CADUS: redefine global solidarity

Talk given by Sebastian Jünemann at Minidebconf Hamburg 18
https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2018/miniconf-hamburg/2018-05-19/cadus.webm

Thanks a lot for the invitation.

It's definitely not my time of the day so
excuse me if I'm a little bit…

Right, next to the track.

I'm always really happy to speak
in front of people

who are dealing with IT and stuff
because I'm so much not an IT person.

You saw that I wasn't even able to start
my presentation alone.

I'm from CADUS.

CADUS is a humanitarian NGO that was
founded 3 years ago in Berlin.

It was founded out of a kind of subculture
that is strongly related to the CCC, but

to the musical and festival subculture
as well.

What I want to talk about today is
our crisis response makerspace in Berlin.

Holger (Levsen) invited me after we saw
each other again at Datengarten in Berlin

and he asked if I can make the presentation
in english as well.

My english is shit, so please excuse me if
I have to search some words

from time to time.

Do you have an idea
what this is?

It's a huge truck, it's a medical sign
on it, so this is a kind of mobile hospital.

Mobile hospital which you can use if
other hospitals are broken down

or if there are no hospitals.

Do you have an idea how much
such an hospital would cost you

to buy?

3 millions, 2 millions, 3 millions,
4 millions, hum…

This is a picture of a destroyed hospital
in Syria.

You all see a lot of pictures on the TV,
stuff like that.

Can you relate these 3 to 4 millions
mobile hospitals

to these destroyed hospitals?

Do you normally see in the media that
if a hospital is destroyed

then this fancy stuff is deployed
to there?

Do you have an idea why?

It's "fucking expensive"?

Something more?

"Who's gonna pay for it?"

"Is help wanted?"

More?

It is a question of safety from time
to time.

But on top you have to imagine Syria,
war country, dust, heat,

no supply chain, nothing like that, so
bringing there

a 4 million mobile hospital might end in
two weeks of working and after that

nothing is working anymore because
you don't have the technicians

who can repair this kind of stuff
for example.

Next example, I'm sure you know

What it is is a pretty fancy fire truck.

You have them in Germany
in all the bigger villages and

all the cities, stuff like that.

If you take a look inside this firetruck,

you see plenty of fancy stuff.

I love this stuff, there is stuff to put
out fire, there's stuff to lift things

with hydrolics.

There is normal stuff like shovels and
stuff like that.

But if you relate this to pictures
in disaster areas,

this is from Haiti, then you see that
you have plenty of people

but no equipment at all.

All's pretty clear because normally,
after a disaster,

people from all over the world come
as fast as possible to the disaster area

the so-called "urban search and rescue
teams".

They're coming by plane, so
all the fancy stuff that we have

in our societies stays here,

and a few people, typically "white knights
of humanitarian aid"

go to the disaster areas to help
"the poor people".

You understand this was cynical.

And there's a third example.
Have you ever seen what this is?

This is a tourniquet.

A tourniquet is one meter of nylon strap
and a little bit of plastic.

A tourniquet is the best way to stop
severe bleeding immediately.

We know this since the second world war.

At least it's twenty years
it's totally clear and

it's validated, this is the best way to
stop severe bleeding.

Spoiler, you won't see this in the media
if you see like people in Syria getting hurt

like losing legs after explosions and
stuff like that.

Do you have an idea how expensive is
such a thing?

One meter of nylon, a little piece
of plastic?

Not so expensive, but it goes in
this direction:

55 dollars for one of these.

55 dollars for fucking one meter
of nylon strap.

And, I don't know, less than 10g
of plastic.

The last example, I don't know if you have
a pet.

I had a dog, if I would like to,
I could add a GPS to my dog

and this GPS would say when my dog
is sleeping, where my dog is,

where I can find my dog if it's gone,
stuff like that.

But again if you went Haiti directly after
the earthquake,

people searched for other people in
collapsed building

with their bare hands.

So, obviously, we have a lot of
technical solutions for everything.

I can look for my fucking dog in Hamburg
where it is via my app on my iPhone

but on the other hand, in a disaster area
it's not even possible to search for

people who are buried in collapsed buildings.

There are several reasons for that.

One reason: humanitarian work,
humanitarian aid is a market.

This is a little bit perverted but
it is a market.

It's always a question.

It's not like "Who wants to aid?" but
"Who pays for the help?".

"Who gets his share out of this help?"

And you can imagine we have, I don't know,
every two or three years a major earthquake

so the market, if you compare it to
another business market, is pretty small.

Who cares for the 1000, 2000, 3000 people
who die in the earthquake every 3 years?

The next thing: access to the market.

Is it possible to bring things to Syria?

Why should I develop, as a businessman
in capitalism,

why should I develop something if I can't
reach my market easily?

To make my share.

And the third thing: who are the players
on the market.

In humanitarian aid, most players are NGOs.

NGOs are not really interested in
developing new things because

if I have an NGO, a classical NGO, then
I like the things how they are.

If there is a disaster, I send my people,
I make some nice pictures for the media

and I get a little of donations.

I'm not interested in changing things.

If I would like building capacity and
local communities

so much that they don't need me anymore
after disasters,

then there's no need for my nice wide
NGO anymore.

So, these three things together make
the situation where you have

a lot of solutions in our communities
and in our societies

but you have no possibility to bring this
to disaster aid.

We started in 2014 in northern Syria
more or less by accident.

We were asked if we could come
with a political delegation and make

an overview of the medical infrastructure.

And ever since we were stuck
in this region

because we saw no NGOs working there,

because the states were not really willing
to pay money for that,

because the northern, north-east Syria
is ruled by some Kurdish militias

and these Kurdish militias are too lefty
to get money from states,

let's say it this way.

So we saw the situation there and
we still had an old 4-wheel driven truck

here in Germany and we said

"This would be great if we just built
out of this truck a mobile hospital."

We had no idea how to do this,

we were really a little bit naive
in these times.

We said just like

"It's a nice truck, there's a lot of space
in this truck, so let's build it."

"We have an idea, we have a fantasy.
We will go with this truck to northern Syria

then we will give it to a local NGO and
then they have a mobile hospital

to follow the front lines in their fight
against the so-called islamic state."

And one year and a half, two years later,
we really were in nothern Iraq,

not northern Syria so far, but in
northern Iraq with our mobile hospital.

And it was pretty hard to cross a border
to Syria so we had to stay in northern Iraq

So we asked to WHO, the World Health
Organisation,

"What can we do right now? We are here,
we have a mobile hospital.

Do you see any need for us?"

And they said

"Yeah, guys, if you'd like to, then
we would like to send you to Mossoul."

I don't know if you saw in the media,
last year,

the battle of Mossoul was one of the most
bloody and the most shitty battle

that we had in the past 20, 30 years,
I think.

It was a lot civilian casualties and
we said

"Ok, let's try. We built this mobile
hospital, let's see if it's working."

We were able to work, like, 1.5km
behind the frontline with the islamic state

and we were really wondering, we were
really surprised, because we saw that

nobody else was working there, because
they just didn't have the equipment for that

because it is easier to buy a mobile
hospital for 3-4 million dollars

nobody had that, and other things
were not available on the market

so we were the only ones working there

Over the few months that we worked
directly at the front line,

we treated several thousands people
with this.

This was actually the moment when
the crisis response makerspace was born.

So it was not planned that we build up
this makerspace, it was just like

we had two workshops in Berlin where
we fixed the truck

where we renovated the truck and
stuff like that.

After we went to Iraq, we just thought

"This was a pretty good idea and
it worked out pretty well."

We were sure there were more problems
that had to be solved in humanitarian crisis.

Actually, this first mobile hospital went
over the border to Syria one week ago

so it is on ??? should have gone too.

What we're doing at the moment.

We have some lessons learned from
this first mobile hospital and

we're developing a second mobile hospital

because the first one was based on
old trucks that we could get really cheap

in Germany, but our idea was always

we would like to create opensource
blueprints for local NGOs,

so that they can copy our solution
that we developed.

With these german trucks, it's not really
easy, we can't to an NGO in the Middle East

and say "Look, this is how we build it"

because they can't get the hand on
these german trucks

So now we use UC containers because
you can get them everywhere in the world,

they are unbelievably cheap, you can get
them for 2,500€ and

at the moment in Berlin we are building
something like this.

It's not to work inside the containers but
to have an inflatable tent structure

coming out of the container and then
you have your 20 treatment places and

we're working on different solutions that
are not existing at the moment

like this patient treatment places are
based on flight cases

and stuff like this

We try to bring together our experiences
from the musical subculture

from organizing festivals, from building
up structures pretty fast

and empty rooms and stuff like that
together with this humanitarian problems.

Another problem that I had at the beginning
was the firetruck,

when I said "no firetruck in disaster
areas" and we thought

"We can get our hands on these firetrucks"

This firetruck is basically just a truck
with a good solution about

how to store your equipment

so that you can use your equipment
when it's still on the truck

and you have your engine running and
you have electricity and stuff like that.

We were thinking "Ok, you don't need
this firetruck, you just need

a box system that you can bring with
normal appliances to disaster areas

and then put them on normal pick-ups,

pick-ups you find all over the world.

For this we would need a kind of
box system that you can connect and

three angles.

We took a look at the market, and again,

it's not necessary normally, to have
something like this.

Nobody developed this, meaning that you can
load these boxes with up to 200kg.

We developed a new kind of box. It won't
have the name CAbox in the future,

but we couldn't find another.

This box is a modular system.

We try to work together with universities,
this was together with the HTW in Berlin.

