Liefbase · Disaster relief platform

Liefbase was a communication and information platform for disaster relief efforts. It was designed to allow non profit disaster relief organizations, the government, and the public to share and confirm important information during high intensity, fast moving disaster situations.

Liefbase started as a 4th year university Capstone project but quickly turned into a real business pursuit. The goal was to make sharing information easier during disaster relief efforts. When a disaster happens you often run into scenarios where resources and time are inappropriately spread across the disaster and in the end, wasted. Organizations don't communicate together effectively and people caught in the disaster are often given conflicting and incorrect information.

Our solution was a mapping platform where individuals and organizations would be able to add, share, and validate information in real time. Organization users could create and join disaster events and share where they were planning on sending resources, tools, supplies, and teams. Other organizations could see this information and plan accordingly so that resources are appropriately allocated across the disaster zone.

The public would have to be taught one rule regarding natural disasters. Open Liefbase and go to the nearest target zone setup by an organization. If safe to do so, mark any key hazards on the map in your area.

We ended up cold e-mailing dozens of non profit disaster organizations and met with teams within the Red Cross, ADRA, and many others. Some of the biggest immediate challenges we ran into were getting gov't and non profits to trust us and pay us and delivering a tool that could even be used during a disaster situation.

Many natural disasters knock out power, internet, and service so people on the ground would only have the most recently updated map on their phone with disaster information. This could lead to even more catastrophic damage if said information and instructions are outdated and result in people making poor decisions. The second huge issue was getting these organizations to trust a bunch of college kids to deliver a platform that would be stable and well supported during these disasters. And the third major challenge is getting the public to download an app like this ahead of the natural disasters.

In the end, as we were all just graduating, we decided to end the project.