Questions for Husika team

(Q&A session preferred, but we should also send them upfront)

General and application

• How many users the current system has in total and how many per user category? Demo showed total 88 users but I assume there are more.

  • Users from GWP (Global Water Partnership)

  • 6 country admins, 5 regional admins and 77 general users

  • Current project: Mass role out phase hasn’t started, yet.

• What is the current roadmap of the project with GWP?

  • Waiting for GWP to give a “Go”

    • engaging Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, Sudan

    • localization was asked for and provided

    • SMS “feature” implementation also needed/asked (sender-id already existing)

    • member states are trained how to integrate/use their DB

    • currently discussion how to roll it out in the next stage

  • Training and documentation on users has been done

  • No expected end user count yet. Role out can be done via cluster 1,2,3 in the region (see below)

  • iOS platform planned

• Are users pre-registered or do they need to register themselves?

  • In engagement with country admins: Software will only be used in specific countries where specific users from specific regions will be registered. Focus on pastoralists and farmers

  • Future requirement: More accessible user registration - target of about 300k users

• What are primary user segments?

• What are the primary user flows / scenarios for level 4 users?

  • primary user segments in lvl4: farmers + pastoralists

  • add. hazards: conflicts, nat. resource management

  • pilot: national drought agency, observation/moderation/montoring locally, use case can differ between users, some cases flooding warnings for example, open to diff. kind of disasters

• What are the primary user flows / scenarios for the admin levels?

  • government agencies, working around disaster prepareness, metor. departments, ICPAC communicates towards these and they are transferring and communicating to level 4

• What kind of transition is there from application to sms?

  • targeted to low literacy target users, simple local language with very precise information, links can be included

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• What is Sikizi?

• History of the product? When it was developed, how many people were working it etc?

• Are there any automated messages come directly from ICPAC products?

• How is Husika situated in the landscape of ICPAC products? What are connections to other products, API's etc.?

  • drought watch east africa → whenever there’s new info, it’s automatically shared on mobile and web application

  • Mapviewer - East Africa Drought Observatory

  • directly connect to platform/db

  • other services manually triggered

• Are all notifications currently composed and sent manually? Are automated and/or triggered notification possible or anticipated?

• SMS service

  • SMS Gateway: Africa is talking OR directly thorugh SMS providers

Research and Analytics

• Do you have more knowledge on the current users? I.e. is user analytics in place?

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• What are best practice solutions you took as a primary reference while working on the application so far and what should we consider as best practice reference?

• Can you walk us through the research process that led to your current problem statement? What methodologies did you use to identify the key issues? is there any documentation regarding this?

• If you identified the possible user groups (especially end users-level 4/Target Group), who are the possible user groups, and how their needs might change? For example farmers, residents,

  • Have you conducted any studies on how different stakeholder groups prefer to receive and interact with climate and disaster-related information?

• Can you describe any pilot studies or beta testing you've conducted with Husika? What were the key learnings from these experiences?

• How do you plan to measure the effectiveness of the warnings and information disseminated through Husika?

• (Validating an assumption would be great) Assumption: ICPAC products provides the technical backbone and data, while Husika focuses on the spreading this information to local populations through mobile platforms, enhancing the overall effectiveness of early warning systems in the region - true?

  • But also does Husika create a new layer of information/data with a feedback system?

• (if not shared) Can you give more detail about the proposed Feedback system and its purpose?

Tech and stack

• Can users only register manually via mail/pw?

  • often manual onboarding via forms/direct contact

  • mail targeted towards admin level usually

  • level 3 can take registration if capacity is there

• Is an integration to third party services (i.e. via oAuth) planned or thought of and would this be relevant for the target users?

  • considerable

• How does the hosting infrastructure look like currently?

• Where can primary performance bottlenecks be found?

• source code

• security requirements to consider?

• biggest obstacles: iOS app (not available), specific SMS integrations

Follow Up

• @husika : provide pot. target audience for level 4 (short term and vision/long term)

• @husika: please share list of major languages and 2-3 examples of local languages

• measure impact / user analytics → take away for future session

• @husika best practice applications and early warning systems

• @husika looks at potentials to broaden and simplify SMS registration to reduce potential bottlenecks for registration from level 4 users

• @gofore/govstack will share the template for documentation of As-Is architecture and checklist for other infrastrucutural questions such as hosting etc.

  • @Nico Lueck sent out invitation for first workshop

Annex 1: Cluster 1,2 and 3 role out

Open