This is how things are done with us, we
have first an idea, like

"How can we cut a firetruck in pieces,
bring it to a disaster area and

put it together again?"

and out of this process are coming
more and more ideas.

We thought "Perhaps it's not only
connecting these boxes,

perhaps it's an idea to make it in
a modular way because then,

you can define, for every side of the box

a special use, like for example photovoltaic

and now we have a box developed
that you can put in a normal airplane,

bring to a disaster area, just turn around
these boxes, these sides of the boxes

and get electricity, for example inside
a water pump or something like that.

We then thought about "Ok, but how
can we get into the disaster areas

if there are lots of blocks"

We saw this in the Nepal
after the earthquake,

we saw this on Puerto Rico last year
after the typhoon,

that the help couldn't reach the island

We thought that it's not so difficult
to throw things out of airplanes.

So again, we took a look at the market
and said

"Wow, no civilian solutions to throw
huge payloads out of aircrafts."

The solutions on the market are
military solutions.

So the UN can use it, but normally
it's up to the national military

who can use it.

The only solution we could find was
a box system coming

from an english company

and with this box, you can throw, I think,
up to 70kg but only things that can't break

you can't throw out medical instruments
with this.

So, what we did, we called again,
we looked for

who could be the best person to talk
with us about something like that.

And we thought, it's not the military,
obviously, because

they're thinking bigger scales, they're
thinking endless money,

they're thinking endless logistics

So we got together with paragliders
from Switzerland.

We met with the refugee response
in the Mediterranean

and told them "We would like
to throw things out of airplanes.

What do you think about it?"

They said "Why not? We are jumping
out of airplanes all the time!"

So why should it be so difficult?

What came out is that every paraglider
which goes down a mountain

in Switzerland, frequently, daily, has
an emergency parachute

in his powerglide.

And this emergency parachute has to be
renewed every 3 years,

not because it's broken, but because we're
living in a rich society and insurances say

"If you don't do this, I won't insure you."

So, you have plenty, hundreds, thousands
of used parachutes that are totally ok

And you can hang, obviously, more than
100kg on them.

Then you have these tandem parachutes,

you can obviously hang more than 250kg
on them.

So, what we did, totally illegal,

we tried it out and threw some things
from really high bridges in Switzerland

with these parachutes.

And then we saw "yeah, it's
functioning."

Next thing was that we developed

[laughter]

a kind of absorption with carton

and the funny thing when we went
to Switzerland and said to the officials

"Yeah, you know, we're a bunch of
punk rock idiots working in

humanitarian aid but we have this idea,
we could throw things

out of normal parachuting machines,

because you can find them all over
the world,

because all over the world,
people do this sport.

And it's pretty cheap, and we could reach
valleys that are not reachable yet".

They said

"Do you know what the problem is?

Every country has to have this air drop
capacity."

This is like, I don't know, regularly
from the international air travel something

and they said "We, in Switzerland,
we solve this again with the military.

We have to pay like 24,000€ an hour
to do this because we do this

with helicopters.

You offer us a solution that, if it's
working out, is working with

2,000€ an hour."

So they said "If your system is working,
you will be immediately assigned

as an official humanitarian air drop
capacity in Switzerland."

We started 1.5 years ago and then

what's called ???

building in Berlin to renew old trucks
to bring to Northern Syria

and then we thought "Let's use this space,
let's look for solutions

for humanitarian problems."

And the idea was, in the beginning, just
to bring together nerds, geeks, people

out of the field, refugees who know best
what will help them in the crises,

specialists, universities, stuff like that.

What started like "Let's see
if it could happen."

comes out as, this year in July, we will
throw out some boxes with parachutes

out of airplanes and we'll perhaps have

the first worldwide airborne emergency
response unit.

So, yes, we saw there is a big need
for these things.

At the moment, we don't have a lot of
IT projects, we have some ideas and

we would like to grow our network,
because we have nerds from the CCC

sitting around there, but at the moment
they love to do something with ???

but this makerspace is a makerspace like
you know it.

You have an open space, everybody could
come in.

We have only the regular toys
and we say

"Everything that is developed should be
with a focus on humanitarian aid and

everything that we develop has to be
open source

so that people can use it worldwide."

If you would like to get in contact
with us,

www.cadus.org

We have all this fancy stuff like facebook,
twitter and that you can find

on the homepage.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[Applause]

Are there questions?

[Q] Hi, thank you for the talk. I'm not sure
if you know about an organization,

I think it's only french at the moment,
which is called HAND, which is

Hackers Against Natural Disasters

It's basically a non-profit which tries
to help local populations

in case of natural disasters, mostly
they were in… for the typhoon

in french islands in the Carribean

and they tried to set up some kind of
infrastructures, IT infrastructures.

