From a BoingBoing post made earlier today a worthy cause came to my attention. There have been mountains of people in, and around, New Orleans who need to find out if they’re relatives are OK – or even tell their relatives that they are OK. This data exists in poor databases that need to be improved – and the quality of the data better structured. If there are any data fans in the audience, then this is for you:

Social Source Foundation, CivicSpace Labs and Salesforce.com Foundation are working with a wide community to solve a simple problem.

Refugee records are in databases spread across the web. What if everyone published their data in a standard format into a central database? A refugee could look in one place for records from across the web.

We have released a data standard and specs for populating a central database. We need community organizers to lead the effort of populating the central database.

Katrina PeopleFinder Project: Implementing data exchange from existing sites to central database

I highly recommend that you give this site a visit and see what you can do.