Latest news with #communitysolutions
Fast Company
a day ago
- General
- Fast Company
How Watch Duty became a go-to app during natural disasters
During January's unprecedented wildfires in Los Angeles, Watch Duty—a digital platform providing real-time fire data—became the go-to app for tracking the unfolding disaster and is credited with saving countless lives. Six months out from the fires, Watch Duty's founder and CEO, John Mills, shares how his small nonprofit responded in the heat of the crisis and became a trusted source—even for government agencies. As wildfire season rages on and Texas recovers from devastating floods, Watch Duty's story underscores both our growing vulnerability to natural disasters driven by climate change and the power of community-based solutions to keep us safe and connected when it matters most. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today's top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. As I understand it, Watch Duty is a nonprofit and it's an app that gathers information largely from volunteers, right? From regular people who are monitoring fires? It's like a community? Very much so. You can look at Reddit and Wikipedia in a similar way. The difference is, we do it live. We have about 200 volunteers, about 20 paid staff, about 10 of those are radio operators themselves. But the information really comes from fire service radio. So after going through a couple of disasters, you realize that there's not a Starlink in every truck. The communication systems aren't very good. The firefighters are in danger, and the only way to hear what's actually going on is through them collaborating with each other in real time, through the radio. And so we hear: 'Fire starting here, burning over this ridge.' 'Tankers and dozers are coming.' 'Holding the line to Highway 87.' 'Now the wind's picking up, the fire's spotting over the ridge.' 'It's burning over so-and-so, houses are being impacted.' You hear this live. There is no data source for this. There's not a place for this to happen without us. So that's how we do what we do. And this community of volunteers, are they fire workers? Or are some of them just watching and sharing what they're seeing? A lot of them were 30-, 40-year wildland firefighters, dispatchers, reporter types, sons and daughters of firefighters who grew up in the fire service with the radio chatting in the background. So it sounds like there was a community that was there that you tapped into. I understand you had to persuade them a little bit to see you as more than just a tech guy. That's the beauty of this. We just saw the human behavior and helped enable them to do it better. One of the fires I went through, which was one of the big ones in 2020, when the sky turned red up in Northern California, I was watching them on Facebook and Twitter already doing this. So they were kind of regionalized. There was someone in Red Bluff, someone in Redding, someone in SoCal, someone in Sonoma, Napa. They were independently doing this. They knew each other. They would talk and collaborate a little bit, but they wouldn't organize together. They weren't adversarial, they just didn't spend time really collaborating. The innovation was really [to] convince them all to work together—that I was not [just] a techie. That I lived here, like them, in the same danger that they did. The key was to convince them that I'm here to help. I'm part of this community. I'm not sitting in my laboratory in Silicon Valley trying to profiteer off of your disaster. And the information that they're sharing, the app puts it into a more usable form or a more accessible form? Yeah, it's a great question. We didn't change their behavior. They were always listening to radios and speaking the language of the fire service and putting it on Facebook and Twitter. What happens behind the scenes is actually a lot more data. There's a lot of signals coming in, and a lot of it is very tactical and minor, and we don't want that to go out on Watch Duty. And so they're collaborating in Slack. They're all talking and listening. It's very rare where there's one person running an incident. There are many people in real time content editing: '15 acres heading north-northwest. Was it 50 or 15?' 'Oh shoot, let's wait for the next transmission, air attack's about to be overhead.' 'We're going to get a size-up on the fire.' Then we deploy the information on Watch Duty. So in real time, they're collaborating. Someone has the con, or control, and that person's essentially incident commander. So of the folks who are on duty or running the event at that time, some of them may be volunteers and some of them may be your staff people? advertisement Yeah, it's a mixed bag. Like many nonprofits, there's paid staff and then there's volunteers. And a lot of our volunteers are now either changing careers or having a second career, because first, they contribute and they listen, and then they start to report, and then they become a staff reporter or a regional captain in the area and help run and collaborate certain parts of a state or a region. And then many of them actually become full-time employees. During the fires I saw that Watch Duty passed ChatGPT as the No. 1 downloaded app. The traffic must have really caught you by surprise, just like the fire did. Yeah, it did. Here's the sad part: We've been the No. 1 app in the App Store three times. This time was the worst, by far. Yeah, I mean, L.A.'s own emergency alert system, there was one, but it was buggy. It was sending false alerts. So it wasn't just L.A. residents that were using Watch Duty, right? It was government officials and firefighters and the helicopter pilots. Everybody seemed to be on it. Yes, the government also uses Watch Duty. We're on all the big screens and all the emergency operation centers. We've done something that others haven't been able to crack, and it's a usable format. So whether you're a little old lady or a 'hose dragger' or a 'brush bunny,' as firefighters refer to themselves as in the wildlands, they all use it and it's done something that we didn't see coming. We assumed that the government had all that information and they just weren't telling us, not out of malice, but they're busy, they're trying to fight the fire. It's very granular, the information we share, and then quickly we realize that we're getting emails from tanker pilots and dozer operators and others telling us that we give them more information than overhead gives them. And that's when we really realized this is a much bigger company than we ever thought possible. It's strange. Is Watch Duty's success, I don't know, an example of the government's failure or the failure of tax-funded technology? Or was there just no investment in this? Yeah, look, I mean, we work so closely with a lot of these government organizations and there's failure abound. It's everywhere. It's how we voted as individuals. It's the other software vendors who were selling lackluster products. It's the government having no other options. There are so many points of failure here. It just really compounded that day and it was very apparent how necessary we were. It's hard to just point blame at one person or one org. I know that's what everybody wants is they want to blame the boogeyman so we can go fix it. And it's not just climate change, it's bad forest management. It's like there's so many things that are all working against us here. It's making this problem extraordinarily bad.
