Google Crisis Team’s Response to Japan’s Earthquake

Natural disasters have been both immense and frequent over the last two years. From the the 2010 quake in Haiti to the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan, there’s been plenty of proof showing just how dangerous the world can sometimes be – and how critical the support of global community is. Google staff members have long tried to be a part of that global network, bringing their knowledge and resource access to bear on issues as they occur. With the increase in natural disasters and the demonstration of how valuable Google support can be, the company has set aside a specific, full-time group of employees known as the “Crisis Response Team.” Among other tasks handled since its 2010 inception, the group has helped 600,000 individuals in Japan get re-connected in the aftermath of the quake.

Since Google has full-time staff members devoted to crisis response, they were able to develop a sound framework that gave access to information and an opportunity to connect with people rapidly. The “person finder” utility that allowed 600,000 re-connections to be made in Japan was actually developed first for Haiti, where it was launched three days after the quake. In Japan, the person finder was live within just one hour.

The crisis response team also helped increase awareness by having actual footage of the earthquake’s impact featured on YouTube. The Tokyo office of Google was also able to contribute meaningfully by providing real-time information from an insider perspective. In a vital way, the group is fulfilling the company mission statement ”to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (emphasis added).

While the Crisis Response Team may not have officially formed until last year, Google employees have worked hard to contribute to disaster response in a meaningful way for much longer. Thanks to the flexibility of Google’s “20% time” employees have been able to build helpful projects in this category and demonstrate the potential benefit of having dedicated staff on such projects.

[via the Official Google Blog]