Evacuating people from an area threatened or struck by a natural or manmade disaster is extraordinarily hard. To address these challenges, MD5, in collaboration with the New York National Guard, Columbia University, and New York University, hosted Escape from New York 2019 at Galvanize in downtown New York, NY from February 22 – 24, 2019.

Over a weekend with my team I explored non-traditional, innovative methods to save lives during a natural or man-made disaster. In order to empower local trusted persons to improve community resilience we come with an idea for State of Samaria.

Vulnerable populations are at risk of being left behind in an emergency situation. Current voluntarist infrastructure (e.g. CERT/NERT) does not appropriately address the issues. State of Samaria builds a network of community leaders to enable efficient communication of the communities with the government and amongst themselves.

My team made a simple web app prototype to allow people to enlist as community leaders. It is public-facing, so individuals can look up who is the community leader for their neighborhood. We learned so much about the levels of emergency response that are already existing. Our research into community preparedness shocked us with how social cohesion was more important than dollars spent in an emergency.