Data Collection Environment for Cooperative Information Sharing

The future of conflict, crisis, and development will rely on high-resolution data at every stage of assessment, guidance, and evaluation of projects. Aggregate 30,000 foot statistics are no longer sufficient for sophisticated and efficient project planning and management. A new data collection interface is needed, with tools for determining information needs, stating questions, and administering data collection. Dynamic and evolving environments require similarly agile collection methods to for effective intervention. Recent operations have shown that effective two-way information sharing relationships with populations in developing nations can lead to highly effective outcomes. What is needed is are tools that make it possible for operators to begin an information collection campaign from any device (computer, tablet, smart phone, dumb phone), launch collections across multiple modalities, and back end single consistent data structure prepared to receive, normalize and visualize collected information.