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Helpful hacker wins top French award

Gael Musquet scooped up France's prestigious medal of honour: the Ordre du Mérite this week for his contribution to society. Musquet, who describes himself as an ethical hacker, has used technology to help populations better prepare for natural disasters.

Gael Musquet, founder of Hacking Against Natural Disasters (HAND), was awarded France's prestigious medal of honour for his contribution to society
Gael Musquet, founder of Hacking Against Natural Disasters (HAND), was awarded France's prestigious medal of honour for his contribution to society Simon Decreuze for RFI
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Parched neighborhoods make perfect kindling for a wildfire, but an early warning system may prove effective in putting it out, before the flames come.

Prevention is what Musquet has tried to do.

"We always arrive after big disasters," he says of his reason for setting up his association Hactivists Against Natural Disasters (HAND).

Since its creation in 2011, the association has been proactive in devising temperature sensors to alert citizens about forest fires and also in providing firemen with street view maps of the stricken area to help them react.

"Prevention can help us to be ready, because Mother Nature can hit us very hard," he told RFI.

Map of disasters

Its fury has been unleashed in California, where fire crews are still working to contain the deadly inferno that leveled the town of Paradise, virtually wiping it off the map.

It is not just California that has been badly hit says Musquet, "there is volcano [eruption] in Mexico, earthquakes in the Caribbean, there are a lot of disasters," he comments.

It was an earthquake in his native Guadeloupe that inspired him to action.

"In 1989, I was victim of a hurricane, hurricane Hugo. My house was partly destroyed by this earthquake (...) For me it was the beginning of this story."

 

HAND began by helping populations in the Caribbean simulate earthquake drills notably through the platform Carib Wave, to prevent another tragedy like the one in Haiti in 2010, which Musquet says hit him hard.

A meteorologist by education, Musquet had a stint with the French Environment Ministry, before moving on to manage the French version of Open Street Map.

"This job was really important," he comments. "We helped the French government to have an address database."

The technology was then used by ambulances, who were able to respond in real time to accidents. "This data is critical for saving lives," says the 38-year-old.

France not ready

In France, HAND has been instrumental in building signposts in the Corsica region to allow emergency planes to access technical data about their position and speed in real time without having to go to their control tower.

However, there is still a long way to go.

"In France, we are not ready for a big disasters. We are not ready, for instance, for big tsunamis in the Mediterranean Sea," insists Musquet.

Part of the reason is due to a lack of early warning systems.

"Our job today is to help the government to deploy these emergency systems that can alert people that there will be a disaster," he said.

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