Haiti Needs IT Skills

Sleeping bag; towels; malaria pills; energy bars… I’ve never had a packing list like this for a business trip before, but this isn’t going to be like any other business trip.

Eleven days from now, I’ll be in Port au Prince, Haiti with members of NetHope, scoping out an ambitious project to create and train a community of IT Professionals.

(If you’re not familiar with NetHope, you’re at least familiar with its members: NetHope an association of 29 of the world's leading international humanitarian organizations (twenty of whom are on the ground in Haiti providing relief services) working together to solve common technology problems. If you’ve heard of American Red Cross, CARE, WorldVision, and Save the Children, then you’ve heard of NetHope.)

Haiti’s IT infrastructure was almost completely demolished by the earthquake earlier this year, and the rebuild effort poses both short-term and long-term challenges. In the short-term, NetHope is focusing on on restoring internet and telephone connectivity so that the aid workers can coordinate their services and supplies. In the long-term, once NetHope’s engineers leave the country, Haiti’s going to need a community of IT Pros who can take over their restored infrastructure.

During my trip, I’ll be focused on the long view—working with member agencies to identify the needed IT skills and a plan to deliver those skills over the next year or so. I’ll be sharing what I learn with you—and in fact, there’s a good chance I’ll be asking you for help as well, especially if you’re an MCT.

(If you’re an instructor who speaks Haitian Creole—whether or not you’re an MCT—please contact me right away: we could use your immediate help)

In the meantime, please consider giving to NetHope. I’m sure many of you already have given to Haiti relief organizations, and when you did, you probably considered what percentage of an organization’s donations go directly to the field instead of falling into the often-maligned “administrative overhead” category.

The problem is that IT expenditures typically are classified as “administrative overhead,” which means that very little of donated funds can be allocated for IT investments. That’s unfortunate and a bit ironic—as anyone in our Born to Learn community realizes, IT done right is a force multiplier: investing a dollar in IT can make a dollar spent elsewhere go a lot farther. When you donate to NetHope, 92% of your donation goes to their programs.

I’m not sure what my internet access will be like in Haiti, but I’ll post reports here whenever I can. In the meantime, if you’d like to be made aware of volunteer opportunities if and when they should arise, let us know—you can either post a comment to this article or contact me privately.