Listo

[1] Citizens for Prevention and Preparedness

Listo is a public platform with two major tools for disaster prevention and preparedness: (1) a mobile application for Filipino citizens to report disaster-prone areas, man-made hazards, and unstable infrastructure, which alerts local government units to act on the hazards, and (2) a data visualization website that provides public access to the hazard entries.

LISTO FRAMEWORK DOCUMENT: 

LISTO Framework

*Contains all answers to guide questions along with the link to the PowerPoint presentation.

[2] Our Solution

A more comprehensive description of our solution and use case scenario can be found here.

Current solutions focus more on responsiveness rather than resilience and preparedness. Our solution focuses on prevention and preparedness, the first two thematic areas of disaster risk reduction and management.

The concept of Listo is aligned with the direction of the 2020 NDRRMP, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan¹. One of the new directions prioritized is the focus on building self-reliant communities where community-based solutions and actions are done to address issues without the need for external assistance or aid. 

Here, the Listo platform provides the opportunity for communities to monitor and track the hazards within their area. Data sent to their respective local government units can then inspire community-based action. Through the app, communities are empowered to assess the safety of their surroundings as well as support efforts to map out areas or locations (such as evacuation sites and routes) that are integral to disaster response.

Moreover, the latest NDRRMP emphasizes the need for more data collection at a local level. Such data should be made available and transparent for all so as to encourage the creation of localized solutions by the community. Our proposal invests in local data collection and makes it readily available and transparent for designing solutions.

¹ https://ndrrmc.gov.ph/attachments/article/4147/NDRRMP-Pre-Publication-Copy-v2.pdf

[3] GNSS-Powered

Given the need for the hazards to be located easily, GNSS is needed once the user of the mobile application takes a picture of a given hazard. Here, GNSS provides the coordinates of the location which will then be sent to the platform’s database and displayed on the website. The website can then be used by the LGU concerned to easily reach the location of the hazard without worrying much about the accuracy of the location.

The use of GNSS for Listo is integral since its identified axes of superior performance also cover the needs of the solution.

• Ubiquity: the service needs to be available at all times in all areas of the country to ensure that most if not all manmade hazards can be reported through this system.

• Accuracy: accurate location is integral to addressing the hazard properly as the picture alone may not provide enough clues regarding its exact location.

• Security: threats to the security of the location information being sent out could result in inaccurate hazard information and thus unaddressed manmade hazards. Therefore, the security provided by GNSS ensures this won’t be a massive problem.

[4] How Galileo Changes the Game

Listo utilizes Galileo’s high accuracy positioning services to pinpoint the exact locations of hazards, thus reducing the radius and duration of area surveyal. This also allows the app to identify the locations of hazards covering smaller areas.

Since multiple smartphones are Galileo-enabled for free of charge, they can be leveraged by the public as well as professional workers to mass-collect information on hazards—without requiring any additional devices or software aside from the Listo app.

As Galileo offers higher resistance to obstacles brought about by multipath propagation, the coordinates of hazards in highly urbanized environments with abundant infrastructure may be measured. 

Furthermore, with Galileo’s alert systems, the app allows response teams to immediately act upon or mitigate major hazards such as critical infrastructures, which could lead to a significant number of casualties when left unaddressed. Galileo’s signal and data authentication services significantly limit the room for error during these crucial operations.

[5] Market Potential

As previously discussed, Listo fills in the gap in the government’s data regarding manmade hazards within communities while also filling in the need for respondents to easily report manmade hazards that may be life-threatening to them. Listo also serves NGOs through making reports data available for them to use in initiating solutions or demanding accountability from government units involved.

Evidently, Listo has a place in the market by filling in these gaps unfilled by existing solutions such as Hazard PH. Moreover, Listo provides different solutions for different groups’ concerns. More specifically, Listo seeks to address the needs of the following customer segments:

1 - Local Governments and Local-Level Non-Government Organizations

Local Government Units (LGUs) along with Local-Level Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) will need the data submitted by the app’s users to directly address the specific hazards reported. Seeing that these groups operate at a grassroots level, their main concern would be addressing the reported hazards as soon as possible. Moreover, these groups would only be concerned with data from their respective localities.

