deal with the rise of Big (Crisis) Data--the massive overflow of user-generated content posted on social media during disasters. To be sure, humanitarian organizations have no expertise in advanced computing. At the same time, the overflow of information during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the absence of information. This talk will highlight how the computing community can make a significant difference in humanitarian response. To demonstrate this, the talk will explain how we are experimenting with human and machine computing to make sense of--and verify--Big Crisis Data. For example, we can automatically extract crisis information from Twitter by combining microtasking with machine learning. This would enable UN information management officers to create their own classifiers on the fly. In terms of verification, we can draw on techniques from time-critical crowdsourcing to rapidly collect and triangulate evidence during disasters. This would allow emergency managers to quickly debunk rumors in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. In conclusion, the talk will outline how we can actively bridge the gap between humanitarian and computing communities.

Is the dramatic increase in Internet use associated with a commensurate rise in democracy? Few previous studies have drawn on multiple perception-based measures of governance to assess the Internets effects on the process of democratization. This paper uses perception-based time series data on “Voice & Accountability,” “Political Stability,” and “Rule of Law” to provide insights into democratic tendency. The results of regression analysis suggest that the level of “Voice & Accountability” in a country increases with Internet use, while the level of “Political Stability” decreases with increasing Internet use. Additionally, Internet use was found to increase significantly for countries with increasing levels of “Voice & Accountability” In contrast, “Rule of Law” was not significantly affected by a countrys level of Internet use. Increasing cell phone use did not seem to affect either “Voice & Accountability”, “Political Stability” or “Rule of Law.” In turn, cell phone use was not affected by any of these three measures of democratic tendency. When limiting our analysis to autocratic regimes, we noted a significant negative effect of Internet and cell phone use on “Political Stability” and found that the “Rule of Law” and “Political Stability” metrics drove ICT adoption.