In April 2015, I headed to Dubai to attend the UN’s Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications (WGET) conference. I had the pleasure of linking up with a UK consortium of non-profits and industry partners who work in emergency telecom called the CDAC Network (“Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities”). The CDAC Network’s mission is near and dear to my heart:
The CDAC Network is a cross-sector collaboration, bringing together a diverse group of organisations, including humanitarian and media development organisations and technology providers. The key principles of collaboration and partnership underpin the way Network Members work together to respond to the challenges facing humanitarian action, as emergencies increase in magnitude and complexity.
As you can see, lots of reasons to like these folks.
Then in June of this year, I was fortunate enough to connect with the CDAC Network again during their 3-day forum in Geneva Switzerland. I participated on a technology panel called “Everything You Wanted to Know About Technology But Were Too Afraid to Ask”. Moderated by Greg Barrow of the UK Office of the World Food Programme, Philip Ogola (Digital Humanitarian), Yazeed Shaqem (Souktel), and I offered our perspectives on how to open dialogues with communities in three ways: improving disaster relief, helping communities recover, and gaining resiliency for future problems. Here’s the video of our panel, saving you the airfare and hotel fees for Geneva (though no fondue for you, alas). Enjoy!