FINAL REFUGEE DATA EXCHANGE SPEC

Refugees can go to 20 different websites to find information on their loved ones. We are publishing a spec to facilitate data interchange among sites and that would allow the creation of a central database of most refugee databases on the web. We are also connecting database owners with volunteer programmers that can help implementing the spec. Special thanks to Ka-Ping Yee. Peoplefinder is a community effort lead by the Social Source Foundation, CivicSpace Labs and Salesforce.com Foundation.

The "official" data exchange format for refugee data is defined here:
http://zesty.ca/katrina/

If you run a refugee database, please publish your data via RSS in this standard. If you need volunteer programmers to help with implementation IM me at dgeilhufe AT yahoo com.

If you can volunteer to contact refugee databases (Red Cross, Gluf Coast, etc.) and help them implement the standard, please go here:
http://www.omidyar.net/group/katrinarefugee/news/1/

If can be a lead community organizer of programmers actually implementing the standard for websites, or for efforts to scrape databases, please go here:
http://www.omidyar.net/group/katrinarefugee/news/2/

Please diseminate this information far and wide.