Reflecting on Myanmar and Sichuan

I picked up a copy of the International Herald Tribune while boarding my flight for Rome where I'm helping a client launch their new social computing platform this month. I had heard about the devastation in Myanmar that happened now over two weeks ago, but it wasn't until Wednesday morning of this week that what happened really hit me. A photo on the front page of the Tribune showed the bodies of four little girls and their mother, laid in a row on the ground, and the horror of the situation really sunk in.

I don't know why it took me so long to respond emotionally to the disaster. I had sent an email to my team the week the cyclone hit mentioning that we should put something up on our front page, but my heart wasn't fully there until I saw that photo.

Meanwhile, I had been reading about the earthquake in Sichuan, and about how many of the victims were children trapped under the rubble of collapsed school buildings. The death of a child is heart-wrenching in any scenario, but the impact on these parents is particularly severe because for most it's their only child, and many are past child bearing age. Perhaps more than in any other culture today, China places so much hope in her children.

Several of my friends and co-workers here at Liferay have been talking about the appropriate response, particularly given some of the complications in directing aid effectively to the affected areas. One of us was particularly insistent that we move quickly in spite of such obstacles, as a measure of our commitment to the victims in need of immediate aid. Others expressed a desire to respond thoughtfully, with an eye to long-term effectiveness, insisting that finances were not the bottleneck but rather process, manpower, and emergency response systems.

We decided that we wanted to do both—make an immediate donation for near-term relief, as well as set in motion something we've been talking about doing for the past couple of years.

For those of you who are familiar with Liferay's story, you know that we set out to build a company to financially support non-profit organizations through donations of a percentage of our profits. You may also know that while that commitment remains, we now realize we can also engage in technical work directly with people and organizations, using our skills and the software we create to empower non-profits and other organizations to be more effective. Finally, we've seen the power of open source software to break down national barriers and enable us to help individuals in developing countries build businesses to benefit their local economies.

Over the last six months, yet another dimension has been added to that vision. One of our recipients suggested to us that we not simply give money to them, because for them money was not the limiting factor. Instead, they encouraged us to use the finances to fund engineering efforts toward building a "Humanitarian Business Suite" that would enable humanitarian organizations to respond more quickly and effectively to world crises.

They went on to explain that setting up a long-term (five year or longer) relief operation is a lot like setting up a $10 milion business, and that these operations have a real need for easy-to-deploy, enterprise-grade software that will help them manage human resources, direct supply chain, and track financial records—in short, do everything a typical SMB does, but in an environment where time equals lives.

Finally, as we've thought more and more about how best to engage with the Liferay community that has been built over the last eight years, we realized there's an opportunity here to invite all of you into our response to these disasters. So here's what we've decided to do:

  • Every dollar donated by a Liferay community member to World Vision will be matched by a dollar from Liferay to World Vision, up to $10,000
  • That dollar will also be matched by a dollar set aside for the Liferay Foundation, which will be Liferay's non-profit organization through which we will coordinate the engineering work for the Humanitarian Business Suite.

We recognize that $10,000 is hardly a large sum of money, especially compared with the resources of the Gates Foundation and other funds. Still, we hope to work up to larger donations over time, and we do believe the act of giving itself is key. In fact, don't worry if your personal gift is not a large sum; we simply want to join with you in responding and see our community come together for a cause beyond software.

 

As I chewed on these thoughts over the last couple of days, I realized my initial response, sadly enough, is not surprising. There are so many things competing for our hearts and minds today that it's easy to numb yourself to other people's pain. That's why it's important to take a disciplined, long-term approach to one's engagement with the world. I believe the work we do through Liferay Foundation, as well as the disciplined giving we commit to as a company, will help us to stay alert and involved even when our emotions don't always match the occasion at hand.

I look forward to your thoughts, comments, and experiences.

You'll see the banner show up on the front page once our link to World Vision is ready to go. Thanks!

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Your honest words and the vision of Liferay always remind me why I feel so honored to be part of such a great community and organization.
Salute to Byran,

Now most of us is rushing to offer help to the victim of Sichuan emotionally, and less focusing on Myanmar cyclone, and lesser on Asian tsunami 2004 and 911 afterwards.

Your vision is better: setting up a long-term relief operation.

Love and help others are not temporal passion.
Thanks for writing this out Bryan. Like Ray said, it is a privilege to be able to be a part of an organization that is looking to more than just the bottom line.