Recent disasters all over the world have left many GIS folks wondering what they can do to support disaster response. GISCorps has been fantastic for longer-term disaster response and are a great place to volunteer, if you aren't signed up with them you can read more and sign up here.

Another option for disaster volunteering is the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). HOT works on disasters, community mapping for socio-economic development, and technical support for humanitarian aid. If you have experience mapping, you can provide support for disaster mapping through HOT. Right now HOT is activated for many disasters and the crowd-sourcing nature of HOT lets us volunteer a little bit of time each to help the tasks get completed. NorCal URISA is hosting a lunchtime webinar Thursday, September 21st from 11:30am to 12:30pm (pacific) to give a quick rundown on what you can do to sign up to volunteer for disaster mapping with HOT. If you're not able to register for the webinar or if you're unable to make it during that time slot we will be posting the recorded session on http://norcalurisa.org/

Please register for NorCal URISA presents Disaster Response Volunteering with HOT on Sep 21, 2017 11:30 AM PDT at: 

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/161406493322574338
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Please forward this email widely, we would like to get as many people up to speed on HOT Disaster Response Mapping as we can. Lastly, we would like to thank Fehr and Peers for their gracious donation of their meeting services for this webinar!

Thank you,
Your NorCal URISA Board