AtmaGo
MLC Vanguard | Created by Atma Connect
AtmaGo is a social media platform where neighbors help neighbors prepare for disasters, improve access to basic needs, overcome chronic challenges, and build resilience. Users access the AtmaGo platform (web and Android app) to connect with their neighbors online, connect to local resources and events, improve access to basic needs like food, prepare for disasters, and overcome chronic challenges.
5,000,000 Lives Impacted
Atma Connect has reached over 5M people in Indonesia and Puerto Rico with our AtmaGo app and programs. An impact eval conducted by the Centre for Innovation Policy and Governance in 2018 found that AtmaGo can save lives and reduce losses in disaster.
AtmaGo is innovative because it empowers those most affected by crisis and disaster through an informal network. It extends the reach and power of humanitarian actors, increases the flow of critical information, and generates mutual support to reduce conflict. It leverages the power of pro-social, peer-to-peer communication, rather than taking a top-down approach. We take a self-reliance approach so that the most vulnerable people can drive change that improves their lives and their communities.
AtmaGo’s localized response incorporates vetted, trusted peer-to-peer communication and has been proven to have better outcomes for behavior change, and helping communities respond and recover more quickly. In the face of increasing disaster and crises, social cohesion and connection via AtmaGo provides a way for everyone to be next responders, and lead place-based solutions that reduce mortality, morbidity, and economic losses in the short and long-term.
The Innovation
The people who are most vulnerable to crisis and disaster, like those in low-income communities and women, are disproportionately affected by pandemics like COVID-19 or disasters like flooding caused by climate change. All too often, solutions come from the top down and do not incorporate felt needs and effective solutions on the ground. These systems are not deployed on trusted or regularly used platforms that reach the last mile, limiting effectiveness.
AtmaGo is a social media platform where neighbors help neighbors prepare for disasters, improve access to basic needs, overcome chronic challenges, and build resilience. Users access the AtmaGo platform (web and Android app) to connect with their neighbors online, connect to local resources and events, improve access to basic needs like food, prepare for disasters, and overcome chronic challenges. They also connect with their neighbors in person through attending Atma supported community building and resilience activities including workshops and events that address their self-expressed needs, for example, on social connectedness, digital literacy, neighborhood clean-ups, nutrition and food, and disaster preparedness, and use the AtmaGo app for ongoing peer to peer communication.
We build social cohesion, mutual support and improve access to trusted, vetted information for those affected by disaster and crisis. AtmaGo is our hyperlocal social network that sources, vets, and delivers actionable, info. On the app, people share/find info, like COVID-19 preparedness, they organize events, like digital literacy for refugees, they find work, and they receive alerts/make reports about hazards, like early warnings. The app is combined with Citizen Journalism, resilience events, and partnerships with local organizations, and local and national governments to ensure that users build trust and see real improvements.
About Atma Connect
Atma Connect is building ground-up disaster and crisis resilience in vulnerable communities. We envision a world where people use technology to amplify their voices, help one another, share solutions, and take action. Our overarching goal is to reach a billion users living in low-income, crisis and disaster vulnerable communities worldwide so neighbors can help neighbors mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and bounce back from disasters and from pandemics like COVID-19.
