As many of you are aware, the situation in Syria has dramatically escalated over the past few days. Amnesty International USA have thus requested the activation of the SBTF Satellite Team for deployment in Syria. This is second SBTF deployment in Syria and with AI-USA. Like the first deployment, this one will use the latest available satellite imagery of specific Syrian cities in order to identify and tag possible evidence of mass human rights violations (e.g., heavy military equipment, etc). DigitalGlobe has again kindly agreed to provide with this imagery pro bono and use theTomnod platform to tag the imagery. One of the distinct advantages of the Tomnod platform is that it is user friendly and has built-in quality control mechanisms which can control for tagging errors.


AI-USA will use tagged data to corroborate other reports of human rights violations that they have and are continuing to acquire via other channels. The more evidence they can gather and corroborate, the better. So SBTF are currently working with AI-USA, Digital Globe and Tomnod to customize the necessary technology and workflows. It's expect to know in the next few days what the official start/end dates for this deployment will be. So if you're interested in participating (training/guidance will be provided), please be sure to join SBTF on its dedicated Ning platform. All you need is a computer connected to the Internet.


The coordination efforts via Skype chat and Google Docs. The links to these will be provided in the coming days to those who join the group linked to above. If you have any questions, please pose them directly in the comments section of the Ning group rather than via email. Read more on SBTF here: http://blog.standbytaskforce.com/