Photos: Tech reconnects earthquake victims

TSF is working alongside the humanitarian aid department of the European Commission, Echo, which provides funding to augment the Telecom's specialist backing from companies such as Cable & Wireless, AT&T, Inmarsat and Vodafone. "They [corporate backers] enable us to already have the funds to deploy in an emergency. Once we are in the field we can ask for more funds to stay in the field, which was the case for Peru. We deployed, and then [subsequently] sent a proposal to the European Commission which was accepted within 72 hours. If we had to wait for the go-forward from the European Commission we would have wasted a lot of time," says Walton.

Even though the organisation relies heavily on the satellite communications services offered by one of its sponsors, Inmarsat, TSF still pays for the cost of the calls. "They did offer us minutes, but we said 'How do we pay for the equipment to use the minutes and hire staff and transport?' We said instead, 'Why don't you give us a yearly grant that we will use for telecoms costs but also all the other costs of an emergency deployment?'," explains Walton.