HumanSurge

HumanSurge is the global virtual meeting place for professional aid workers

Consulting • Government • Jobs & Recruiting

Overview

Founders

Juan Jose Nieto Castellano CTO A dedicated and socially engaged programmer with more than 10 years of experience

Loek Peeters CEO A humanitarian driven to create more efficiency and cost-effectiveness in a sector faced with growing needs

3 more related

Vision
There are solutions to the world´s challenges when people respond together

Mission
HumanSurge seeks to improve the quality and timeliness of humanitarian response through enhanced global surge capacity and knowledge exchange between (local) humanitarian responders, to the ultimate benefit of disaster-affected populations. HumanSurge is driven by social impact.

Experience
HumanSurge already build an innovative technological solution: An online roster of verified experts, which is user-based so that humanitarian professionals can update their skills, experiences and availability at all times, and shared so that all humanitarian organizations can jointly tap into a common expert pool.

HumanSurge has consistently built collaborations across the sector, such as profile verifications with RedR-UK, HumanitarianU, Bioforce, NOHA, and through membership of H2H (H2Hworks.org) and GAHI (thegahi.org).

HumanSurge was established as a social enterprise aiming to explore a business mod...

Vision
There are solutions to the world´s challenges when people respond together

Mission
HumanSurge seeks to improve the quality and timeliness of humanitarian response through enhanced global surge capacity and knowledge exchange between (local) humanitarian responders, to the ultimate benefit of disaster-affected populations. HumanSurge is driven by social impact.

Experience
HumanSurge already build an innovative technological solution: An online roster of verified experts, which is user-based so that humanitarian professionals can update their skills, experiences and availability at all times, and shared so that all humanitarian organizations can jointly tap into a common expert pool.

HumanSurge has consistently built collaborations across the sector, such as profile verifications with RedR-UK, HumanitarianU, Bioforce, NOHA, and through membership of H2H (H2Hworks.org) and GAHI (thegahi.org).

HumanSurge was established as a social enterprise aiming to explore a business model that adds value for its users, who pay a nominal fee for its services, making the solution self-sustainable. Growth has been progressive with users increasing from 3,000 in 2016 to 8,000 in 2017 and 15,000 in 2018, and income doubling from 2016 to 2017 to 2018. In addition, HumanSurge received investment from external impact investors and small grants.

Recognitions include:
- Winner Humanitarian Action Challenge
- Winner The Hague Innovators Challenge
- Selected Singularity University Global Grand Challenge; Disaster Resilience Track
- Winner 6 month start-up acceleration program Spain
- Winner 6 weeks acceleration program Silicon Valley
- Invited by UN OCHA to World Humanitarian Summit, Istanbul

Peer-to-peer verification
A peer-to-peer verification system was developed following a grant from ImpactCity (The Hague). The feature is increasing the quality of the database and will provide the basis for the current prototype which connects the users on the platform for remote tasking.

Remote Support
Together with Hayata Destek, HumanSurge is currently co-creating a new and complementary channel to accelerate the localisation of aid agenda. The concept is based on the ´sharing economy´ and will provide local aid workers with additional access to resources.

A prototype is ready for testing and initial offline pilot already provided a proof of concept. See our video and crowdfunding campaign: crowd.humansurge.org

More information

Advisors

Gisli Olafsson Humanitarian Technologist

Pablo Soler Bach Founding member, entrepreneur with extensive experience in start-ups.

Employees

Alberto Hermida Laravel developer with over 5 years of experience in web development

Recommendations

Thomas Baar HumanityX (Centre for Innovation, Leiden University) at Centre for Innovation - Leiden University

Human Surge addresses a key challenge in the humanitarian sector by promoting localisation while simultaneously aiming to provide respondents with necessary resources in order to provide critical aid. By offering remote support to local responders, it challenges the way the humanitarian sector currently operates and provides emergency support.

When working together the team has shown to be able to adapt when needed, while maintaining a clear focus on its objectives. During our collaboration, it has made great progress in developing its platform and has shown able to go all the way.

It is thrilling to work together with Human Surge and it is clear that while doing so you contribute to a great cause.

Michael Frischmuth Head Asia & Europe Desk at Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe

I know HumanSurge, and one of its founders now for quite a while. They have always been ahead of time, providing innovative solutions for the humanitarian agenda. They stand out as many of these solutions where not only put succesfully into practice, they also proved to be an added-value for humanitarian operations. And another important aspect: While having a strong acadecmic Background, and being state-of-the-art, the work of HumanSurge remains focused on practical aspects, and comparatively simple systems.

Stephanie van Drunen Littel Innovation Manager at Dutch Coalition for Humanitarian Innovation

HumanSurge has the potential to really change the humanitarian sector, opening the sector to more knowledge, expertise and skills by connecting a wider range of professionals to the sector. The Dutch Coalition for Humanitarian Innovation believes that this innovation using to connect the different actors will ultimately realise more impact en effectiveness in the sector.

vincent stehli COO at Action Against Hunger - ACF Spain

SInce Loek had the idea to support the humanitarian sector with an innovative approach, I could experience the extraordinary drive and dedication he gave to build up HumanSurge. He not only provides an answer to identified needs in the sector, but uses new technologies to connect both NGOs (local and international) and professionals. An excellent move for greater impact and better quality/timely delivery.