June 20, 2014 – World Refugee Day is dedicated to generating awareness of refugees around the world. On this day, observed on June 20th, 2014, Refugees United (REFUNITE), Ericsson and Lonestar Cell MTN Liberia announce the launch of a mobile application and a large-scale SMS campaign to reconnect of families caught in the humanitarian crisis that has plagued Liberia and the neighboring Ivory Coast. Recognizing that everyone has the right to know where their family is, the three organizations aim to use technology to reconnect families. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, Liberia is home to an estimated…

This idea is one in a series of ideas generated at the Global Hack for Good in Cairo powered by Ericsson and Refugees United. By: Solieman ElSaber.  Project: this project gives the system the ability to share information of lost people as tweets and posts. Users may ask the system to share their search on Twitter or run their search on Twitter itself. This project aims to run the search on Twitter, thereby finding available data about the current search from the system. This project also aims to create a wider search, not just in our system data, but also from many resources on the…

This idea is one in a series of ideas generated at the Global Hack for Good powered by Ericsson and Refugees United. By: Mohamed Abd elatief Abd elghany and Mohamed Ali El Ersh. “We developed a customized Interactive Voice Response solution that fits the needs of both literate and illiterate refugees. This application empowers refugees to add voice memos. In addition, they can search and listen to voice memos. This project is likely to engage more people due to the simplified & local culture oriented registration and search.” Project presentation: https://prezi.com/lchmwrgi2lcc/cairo-hackforgood/?kw=view-lchmwrgi2lcc&rc=ref-22882729 Project URL: https://github.com/mlatief/refuniteivr

This idea is one in a series of ideas generated at the Global Hack For Good in Cairo powered by Ericsson and Refugees United. By: Mohamed El Sokkary, Mohamed Ali Hassan, Rania sherif and Hala Moussa. “This project includes a simple and effective technique to automatically update the databases used in the project. It uses an anti-spamming algorithm, optimized for real-time checking of short messages. The full details can be found in the presentation. The solution is not complete. It is a demo written in Perl, with two sample databases: ‘words.txt’ (contains blocked words or message patterns), and ‘ww.txt’ (contains a sample…

Descending through the thin layer of clouds, the arid landscape of Dadaab appears below, pockmarked by the blue tents of the UNHCR hosting weary refugees. As we approach the short landing strip, the warm winds rising rattle the little propeller plane, dipping the wings on either side. Having left behind chilly Nairobi at 6 am, the warmth of Dadaab is a brief respite for my freezing toes, though soon, I, along with everyone else, wish for cooler weather – even during this winter “chill.” I disembark with a flurry of butterflies and head off to greet our partners, the wonderful…