There are ham radios and they tried to
set up internet and stuff like that so

people can actually use communications

and they tried to set up like 3G networks.

I think it's only french but they have
a great,

I don't know a lot about them, but I think
they have a quite hacker spirit.

It might be a helpful cooperation
with you.

[A] This is really perfect, thank you
very much.

There are actually a lot of groups
like this worldwide.

For example, we are now part of the GIG,
the Global Innovation Gathering which are

50 maker spaces all over the world.

There are small organizations that are
really interesting.

The problem is, it's hard to find
your space in this humanitarian world

because big organizations really
close down the access to this,

the access to big amounts of money,

so contacts are always welcome because
I think we can only reach something

if we form better and bigger networks.

[Q] In areas of crisis, and especially
in war, it's hard to understand

which interests are on which side or
are there any goods in this.

How to you avoid to become
a useful idiot?

[A] I think…

I don't avoid it and humanitarians are
a kind of useful idiots.

In the humanitarian sector, there are
two main pictures about

humanitarian aid.

It was Henri Dunant who founded
the red cross, who said like

"Yes, there is a war. Yes, obviously
these are assholes that shoot at each other

but in the end they're humans.

So once they're laying down on the floor,
they deserve to be treated like humans.

I know that if I treat him and
he's fit again,

perhaps he goes out again and
shoots again."

And there was the other person,
Florence Nightingale at the same time.

She said, like, "Humanitarian aid
should mean 'only these people

get humanitarian aid who bond themselves
to these humanitarian principles'.

So, a soldier that got shot down, I won't
treat him if I'm not sure

that he won't go out again."

In the meanwhile, I think the humanitarian
world stuck totally to the model of Dunant

and for us it's the same.

I treated people who fought for ISIS
in Mossoul definitely.

Because in my opinion, if I go there
and say

"I am the medic and the judge at the same
time", then it's really strange.

There have to be other people to judge
over this.

As a humanitarian aid worker, you are
little bit helpful idiot all the way.

The other discussion is definitely
a question about

if humanitarian aid brings anything or
if it's just like a machine

that tries to run itself again and again
and again…

Like this help industry.

This, we try to avoid with not playing
after the same rules.

We are not into, I don't know.

Every 2 or 3 years there is a new theme
that you have to surf.

For example, now it's capacity building
in war zones.

We think it's pretty easy, we don't have
to follow these rules of

the humanitarian sector, the humanitarian
market.

We stuck with the humanitarian ideals
and we always try to work together

with the locals.

And, yes, for sure, you always have locals
who try to have their share

out of these crises, but if you talk
to the locals, talk to different locals

several organizations together, you will
see who's really working on the ground

just to help the people and we try to
support these.

Like I said, we don't produce or develop
solutions that we can sell.

It's all open source, so I hope it helps
to avoid a little bit

to support the wrong people.

Any further questions?

[Q] Hi, awesome work. Have you considered
3D printing to maybe come up with

spare parts or let…

[A] Sorry, again?

[Q] Have you considered 3D printing?

[A] Yes, there are actually organizations
who are doing this.

There one really cool organization
called Field Ready.

They're developing a database with
a lot of things like

the small thing you need to stop the
connection between a mother

and a baby, I don't know what the name
is in english.

And they develop a database so that
people can print these medical devices

in disaster areas, that's pretty cool.

At some moments, we tried, a few months ago

to get our hands on 3D printers but then
it's so expensive at the moment and

we are just more experienced with metal
and steel and stuff like that.

But we looked into this and at the moment
we're always doing too much unfortunately.

I wanted to buy one and then our colleagues
from CCC said

"Don't do that, you're not clever enough",
so…

"You'll destroy it! Waste money!"

But actually, for the tourniquet for example

there is a solution as well for 3D printing.

I just read an article a few days ago.

I think 3D printing is a kind of…
really close connected

to the future of humanitarian aid,
definitely.

Any further questions?

[Q] It's less question, more comment.

Because you showed that we have these
cool sexy solutions for technology

for finding dogs and in less developed
countries we have problems, but

it's also, like, we have problems with
disasters in all the world.

Look at what happened in New Orleans,
look at what is still happening

in Puerto Rico, which is supposedly
first world country, but has still

problems with electricity.

It's not that there are good countries
and bad countries, but we have

problems with all those global solutions
to recover.

I think that's a good approach to get
local people to organize and

to try to solve because they know
what is needed most.

[A] Totally. I think it's a fucked up thing
about capitalism.

If I live in a nice decent city like
Hamburg and I have a dog,

I will easily spend 10€ a month for an app
to find my dog, but I don't relate

to the thing that I could be on a zone
rubbish as well,

so I won't pay for a disaster app or
something like that

because it's not part of my daily life.

So no company will be willing to develop
something like this,

it's just like the rules of the market.

Silly but it is what it is.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Thanks a lot Sebastian again.

[Applause]