RapidFTR

RapidFTR (Rapid Family Tracing and Reunification) helps humanitarian workers quickly collect vital information from children who have been separated from their caregivers in disasters, and share it securely with people who can help them find their families.

The open source mobile app records key information about a child’s identity, including a photo and details of the separation. The data goes to a central database where family members can look for a missing child. Before RapidFTR, aid workers filled out paper forms, which took a lot of time.

RapidFTR was first piloted in a Congolese transit refugee camp in Uganda in 2012, then used during the South Sudan displacement crisis of 2013, and deployed in the Philippines after Typhoon Yolanda.

It came out of the Design for UNICEF class at ITP in fall 2009. I worked on it with Jorge Just, Karla Calderon, Rune Madsen and Dharmarajan Ayakkad. Our part was the idea and the first prototype; ThoughtWorks volunteers and the open source community built it from there.