Welcome to the International Crisis Information Network. This site is dedicated to the humanitarian relief, disaster preparedness and first responder. This is the first truly collaborative and interactive website created specifically for people who wish to share their personal experiences and information with the rest of the humanitarian community in a non-attributional manner.

The portals will direct you to areas of Regional Knowledge, TIPS and Collaboration, Education opportunities, Research sites and Discussion Groups. The Events Calendar is a one-stop shop to find conferences, workshops, training and personal development opportunities from numerous sources in the community.

We encourage everyone who visits the site to peruse and explore the numerous functions and features that have been established based on feedback from academics, field workers, managers and personnel who work in the humanitarian field. We welcome your comments and suggestions on how we can make the International Crisis Information Network work for you and the community.

Portals

Regional

The Regional Portal organizes the world into regions and sub-regions that are easily selected and accessed.  Once you have selected the region of the world that you are interested in, search for topics that interest you or begin a topic simply by logging in and beginning a thread.  The intent is to populate the network with topics that are of interest to the community as a whole and the individual as well.

TIPS and Collaboration

“TIPS”™, stand for Techniques, Insights and Problems Solved.  The intent is to share personal experiences, information that normally cannot be found in a book, report or other website, with the other users of the network.  Once a user offers his/her TIPS, it is then made available for the rest of the network. 

Education

The education portal contains Online certification courses that are available in the areas of Emergency Management, NATO CIMIC and various courses offered by the United Nations.  The education portal directs the user to the website or log-in page of the particular educational opportunity and essentially, “breaks the code” for these courses and enables the user to gain a better understanding of the world in which they work through education.

Research

The Research portal will direct the user to the top five research websites or tools suggested by the humanitarian community.  The research that is conducted directly on the ICIN website

Discussion Groups

At least monthly, ICIN will host mediated Online Discussion Groups.  These discussions will be hosted by subject matter experts (SME) in the field related to the topic at hand.  Suggested topics will be submitted by the core members.  The intent of the discussion groups is threefold; 1) to bring together users who are interested in or have experience with a particular topic, 2) to gain a heightened awareness of the topic discussed and 3) to build networks of users who will continue to communicate with each other based on those shared/common experiences.

Advocacy Postings

No other humanitarian assistance website has an area where those that are in need can request assistance or can post information directly about a situation.  In the Advocacy Posting section, users can view postings from specific regions and countries around the world to see what needs exist.  For example, a user who is preparing a humanitarian aid package can research the needs of the people in the area.  The organization that is preparing a relief package can alter the shipment according to the Advocacy Postings and distribute the appropriate equipment to the area.

Future Initiatives

This website is currently under extensive construction, review and updating.  We solicit your feedback on all areas of the website that you find beneficial, in need of improvement or ultimately completely out of place.  Please submit your ideas in the Feedback section of the website.