain — Reported released and reliable events
  • Honored — Reported many released events of large magnitude
  • Heroes — Reported reliable events that potentially saved people from harm.

Lastly, yes, you can:

• Sign up for more than one area to receive alerts (to know about remote friends);
• Change the area of alerts (if you're traveling, for instance);
• Get your alerts via SMS, mobile phone, voice phone, etc.

We're working on these, but first, need to get the word out!