Technology for Tohoku: A lesson in disaster response

By Eden Estopace | Dec 21, 2011

Nine months after the devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that claimed more than 15,000 lives, Japan is still in the process of rebuilding its Tohoku region.

Recently, the Diet passed a bill that provides legislative backing for another supplementary budget amounting to over 12 trillion yen for the affected areas. Other financial incentives to stimulate the economy, including zero-corporate taxation for five years in the affected areas, have been announced. 

"Since the 11th of March, the sounds of recovery have been echoing throughout the Tohoku region of Japan. The Government of Japan has been exerting all efforts to restore and reconstruct the disaster-affected areas," said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in his address to the 66th session of the UN General Assembly last September.

"The infrastructure and economy of the coastal areas of Tohoku, which were washed away by the tsunami, are recovering. Damaged supply chains are close to full restoration. We have been sharply reminded of the role that Japanese companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises, play in sustaining the growth of the global economy," he added.

The Prime Minister also pledged to share with the world its accumulated knowledge and skills on disaster response and what it says it has learned in "coexisting harmoniously with nature." In fact, he said Japan will be holding international conferences in the coming months to further boost international cooperation in times of disasters.

At the Accelerating Asia-Pacific Conference 2011 held in Kuala Lumpur early this month, an executive from the private sector and two from non-governmental organizations in Japan have shared their experiences in responding to the crises, collaborating with other sectors, and imagining a new future for Tohoku.

ICT Caravan

In lieu of relief goods, one of the world's largest technology companies has given what it knew best  to share: technology.

Lena Ryuji, External and Community Affairs Manager, Microsoft Japan, recalled that in the first few days after the magnitude 9 earthquake people were frantically searching for information and government and NGO websites were simply going down because of very high traffic.

"Our technology group together with the support of the development community was helping make sure that people could get information in a timely manner," she said.

In a couple of days, she said Microsoft started working with Toyota on an application that showed (passable) roads leading to Tohoku.

"On March 18, we got a call from the Ministry of Education's Vice Minister's Office for help in putting information on the nuclear and radiation on the map system. By the next day we had a cloud application running with information across the country displayed in the website," Ryuji shared.

A few days before that, she said a decision was made at Microsoft that it would work with the industry in a project called ICT Caravan, which would bring PCs and Internet connectivity to the disaster areas. The objective of the industry collaboration was twofold: to empower NGOs, NPOs and supporters at disaster relief and volunteer centers, and encourage refugees at evacuation centers and temporary housing to stay connected with family and friends.

In the first couple of months after the project started, 3,000 PCs were brought to Tohoku and deployed to 69 out of 100 disaster volunteer centers through industry collaboration of 27 partners.