The Center for Humanitarian Technology is a 501(c)3 non-profit, global humanitarian agency that harnesses the power of volunteer engineering, technology, and operations experts, to develop, deploy and operate—at no cost—information and communication technology to support NGOs’ scalable humanitarian emergency relief efforts. CFHT services are delivered from the Cloud as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in support of humanitarian Missions that led and operated by end-users employed by our NGO partners.
Humanitarian relief agencies are often uncoordinated and less-than-efficient when dealing with emergencies at scale. We aim to change this. CFHT’s mission is to develop and operate generalized technology solutions—that address common problems faced by humanitarian NGOs—to improve the collaboration, efficiency, and effectiveness of our humanitarian NGO partners.
Humanitarian relief agencies OFTEN struggle to scale or to operate in complex environments
Many NGOs operate without coordinated support to optimize logistics for the movement of people, materials, and finance. Technology development is not usually an NGO core competency and volunteers often work in an ad hoc manner with informal and/or unscalable processes.
Modern processes and technology enablement that many NGOs lack often relate to:
- Awareness — ensuring those in need know about what they do and don’t do
- Intake — registering individuals or groups and getting/maintaining key attributes (e.g., needs)
- Case Management — maintaining visibility and contact over time with persons that can be handled by anyone
- Coordination — resources and efforts of other actors (supply chain, other agencies)
The result is often friction and wasted resources that could be making a greater impact on lives in crisis zones.
CFHT works by bringing leading technology and practices to NGOs
CFHT leverages technology to reduce friction and minimize wasted resources, increasing the impact of humanitarian relief organizations. Formalized processes—supported by an enablement technology platform—are needed to maximum the impact of volunteer and charitable resources. CFHT is powered by NGO, technology, and operations partners and volunteers:
