Digital Humanitarians - How Big Data is changing the face of humanitarian response

Patrick Meier is an internationally recognized thought leader on humanitarian technology and innovation.
His new book, “Digital Humanitarians” has been endorsed by Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, UN, Red Cross, World Bank, USAID and others. Over the past 12 years, Patrick has worked in the Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Liberia, India, Timor-Leste, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Morocco, Western Sahara, Haiti, Vanuatu and Northern Ireland on a wide range of humanitarian projects with several international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank.

Previously: Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, United Nations, World Bank. Currently: QCRI. PhD from Fletcher School, Pre-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford and MA at Columbia. Born & raised in Africa.

The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. Mobile phones, orbiting satellites and humanitarian UAVs each generate vast volumes of data during major disasters. This flash flood of information is often referred to as Big Data, or Big Crisis Data. Making sense of this overflow of information is proving to be an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations, which is precisely why they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians.
Who exactly are these Digital Humanitarians? They’re you, me, all of us. Digital Humanitarians are volunteers and professionals from the world over and from all walks of life. What do they share in common? The desire to make a difference, and they do by rapidly mobilizing online in collaboration with international humanitarian organizations. In virtually real-time, they make sense of vast volumes of social media, SMS and imagery captured from satellites and UAVs to support relief efforts worldwide. How? They craft and leverage ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence.

This talk charts the sudden and spectacular rise of Digital Humanitarians by sharing their remarkable, real-life stories, highlighting how their humanity coupled with innovative solutions to Big Data is changing humanitarian response forever.