Country: Spain
Category: Social
Name: HumanSurge
Project Aim: HumanSurge aims to be the global emergency roster of reference for humanitarian responders.
Website: http://www.humansurge.org/en
Awards: StartUp Europe Accelerator. Zinc Shower. May 2016.
3 week Silicon Valley Program for EU Startups 2016, by “Mind the Bridge” as part of connect EU with the Silicon Valley (for late stage startups) and participation in European Innovation Day with funds from EC.
What is your project about?
The project consists on an open platform solution for enhanced surge capacity to the ultimate benefit of disaster-affected communities improving quality and timeliness of disaster-response.
Why does this project appear? What are the main challenges that humanitarian and civil protection organizations have to face with?
In an emergency, whether man-made crisis or natural disaster, sometimes existing mechanisms are in closed circuits, by sector, organization, or for internal use only, and proven insufficient. For example, in a sector defined by urgency, regular recruitment processes are too time consuming, causing a situation in which incomplete teams are deployed, or profiles do not adequately match requirements. In addition, there is no global pool of humanitarian responders, open and shared across the sector, and none of the existing tools depart from the perspective of the responder.
How does this platform work in order to solve these challenges?
HumanSurge connects available humanitarian and civil protection professionals with organizations responding to disasters globally, in real-time, enhancing the on-demand mobilization of qualified human resource to the ultimate benefit of disaster-affected populations. Effectively creating a global pool of remunerated humanitarian responders.
HumanSurge provides a platform on which the humanitarian professionals can not only list their expertise and availability, but also conditions such as period of deployment, no-go countries, contractual requirements and other preferences. Building a community of individual responders.
What is the current state of play?
The open platform was launched in March 2016 and since then HumanSurge has seen a rapid growth path and is gearing up to-scale.
In the first 5 months HumanSurge registered 1,900+ humanitarian professionals, while 14 major International NGOs subscribed, providing its recruiters access: Save the Children, Acción Contra el Hambre, Medicos sin Fronteras.
HumanSurge started a process of enhanced profile validation through automated cross-verification of data with reputable organizations. The first agreements are being finalized and will see verification with professional member associations and alumni verification with universities and educational institutes, enabling recruiters to identify high potential candidates faster.
HumanSurge joined also the Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation and the Humanitarian-to-Humanitarian network of service providers, embedding into the humanitarian eco-system.
What does Startup Europe Awards Spain mean to you?
In recent years the European Union and its Member States have consistently been the world`s leading aid donor, providing over half of total reported Official Development Assistance. This includes more than one billion euro per year from the European Commission`s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department.
The majority of HumanSurge early-adopters have been European aid workers and European-based international NGOs. HumanSurge seeks also collaboration with European educational institutes who provide quality humanitarian studies and initiatives such as the EUHAP project, and offers solutions to growing challenges within the European borders, as well as beyond.
Loek Peeters, CEO and cofounder HumanSurge: – ‘The HumanSurge Team is honored to receive such an important recognition of our work. This is an encouragement and motivation for us to continue working on our social impact innovation, enhancing global surge capacity in emergencies, to the ultimate benefit of disaster-affected populations. We look forward to participate in the European finals, and are confident that our platform will be even better at generating social impact globally.’