Crowdsourcing Solutions for Disaster Response: Examples and Lessons for the US Government☆

Abstract Crowdsourcing has become a quick and efficient way to solve a wide variety of problems - technical solutions, social and economic actions, fundraising and troubleshooting of numerous issues that affect both the private and the public sectors. US government is now actively using crowdsourcing to solve complex problems that previously had to be handled by a limited circle of professionals. This paper outlines several examples of how a Department of Defense project headquartered at the National Defense University is using crowdsourcing for solutions to disaster response problems.