My colleague Dr. Paula Lytle and I will be hosting one of the sessions at next June’s Tech4Dev conference, focusing on the policy side of integrating technology into disaster response and preparedness.  The Federal Polytechnic Institute in Lausanne is hosting the event; they do a great job and the city of Lausanne is lovely.  If you’ve got an idea you want to turn into a paper, you still have a few more days to submit an abstract!  Here are the details of our session, as well as the other sessions:

Theme 2, Session 2-2: Politics, Society, and Technology Integration: How Does Policy Making Affect Governmental and Local use of ICTs for Disaster Risk Reduction?

Session Leader: Dr. Paula Lytle, The World Bank / Co-Session Leader: Mr. Charles Martin-Shields, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Independent Samoa

“Rapid increases in technology development and access have made mobile phones and computing increasingly ubiquitous in the developing world. This session aims to answer three related questions about DRR: 1) Which technologies are allowing governments to be more transparent and connected to local populations? 2) What technologies are helping local actors share information with their governments and among each other? 3) What policies are being put into place to encourage local-to-national information sharing for DRR? Papers that integrate more than one of these topics are encouraged, and can feature case studies, statistical and policy analysis, and mixed method approaches. Authors should explain the technology or policy process, frame it in a social or development theory, and explain the observed or intended outcome of the technology or policy.”

Of course if you’re into the technical side, are an engineer, or specialize in public health, there are sessions for you too!  You can get more details on the call for abstracts here.

Hope to see some familiar faces in Lausanne next June!