Roadtrip! CrisisCamper Tour for National Preparedness Month

Roadtrip! Yes, its a B-I-G idea! Who is in?

Yes, CrisisCamp wants to hit the road to promote digital preparedness in communities across North America during National Preparedness Month in September. We are super excited about this idea but we really need everyone’s help to make it happen. We have created at “Tour” section on CrisisCommons Web page where we will be posting updates and inputs as we progress!

Here is what we are thinking about doing on the CrisisCamper Tour in 2011:

• We want to support and train local emergency managers, public health officials and community organizers to create CrisisCamps and technology learning opportunities in their town to help build relationships between local response organizations and the technology community.
• Open Data Scavenger Hunt – We will be actively promoting the identification of open data feeds which can support communities not only in crisis but everyday needs.
• Learn from the Crisis Experts. We want to visit local emergency operations centers to talk to first responders about what they need from the technology community and how we can be better organized to support their efforts, not just in a crisis but also to prepare communities.
• Learn from the Tech Community. We will be visiting local hacker and maker spaces to see how we can connect local innovation communities to local emergency management and public health communities.
• Raise $1M of Volunteer Time for Crisis Technology. We want people across North America to pledge 10 hours of volunteer time towards crisis technology projects! We aim to raise $1M of volunteer time in 30 days. Interested in committing 10 hours already, pledge today!

Like everything we do, we need your help! So here goes:

• Create a CrisisCamp for National Preparedness Month! Its super easy to create a CrisisCamp and we have mentors who are ready to help you every step of the way! Camps can be 10 people at a coffee shop, 30 people at a hacker space or 500 people at a local university – whatever style you want to do, we definitely want to encourage communities to create camps to promote an open forum for communities to dialogue and create really cool projects at the local level to help their community be better prepared for disasters. Sign up today!
• Join the Camper Street Team - We need everyone’s help to plan and participate in making this road trip a success. You can join us to help plan and to participate on the tour. Sign up today!
• Sponsor a Mile - Unfortunately, gas isn’t free unfortunately but everyone can pitch in to make this Camper move! Commit to sponsoring a mile of the tour! We promise to have your name on the Camper! Think the “NASCAR” approach of CrisisCamp (but anyone can create their own logo). The more you can pool, the more graphic space you get on the Camper! If you are interested in sponsoring any amount of miles on the tour, please sign up and let us know!
• Join Us! Want to join us for a few days (or even the whole month) of the tour? Let us know! We need folks who can help with everything, super great to have social media and tech ninjas with us.

We will be hosting a conference call on Saturday, June 25th at 3PM EST/Noon PST (Call in: (619) 276-6333 Pin: 411911 – Click here for numbers outside the US) with everyone who signs up to talk about the level of interest we have received and how we can all, collectively, make this happen!  Like anything we do, we can’t do it alone. We need everyone’s support to make the magic happen and after September we hope to bring the Camper around the world in 2012!

To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.  ~Charles Horton Cooley

Sign up today if you are interested! Hope to hear you on the call on June 25th.

@chadcat, @schuback and @poplifegirl