#  Better Data Amidst Disaster 

 





SEAS juniors design new collection tool for humanitarian aid



 

January 13, 2026

 

 

- [ News ](/news-categories/news)
 
 

 

When it comes to humanitarian aid, simple data collection and counting is essential. If medical supplies are needed after a natural disaster, it’d be helpful to know how many people are sick or injured. If schools need to be rebuilt, it’d be helpful to know how many children there are. If food and water is in short supply, an accurate population count is critical.

[KoboToolbox](http://kobo.ngo/) is a data collection and visualization platform developed by faculty now at the[ Harvard Humanitarian Initiative](https://hhi.harvard.edu/) (HHI): Phuong Pham, Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS); and Patrick Vinck, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at HSPH and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at HMS. Today, the platform is used by tens of thousands of social impact organizations worldwide. However, data collection typically relies on smartphones, which are far more complex than necessary for simple counting tasks, and are harder to share, clean, secure, and control in the field.

[**Read the full write-up here.**](https://seas.harvard.edu/news/better-data-amidst-disaster)



 

 

 



 

 

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