A six month humanitarian operation will fit into 22 iPods
By Katherine Ely, ETC Information Manager, South Sudan
In most computer systems, a byte is a unit of data that is eight binary digits (or bits) long. It's the unit used to represent a character such as a letter, number, or symbol. The word "Refugee", for example, contains seven bytes of information.
For larger things, such as pictures, bytes are strung together in varying amounts to create kilobytes (kBs) or megabytes (MB), depending on the complexity of the required unit. A low-resolution image might be 20 kBs (approximately 20,000 bytes) whereas your average web page is around 1.1 MB (or around 1.1 million bytes).
Ever wondered how much information it takes to run a humanitarian operation? Around 3,445 GB (or 3.5 trillion bytes), according to the ETC in South Sudan. That's enough to fill 22 of the biggest iPods available.
In the second half of 2012, the humanitarian community in South Sudan (utilizing ETC equipment) downloaded 2,796 GB worth of data and uploaded 649 GB. Aid agencies are currently responding to a refugee crisis, and the ability to access and disseminate vast amounts of information is vital, particularly in remote areas such as Maban and Yida where internet connectivity is non-existent. How do they do this? With the ETC response solution.
Jointly developed by emergency.lu, Ericsson Response and WFP, the ETC response solution allows the rapid deployment of voice and data telecommunications services anywhere in the world.
Over 1,500 humanitarian workers utilized the solution in South Sudan, enabling them to constantly monitor and assess a fast changing situation and successfully coordinate a real-time response. Food and shelter was provided to beneficiaries as soon as it was needed. Education, protection and hygiene requirements were communicated and processed immediately, improving security, health and quality of life for the refugees. Without the ETC response solution, the operation would not have been possible on such a scale.
So next time you're in the deep field, thousands of miles from the nearest internet café and surrounded by acres of foliage and farm animals, you might not be as far removed from civilization as you think. Millions of tiny bits of life-saving information could be whizzing through the air around you to be reassembled at a desk and converted into pixels on a screen somewhere - kind of like the cowboy kid in Willy Wonka.
Data connectivity will continue to play an ever-increasing role in humanitarian operations, especially in remote and inaccessible areas. The evidence is right there in ones and zeros.
For more information about the ETC response in South Sudan in 2012, visit: South Sudan - 2012 Year in Review