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Henry Mauriss Calls for Local Accountability in California's Homelessness Crisis
ClearTV CEO Urges Community-Driven Solutions Amid $24 Billion Audit Findings Following a state audit revealing that California spent $24 billion over five years on homelessness programs without consistently tracking outcomes, Henry Mauriss, CEO of ClearTV Media and founder of Joshua's Collective, is advocating for a shift towards local, accountable solutions. 'The audit confirms what many have observed: significant funds have been allocated with minimal oversight,' Mauriss stated. 'It's imperative that we focus on transparent, community-based initiatives that deliver measurable results.' Audit Highlights Need for Change The California State Auditor's report found that despite substantial investments, the state lacked reliable data to assess the effectiveness of its homelessness programs. Only two out of five major programs were deemed likely cost-effective, while the rest could not be properly evaluated due to insufficient data. 'Without clear metrics, it's challenging to determine what's working and what's not,' Mauriss emphasized. 'We need to ensure that every dollar spent contributes to tangible improvements.' Community Engagement as a Solution Mauriss advocates for empowering local organizations that have a direct impact on their communities. Through Joshua's Collective, he supports programs that provide essential services such as triage, meals, clothing, job training, and mental health support. 'Local groups are often more agile and in tune with the specific needs of their communities,' Mauriss noted. 'By supporting these organizations, we can foster solutions that are both effective and sustainable.' Call to Action Mauriss encourages individuals to take proactive steps: Support Local Initiatives: Contribute to community organizations addressing homelessness. Volunteer: Offer time or skills to local shelters and support programs. Advocate for Transparency: Urge local and state officials to implement clear tracking of homelessness program outcomes. 'Addressing homelessness requires collective effort,' Mauriss concluded. 'By engaging at the community level and demanding accountability, we can drive meaningful change.' About Henry Mauriss Henry Mauriss is the CEO of ClearTV Media, a leading Digital-Out-of-Home (DOOH) broadcasting network operating in airports, hospitals, and transit centers across the U.S., U.K., and Europe. He is also the founder of Joshua's Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting community-based programs that address homelessness through direct services and measurable outcomes. Media Contact: info@ Media Contact Contact Person: Henry Mauriss Email: Send Email Country: United States Website:
CBS News
13-06-2025
- CBS News
Somali community members gather around Twin Cities to find ways to save youth from violence
In the span of two weeks, the Twin Cities saw gunfire at two high school graduation ceremonies and a north metro mall. Police say a common thread ties all three cases together: young people in the Somali community. Community members held meetings across the metro in response to a wave of violence that has left the Somali community shaken and ready for solutions. The main question on everyone's mind: How do we save the youth from this violence? Thursday evening, a 15-year-old was arrested in connection with the shooting last week outside the Northtown Mall in Blaine that left a 15-year-old boy dead. A 20-year-old man is charged with aiding an offender to avoid arrest. This disturbing pattern is forcing community conversations in mosques, schools and homes. "We don't want these things to continue – it has to stop," said Ibrahim Mohamed, Community Resource Center Executive Director. Dr. Salma Hussein believes change begins with mentorship in a time when violence is rising and resources are missing. "[We have to] teach young men that self-defense can look like and should look like asking for help, can and should look like sitting done for mediation," she said. This mobilization isn't new to the community. In 2023, it was fireworks that caused fear on the University of Minnesota campus. The presence of Somali leaders like Hassanen Mohamed made an impact. Hassanen runs Minnesota Somali Community Center, a nonprofit that provides mentorship and support to Somali youth. He answered the call when chaos erupted once before and is ready to step in and save lives now. "Some of the youth, we knew who their parents are, and we called them," Mohamed said. "What worked in Dinkytown can work in Burnsville or large gatherings." Mohamed believes the solution isn't more policing but rather safe spaces and community leaders engaging with young people. "Can you imagine if we had youth centers that they can come and hang out, learn about values and be connected to mentors," he said. "If you need help, please connect with faith leaders." Police have pointed to gang affiliations in the shooting outside the Burnsville High School graduation, but community members don't think the violence is organized. One community leader told WCCO these community conversations will continue across the metro. The current focus being keeping the peace during Fourth of July