2 - National Government and National-Level Non-Government Organizations

National-Level Government Units and NGOs require data from across the entire country for their operations. As such, they aren’t necessarily concerned with addressing any individual report. Rather, aggregated data on the most commonly reported categories of hazards or any similar information would be more beneficial for them.

3 - General Public - Reporters

This segment of the general public is concerned with reporting hazards they encounter within their respective localities. These hazards could be directly life-threatening to them or their families or community.

4 - General Public - Data Users

This segment of the general public is more concerned with using the data collected through the app for the purpose of initiating solutions or merely identifying hazard reports for personal use.

This solution does not seek to generate revenue or profits as it could be deemed unethical should paywalls exist, barring users from reporting certain hazards or preventing groups from accessing data integral to disaster management. Instead, this solution will require funding from the government for it to be properly maintained, and such funding could be justified by the gaps that this solution fills in the data needed by government agencies and units. This could, after all, easily complement HazardPH and other similar solutions such as Project NOAH.

[6] How Listo Innovates

The product or service itself is the innovative part of Listo. As previously mentioned, it allows for the data collection on manmade hazards present within a particular community which then allows organizations and government units to address said hazards directly or through policy. Such a service does not yet exist in the Philippines, and, while similar services with natural hazards are present, this service allows for community engagement in disaster risk reduction. This puta it in line with the priorities of the 2020 NDRRMP in encouraging community-based solutions and localized data collection. 

Again, looking at the current market situation, there is still a lack of services that allow users to directly report manmade hazards to the government. HazardPH and Project NOAH both exist for natural hazards, but, even then, the public merely consumes the formatted data from these without room for participation. Moreover, while users can always post images of manmade hazards on existing social media applications, there is no guarantee that these images will directly reach the proper authorities unless said posts gain enough traction and virality. Lastly, as pointed out by the 2020 NDRRMP, data that could help support disaster risk reduction and management efforts are still lacking especially at the local level. The data collection aspect of this app allows for more local data to be collected and used by government units and agencies. Overall, as discussed several times, Listo fills gaps in collecting and reporting data on manmade hazards in local communities.

[7] Developing the Technical Back-End

The project specifically aims to achieve the following points:

1. To develop an Android application that measures the coordinates of the user and allows them to photograph and classify the hazards;

2. To develop the APIs (application programming interface) that: (1) direct user input from the app to the SQL database and stores images on a cloud server, and (2) allow the user to request data from the database via the website tracker;

3. To create a SQL database that mainly stores the following inputs from the user: (1) date of the report, (2) location of the report, (3) hazard category, and (4) description of the hazard; and

4. To deploy a website tracker that plots the report entries across an interactive map and provides filters of the entries by location, date, and hazard category.

The figure below shows an overview of the development stages to satisfy the project objectives. This document will provide a more comprehensive plan on developing the technical back-end of our team’s proposed solution.

[8] Product Mockup

App Listo Mobile App Prototype

The prototype of the mobile user interface was designed on Figma, a web-based vector graphics editor and prototyping tool. Currently, the prototype has a login/signup page for users, and it can ask the users for data about a specific hazard they want to report. There is a page to take a picture or select one from the user’s gallery, and then afterwards the user will be prompted to describe what type of hazard it was as well as the hazard’s urgency. After the user’s confirmation, there will be a prompt that the data was successfully uploaded, and it will show a prompt for the user to take another picture of a hazard or log out of the app.

Below is a simplified interaction model of how the app works.

Simplified Interaction Model

[9] The Team

The members of the Technicals Side are as follows:

1. France Tarrazona - back-end development

2. Nics De Vega - Full-stack development

3. Ciella Francisco - Web development

The members of the Business / Operations Side are as follows:

1. Clarence Monterozo - Organizational Operations and Research

2. Michael Lopez II - Research

The Business/Ops Side focused on the conceptualization of the solution itself along with related research into government policies and plans in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, and related solutions already existing in the market. The Technicals side then focused on the conceptualization and creation of the actual applications from identifying the use of Galileo and GNSS in the application to the creation of a proof of concept for the app.