Our friends at the UN Foundation (disclaimer) pass along a story that appeared in the World Food Progamme newsletter Wavelength about an Australian Vodafone employee who volunteered with the UN to provide ICT consulting on projects in three African countries.
In the hallways of the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the US Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) annual gathering took place last week, cool apps, shiny gadgets, the 4G network and machine-to-machine (M2M) opportunities were dominating discussions. But a closer listen revealed a growing conversation about how the wireless industry is using its networks and devices to transform healthcare.
Sector-wide the most under resourced aspect of communicating in emergencies is the communications with those affected by the emergency. All too often the onus is on getting communications materials out to the Head Office or to the international media -- overlooking those at the heart of the emergency.
Information is a right, and it is a deliverable. It bestows power -- power to take control of a situation that is by definition out of your control.
Q&A with Diane Coyle, co-author of the UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation report New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflicts.
What key advantages does use of social media and new technologies bring in disasters?
I had the distinct pleasure of co-authoring this major new United Nations Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Report with my distinguished colleague Diane Coyle. The report looks at innovation in the use of technology along the time line of crisis response, from emergency preparedness and alerts to recovery and rebuilding.
Having multiple resilient and trustworthy communication networks is a key requirement to be able to assess and react to a crisis, and technological developments offer new exciting opportunities to improve situational awareness, and document crisis information that would otherwise fall behind the horizon of the press and other conventional channels.
During an emergency, established communication channels may fail. One of the most effective channels to rapidly gather information is to tap into the only resource that is always present: the general public.