How technology is transforming global humanitarian efforts

Humanitarian expert Dr Patrick Meier says emerging tech is reshaping our response to crises like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and poverty.

On Tuesday 10 December, Dr Meier will be arriving from the Philippines to the UK, where he will present a public lecture on next generation humanitarian technology at Imperial College London hosted by Qatar Foundation.

We interviewed him about his vision for the future of international humanitarian aid, which includes high tech solutions to global disasters using crowd sourcing, multitasking, big data, data science and open data.

What are the main challenges getting aid to people in regions such as the Philippines, where lives have been devastated by Typhoon Haiyan?

One of the biggest challenges has to do with the impact of the Typhoon on the communication infrastructure.

Collecting information is integral to carrying out rapid damage and needs assessments; and sharing information is critical to communicating with disaster-affected communities.

In the Philippines, Typhoon damage has limited the ability to share and collect information via radio, mobile phones, television and web with a large segment of the population.

How has this most affected the residents in the affected areas? 

The inability to communicate with each other in and near the most disaster-affected areas has made it particularly difficult for those affected to find missing loved ones. And people have had trouble finding information about available services such as access to shelter, medicines, food and water.

What has surprised you most about how the response compares with the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2003?

We've been able to get much more relevant information about the affected areas far more quickly than ever before. This is not so much a surprise given that all the trends are headed in this direction.

What was surprising was how many independent unmanned aerial vehicles are being deployed to the Philippines to collect aerial images. I'm worried this could result in some mid-air collisions if their flight paths are not being coordinated.

What would you most want to see changed in the next ten years?

I would like to see a greater focus on data privacy and protection, and increased focus on meeting the information needs of disaster-affected communities, rather than only catering to the needs of international humanitarian organizations.

I also hope to see more groups of tech-savvy locals becoming directly engaged in disaster response to speed up recovery efforts.

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Dr Patrick Philippe Meier (@PatrickMeier) is Director of Social Innovation at Qatar Computing Research Institute. He is an internationally recognised thought leader on the application of new technologies for humanitarian response.

Dr Meier will present the special lecture, entitled "The future of next generation humanitarian technology", on 10 December 2013 at 17.30 in the Clore Lecture Theatre, Huxley Building on Imperial's South Kensington Campus.

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