STUD: WAID - Rapid preparedness and delegate sharing in humanitarian aid organisations

According to the UN, the number of people in need of emergency assistance has doubled in the last 5 years. In 2018, humanitarian aid organizations managed to help 98 million people in need, yet 37 million did not receive help. One of the main reasons why humanitarian aid organizations do not reach more people is the lack of good digital tools that can help streamline today's manual processes. In fact, humanitarian aid organizations are 5-10 years behind in industrial digitization. A bottleneck for effective operations is sufficient digital tools that follow the nature of the humanitarian operation and/or activity. WAID's vision is to streamline the humanitarian sector by delivering customized digital tools. Based on the needs of the industry, we have as a first step developed a digital management tool for planning, execution, and evaluation of humanitarian operations and activities. In particular, WAID differs from its competitors by providing a tool that specializes in the industry and collects data from the entire process that contributes to relevant statistics and transparency of organizations' activities. COVID-19 has clearly pointed out the importance of humanitarian organizations. Furthermore, we see that the industry and organizations are becoming more professional. Since 2012, they have had an income increase of over 150% and an increased focus on digitization. WAID has experienced the effect of this through increased interest from both the market and other relevant actors nationally and internationally. As part of the project, WAID carried out a test of WAID on the first operation abroad together with Team Rubicon Norway in November 2020, after several tests of the tool on local activities. This was very successful and ensured that Team Rubicon Norway saved hundreds of hours of work. In addition, it was an important operational test of the tool and contributed to an international network, where WAID landed its first international pilot in Donner Sang Compter Lebanon. As of today, there are about 1000 users on the WAID platform. These two ongoing pilots have helped WAID launch the tool on the market in 2021, where we now have three potential customers in the loop.

Vi har effektivisert organisasjonene vi har jobbet med. Prosjektet vårt har direkte spart inn hundrevis med timer administrativt arbeid, og har indirekte bidratt til at Team Rubicon Norge både dro til Libanon, og at de har blitt mer profesjonelle og strukturerte som organisasjon. Kirkens Nødhjelp har fått bedre oversikt over deres beredskapsgruppe. I tillegg er to organisasjoner i avklaring og onboarding av løsningen for øyeblikket, som forventer bedre oversikt over arbeidet de gjør og effekten det medfører, samtidig som de vil bruke mindre tid på oppfølging og manuelt arbeid.